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September 5, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Interconnected” based on James 1:17-27

Welcome to the book of James. It is one of my favorites, despite the fact that it takes away one of my best preaching tools. That is, I usually spend a lot of time explaining context and making sense of a scripture in the time and place it was written. But James is almost a form of wisdom literature. It is universal. So, we’re able to spend our time on the ideas in the book directly.

James is written to the followers of Jesus in the diaspora – that is, those who lived outside of the Holy Land. The ones who had been DISPERSED from the land of their ancestors in faith. This feels relevant right now too. I don’t know any church members at FUMC Schenectady who would claim modern Palestine or Israel as their native land, but I think that all of us are displaced from the “land” we once knew, and have not yet settled into the “land” we’ll live in eventually. The Pandemic has displaced us all (although not all the same amount.)

In this opening chapter of the book of James, we are urged to LIVE our faith. James wants faith in ACTION. He urges people not to just listen to preachers 😉 but to LIVE their faith, and he gets rather specific about it. James believes that people who are followers of Jesus should be acting out different values than the world’s.

The crux of the advice from today’s passage is “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” For James, this is integral in what it means to be “religious” – right up there with caring about God’s beloveds who the world doesn’t value (“widows and orphans.”)

As far as I can figure it out, the work of Christians is to build the kindom of God. The kindom, sometimes called the beloved community, is God’s vision for the world. We will know it is here when the power of love overcomes the love of power; when the abundant resources of the world are used for the good of all people; when kin-ship connections cross all boundaries; when the poorest and most vulnerable people have enough to survive and thrive; when no one has to teach anyone about God because God is known by all. The kindom is God’s long term plan for us, and our work to get there happens in two broad ways: first, by creating Christian communities where we practice kin-dom values and treat each other like we’re already there and second by working with God to share love, to seek mercy, and advocate for justice so that the world is healed.

One of the parts of kindom building that can be hard sometimes is that it requires seeing clearly what the world is like now. We have to do this so we can hold it in tension with how God would have the world be in the kindom, but often the aching pain of the world as it is can be hard to let ourselves see clearly. For instance, we can’t work towards a world without rape and violence unless we admit that we live in a world with rape and violence, and that there are barriers to changing it. So, we seek to see clearly. We seek to see how things are AND how God wants them to be.

Now, I don’t want to shock you or anything, but the United States is a highly individualistic society. (The kindom is not.) We in the US have proven to the world how terribly individualism works – time and time again. Including in our responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

You might think that if you were looking at this pandemic with clear eyes that you would see that none of us can be well unless all of us are well- that we are collectively only as healthy as the least healthy among us – that every act of protection and prevention has enormous ripple effects. However, if we had learned this lesson, we’d be spending as much as possible to make it feasible to vaccinate every willing person in the world as soon as possible. We’d even do this before triple vaccinating our own population, because slowing down the spread of the virus is the most important way to keep everyone safe, healthy, and alive. The well being of all and the well being of the USA actually align! Yet, we miss the mark.

The book of James has an interesting perspective on the relationship that Christians have to the world. In the face of the injustices of the Roman Empire, the wealth inequality, the slavery, the power imbalances, the death rates of the poor, James urges the faithful … not to get angry.

I find that my first instinct is to argue with this a little bit. “Are you sure?” “What about when…?” Yet, even as I argue, I am convicted by this passage.

Society is rife with anger. Anger is pulling us apart at the seams. Some of the anger, I’d argue, is “righteous.” It is a response to injustice that needs to be seen, acknowledged, named, and addressed. We’ll talk about that in a moment.

Most of the anger is misplaced. The anger is being used to create groups of “us” that stand against “them,” and those distinctions dismiss that everyone in both groups are beloveds of God. The anger is being used to provoke fear, sell products, pass unjust laws, and elect politicians. The anger is being USED.

And James points out directly that the people who want others to get angry are selling them on the idea that if they get angry enough, they will provoke God to action. James says it won’t work though. God will act when God will act, and furthermore, prayer is a better way to go about it. Anger serves the people promoting it, not God.

But what about righteous anger? As I’ve been saying recently, anger is a “secondary” emotion. That is, it exists like a red flag to mark a place where something that is held precious is being violated. It lets us know when our values are attacked, and underneath that is another emotion. Most often anger is there to act as the bodyguard to sadness or the diversion to fear.

Sadness and fear are sufficient. They can guide us to good action, they can show us the ways of compassion, they can help us grow together. They are wise enough, that once we find them, we can let go of the anger that guided us to them.

Which means that the way to be “slow to anger” is often to identify anger, and then sit with it and find out what is underneath it. It means that we sometimes need to listen – to ourselves and our tender emotions. God is there, with us when we listen, with us when we feel, with us when we discover what is under our anger. This is, even, a form of God’s healing, God’s salve in our lives.

Of course, “be slow to anger” is the third piece of advice we’re given in today’s passage. The first two are to be quick to listen and slow to speak. It seems clear that James’ advice is aimed at faith COMMUNITIES, because his advice is aimed at deepening and maintaining good relationships among the followers of Jesus.

For the past several years, I have participated in “listening circles.” These intentional spaces have careful guidelines that are aimed at making sure there is holy and sacred space for listening – and speaking. At times there have been 20 or 30 people in these circles, and you might think that there would be a lot more speaking than listening. But, there isn’t. Often there are prolonged silences between speakers, and they feel like time to absorb the wisdom one beloved of God has offered. When the obligation to have a response is taken away, along with the tendency toward chit-chat, there is spaciousness for silence and listening.

When I hear James say, “be quick to listen, slow to speak” I think of how healing those circles have been in my life. I love being freed from having to have a response to something someone says, and instead just listen to them and receive their wisdom. And, when I do speak into such a space, I am astounded at the power that comes with being heard with love.

As much as I have loved these experiences though, it isn’t clear to me how to live “be quick to listen, slow to speak” ALL the time. Really listening to another of God’s beloveds takes energy and attention, and … let’s be honest dear ones, those are finite resources!!! We will drain ourselves if we try to listen WELL all the time. (I’ve tried.)

That said, there is a being who is capable of listening with complete attention, and full energy, with love and compassion, with care and support – all day, every day, to all of us. God, the creator, sustainer, redeemer has gifted us with life, and God is with us breathing new life into us day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and even second by second. When we seek God in prayer and meditation, we find that God is close at hand, ready and able to offer us healing. When all we have to offer are sighs too deep for words, God knows what we mean. When we are full of words, God listens until we have exhausted them. When we are able to be with the Divine in holy silence, God meets us there. And, of course, when what we offer God is our listening, …

well, that’s when things really start to happen 😉

James encourages us to an active faith – not just to worship God once a week, but to live out faith in every day. He reminds us that the very people the world dismisses (the “widows and orphans”) are the ones that followers of Christ take care of. James doesn’t hate the world – though he isn’t impressed with it either – but he doesn’t think being angry with it is going to change it. James encourages the people of faith to act differently. Take care of the struggling and vulnerable, listen deeply, speak with intention, slow down anger and learn its lessons instead of acting it out. Don’t replicate the brokenness of the world – change it.

So, dear ones of God, I invite you to God’s restoration, God’s healing of the world, God’s work of the Kindom: be quick to listen; be slow to speak; be slow to anger. With such “simple” acts as these, we can heal the world. May God help 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

September 5, 2021

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August 29, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Friend, Lover, Parent” based on Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Who is the best friend you’ve ever had? The one who listened to what you said and what you didn’t say, the one who could make you laugh with a simple look, the one you trusted to tell you the truth even when you didn’t want to hear it, and trusted to have your back even if you’d done something wrong??

I hope for you that you have had such a friend, and that if you haven’t, that you WILL have such a friend. I hope you have enough such friends it is hard to figure out who is the best. But whether such a friendship has lasted your whole life, or it was a short lived one, or even one you read about rather than experienced directly, I invite you to consider how it felt.

Keb’ Mo’s song “One Friend” has the refrain:

All I need is one friend
To get me through the
Day
One friend
That never goes away
Only one friend
To understand
And never let me down

The whole is a better place with a friend, and it is a whole lot less lonely. One of the “universal human needs” is “shared reality” and when I think of friendship, I often think of it as centering around “shared reality.” Well, that and “affection” and “humor.”

There is an intimacy to friendship, a joy in being known and seen and in seeing and knowing another. It makes life meaningful. And fun. Friendships make space for authenticity, imperfection, emotions, spontaneity, and general quirkiness. They let us be who we are, and help us let go of who we’re supposed to be.

The primary metaphor for God in Christianity is of God the Father. When we’re being expansive that becomes God as Parent, and occasionally God as Mother. But the primary metaphor is a top down one. God sets the rules, God sits in judgement, God knows better than we do.

In their essence, a lot of arguments I hear within The United Methodist could easily be boiled down to, “Do you believe in a Daddy-knows-best (Paternalistic)sort of God or in an everyones-opinions-and-needs-are-valued-here (egalitarian) sort of God?” They’re both parenting styles, and they largely buy in to the “God as Parent” metaphor.

At one point in my life, a friend who belongs to the Self-Realization Fellowship asked I was at that particular time most connected to God through the metaphor of parent, the metaphor of lover, or the metaphor as friend. This was his take on the usefulness of the Trinitarian model, and I rather like it. He put the three metaphors on equal footing, and when he entered into prayer and meditation, checked with himself to see which aspect of the Divine was accessible to him at that point.

The passage from the Song of Songs seems to guide us a little bit more towards the God-as-lover metaphor, but I decided to start with friendship because I think the point of BOTH is intimacy. Our culture brings so much baggage to sexuality and romance that it can become hard to shake off the baggage and see what’s underneath it.

Also, despite the extensive tradition of sexualizing one’s spirituality (today most visible in “Jesus is my boyfriend” music, historically most visible in mystic monasticism), I prefer to think of the two as informing each other rather than overlapping.

The best part of our intimate relationships (friendships or sexual/romantic relationships) teach us useful skills that we can bring to our spirituality. The best parts of our spiritual connection with the Divine helps us bring our fullest self to other intimate relationships.

Every experience we have of mutuality, of connection, of love, and of intimacy makes possible the next one. As we build our capacity to trust “the Other” with ourselves, we get better at trust. And all of these things – mutuality, connection, love, intimacy, and trust are aspects of friendship, of sexual and/or romantic relationships, and of our spirituality.

As people, we YEARN for connection. We’re also scared of it. And that applies to people and to God!

The book Song of Solomon is a series of erotic love poems. For many people, it is a surprise to find it in the Bible! And yet, many, many, MANY of our ancestors in faith considered it the pinnacle of the Bible itself. Many interpreters try to spiritualize the erotic text, taking one of the lovers as the Nation of Israel, or the Church, or a single person of faith, and God as the other lover. I’m less interested in those interpretations, and far more interested in the ones that think that the Song is about two human lovers.

If the Song of Songs is about two human lovers who appreciate each other’s love, and bodies, and passion, then it is in the Bible as a reminder that the love of PEOPLE can open us to the love of God and the love of God can open us to the love of people. Also, if it is a celebration of physical love, then we are quite simply reminded of the potential goodness of physical love and in our society, that’s an imperative reminder.

Dear ones, I believe the point here is quite simple: nurture healthy love where-ever you find it. Celebrate healthy love at every opportunity. Make time for love, make space for love, and make love a priority. Because love nurtures love, and love is what matters.

Thanks be to the God of love and relationships. 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

August 31, 2021

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August 22, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Blessings of the Journey” based on Psalm 84

Psalm 84 is one of those rare pieces of scripture that doesn’t change meaning from first glance to last look. It is straight forward. The speaker, likely a pilgrim on a the way to Jerusalem, names the wonders of “God’s house,” and is jealous of the birds who are able to roost on the Temple mount, and stay there forever.

The Psalmist names the joy of just being on the journey to Zion, an extension of the joy of Zion itself, and then asks for blessings for those on their journeys.

The Psalmist expresses clear and profound love of God, and gratitude for connection to the Divine and things of the Divine.

The commentators, who have to find something to say, mentioned how incredibly rare rain is in Israel around the time of the Festival of Tabernacles. That’s OK though. It just makes it more profound when the Psalmist says that in the dry valley along the way, unexpected early rains come and pools and springs of water bring blessings.

The Psalm assumes that the Temple in Jerusalem is God’s house, that the presence of God actually resides there. This was never universally accepted in Jewish thought, and Jesus carefully articulated that God is everywhere, but the idea persists. It is even a bit expansive. Many people think of all churches and worship centers as uniquely containing the presence of God. Likely, on some subconscious levels, we do too.

Or maybe they aren’t only subconscious. There are definitely PLACES where I feel God’s presence more easily than in the rest of the world. I BELIEVE that God is everywhere, but my human and finite being notices better in some places than others. Our sanctuary is one of them. I can almost hear the heartbeat of this faith community when I sit in silent prayer in our sanctuary, and the heartbeat of this church opens my spirit to God.

This pandemic has closed us off from so many PLACES, some of them our holy places. Parents send their kids to schools or day cares they’ve never been allowed into. Hospitals limit or refuse visitors. Buildings are closed, or limited use, or require approval to enter. This year our camps refused visitors and during retreat season required reservations to just take a walk. And, of course, our beautiful sanctuary lies quietly in wait for our return to it.

I think we may be in a good position to hear the Psalm’s yearning. Whether or not God specially resides in our sanctuary (hint: no), the sanctuary is a place of worship, prayer, beauty, and safety that opens many of our hearts to God. 17 months after closing it for regular worship, we aren’t unlike regular pilgrims hoping for a glimpse of the Temple. The actual church mice, and occasional church bats, have had far better access than we have!

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. Selah

The Temple was creation themed. It was designed to celebrate the God who created all that is. Sort of an interesting premise, huh? That the Temple was ONE place that celebrated ALL places, and people from ALL places came to that ONE place to offer praise?

Pilgrimage is a significant part of many faith traditions, and those who lived in ancient Israel would have known it well. Only the residents of Jerusalem had regular access to the Temple. Others had to make INTENTIONAL trips, and often made them for festivals.

Because the journey was aimed at connection with God and faithfulness in ritual, the journey itself was sanctified.

Friends, I think this is where we stand.

We’re on a journey towards the places of God, with the people of God, and the place we stand is holy but it isn’t where we are going to stay.

Luckily, the journey itself is sacred. It has meaning. It has purpose. It matters.

Much like walking a labyrinth, the journey IN and the journey OUT often matter as much as the moments in the center.

Some people never managed to make it to the Temple. For them, the closest thing was hearing the Psalms of the pilgrimage, the Psalms of Ascent, and finding their own meaning in them.

It is the meaning that matters. It is remembering that God is on the journey and not just the destination. It is noticing the unexpected blessings along the way – the early rains, the springs in the desert’s dry valleys, the strength of God, the hearts of the people.

This pilgrimage isn’t always where people want to be This one feels more like exile. This one has gone on too long.

But it is still a journey with God, from God’s place, to God’s place, with God’s people. And it is a blessed journey. And there are early rains.

Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion.

Bless us, Holy God. Hear our prayers. Hold up the hurting. Find a way for the broken. Help compassion reign in the world. Hear our prayers.

Journeys are long and frightening, and they change us along the way. Guide us, Holy One.

O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed.

The best part of life is being connected with the God of Love and Life. Connections and relationships are what matter. Not important positions, or lovely possessions. Connections to God, to each other, and to creation. That’s what feels like being in God’s own house.

God gives us life, and makes it worthwhile. God gifts us, and helps us. God is worthy of our trust. And the journey itself is blessed, and a blessing. It will prepare us for the next place we arrive at.

For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor. No good thing does the LORD withhold from those who walk uprightly.
O LORD of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.

Holy one bless our journeys, and the places they take us. Amen

August 22, 2021

Rev. Sara E. Baron

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

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August 8, 2021
by Sara Baron

“God, Stress, and Abundant Lives” based on 1 Kings 19:4-8

I’m mad. Mad that we – the big collective we – might have beaten this virus if we trusted our experts and prioritized collective well-being. Mad that we “can’t have nice things” still, EVEN THOUGH science provided amazing vaccines in an unbelievably short time. Mad that I have to make decisions no one– including me – likes because the first rule of John Wesley is “first do no harm” and I really believe we have to do that.

But, a friend sent an article this week that pointed out that I’m not mad. I just think I’m mad. Or, more so, that anger is a secondary emotion that works well to mask primary emotions. The article said the emotion that I’m actually feeling is fear. (Note: do not try this at home. Do not tell someone what they’re “really feeling” when they tell you what they ARE feeling. Really, truly. DO NOT DO THIS. The article got away with it by taking about generic people and I personalized.) The article speaks about people choosing not to be vaccinated and vaccinated people’s anger responses:

Though this new flavor of outrage might look and sound like righteous indignation, mental health professionals say that what’s behind it is fear.

“It’s scary to admit that somebody else has power over you and you’re at their mercy and you’re afraid of them, but showing that is not a very American ideal,” said David Rosmarin, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a clinician at McLean Hospital. “Instead of expressing that fear, it’s a lot more comfortable to blame somebody else.”

Anger is what people in his profession refer to as a “secondary emotion.” It’s a feeling that arises in response to a more primal emotion, like fear and anxiety over having some aspect of your life threatened. “The reality is that there are millions of people who are miseducated about something, they’re making a big mistake that will have massive consequences that might affect you and your family and that makes you scared,” Rosmarin said. “But nobody is saying that.”1

That article also says that part of what people are struggling with is that this was always going to be a “long war” but we didn’t get that message from the outset. That fits for me too, I deal better when I have my expectations set correctly.

Two years ago I preached on this passage from 1 Kings 19, and afterwards several of you mentioned that you could hear in it my yearning for a break. (It was fairly soon before my renewal leave.) I hadn’t meant to be that transparent then, and it makes me want to be a little bit cautious now, but….the story hasn’t changed.

This remains a story of Elijah, prophet of God who has worked diligently for what he believed God wanted him to do. The response to his faithfulness has been a threat of murder that came directly from the palace.

Elijah is too tired to fight anymore. He fled for his life, but in the midst of the flight he lost even the will to live.

He prays, asking God to let him die, which would at least be less violent than the death otherwise planned for him. He’d walked into the desert for a day, and when he prayed he sat under a single broom tree, the only bit of respite he could find. The Bible seems to suggest this is a particularly sad story, it is the same one told of Hagar, having walked into the desert, exhausted her provisions, sat under a broom, and prepared to die. Just like with Hagar though, God meets Elijah there.

You may already know how much I love this story. He falls asleep, and wakes up when provisions have arrived. He eats, he drinks, he falls back asleep. When he awakes, provisions have arrived. He eats, he drinks, AND THEN he was able to go on.

I really love that he needs to sleep, eat, drink, sleep, eat, and drink before he can rouse himself. He has gone far beyond the “have a cup of coffee and keep going” point. He is exhausted. He is out of will power. He is out of a will to LIVE. If I were writing this story though, I’d add in some breathing. “He took intentional deep breathes until he was able to slow his body enough to sleep…” and then the rest of the story. It would make it just a smidge better.

Probably because of the book I just read, I’m noticing that the story as written (and more so as adapted), Elijah is given the chance to “complete the stress cycle” in this story. The book is “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” written by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. In their opening chapter, they distinguish between stressors and stress. They point out that we need to complete the stress cycle, no matter what is happening with the stressors. And they name, concretely, how to do that. The first and best option is to “do literally anything to move your body enough to get you breathing deeply” for 20-60 minutes a day.2 Elijah walking into the desert for an entire day seems to qualify.

The Nagoski sisters offer 6 other ways to complete the cycle though: 1. “deep, slow breaths down regulate the stress response”3, 2. positive social encounters (even causal ones), 3. laughter – but the real deep belly laughter kind, 4. physical affection from someone you trust (they suggest a 6 second kiss between partners or a 20 second hug with someone you like, snuggling a pet), 5. crying, and 6. creative expression. In other chapters they also talk about meditation and spiritual connection, so I’m going to add a #7 – whatever prayer practices work for you. They’re suggesting that we do at least one of these, and better many of these, every day. Because the stressors keep coming at us. And their book was written in 2019, so it is WAY MORE TRUE today.

So Elijah. He took a long walk (check), I’m all for pretending he took some slow breaths, he maybe had a positive encounter with the angel? (does that count??), and I’m quite sure he cried a lot, the Bible just forgot to mention it. He also took care of his bodily needs for rest, nourishment, and hydration. (Chapter 7 of their book is all about rest.) He also named his despair to God, and naming emotions has a lot of power too.

This little story has a lot of good responses to despair and burnout. Which is good, because many of us are in despair and/or burnout in at least some aspects of our lives.

The pandemic has challenged all of us. The challenges have differed, because we’re different, but we’ve all been challenged. Having another wave is definitely not helping anybody. We’re mad, whether or not that’s a primary emotion, sad, fearful, and maybe even detached. We’re exhausted.

And most of us are comfort seeking. We want things to be easier. We NEED things to be easier. We’re looking for things that sooth, ease, comfort, and console. Often, we’re looking for things to be “back to normal,” familiar, and make sense like we’re used to. We’re human. That’s how we work.

Another facet of how we work is that when we’re in high stress, we revert to earlier and lower levels of emotional functioning. We blame. We over react. We fight. We flee. We gossip. We triangulate. We take all our anxiety and we try to get rid of it by sharing it with others or throwing it at them. This too is human. It is how we work.

No one I know is operating at their best right now. We can’t.

What we can do is seek to complete the stress cycles – we can’t change most of the stressors, but we can give ourselves the best possible chance to change the stress. Our bodies, minds, and spirits are all connected, they’re all “us.” When we care for each of them, we give all of them a chance to do better.

I believe that God calls us all to life abundant. To full, meaningful, connected lives. To spiritual depth and work that matters and relationships that give life. Elijah went from that broom tree to the Mount of Horeb where he deepened his relationship with God, and then on to meet his protege Elisha and started to pass on his labor to the next generation. It wasn’t God’s intention that Elijah struggle alone, or burn himself out. It isn’t God’s will that we struggle alone nor burn ourselves out either. God wishes for full, abundant lives for us all. That’s part of why we take care of each other, and share love in the world. So, dear ones, I encourage you to complete your stress cycles, name your emotions, connect with your dear ones, engage in prayer, and live life as abundantly as you can. God wants it for us, we want it for each other, and the world needs us as healthy as we can be! May God help us. Amen

1 https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/02/belated-realization-that-covid-will-be-a-long-war-sparks-anger-denial/

2 Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski Burnout: The Secret to Unlokcing the Stress Cycle (New York: Ballantine Books, 2019) p. 14.

3 Nagoski, 15.

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July 25, 2021
by Sara Baron

“A God Who Cares (about people)” based on Psalm 14 and 2 Samuel 11:1-15

Trigger Warning: The scripture names sexual assault, and thus this sermon discusses it.

When the Jesus Seminar is assessing the likelihood that Jesus said or did certain things, one of the things they check is “is it complementary?” If it is NOT complementary, they think it is more likely to be true. If it is ESPECIALLY complementary, it is a little bit suspect. Their idea is that the followers of Jesus telling stories about him would be more likely to adapt stories in ways that make him look BETTER, not worse. So when he doesn’t look his best, it is probably because there is some truth underneath it.

1 and 2 Chronicles are pretty rough on King David. 1 and 2 Samuel are not, they are decidedly pro-David. Today’s story comes from 2 Samuel. That means that it is as cleaned up as it can be, and it is still horrible. One of many things I like about the Bible, though, is that the characters who do God’s work aren’t all presented as perfect. That said, I find David particularly problematic. Probably because he had so much power, and is still thought of so highly despite having one of the worst track records in the Bible.

I think this story would have been ignored, or passed over, if it wasn’t for the fact that Bethseba was the mother of Solomon, who would become the king after David. This story, then, is likely true.

Kings in those days were supposed to lead their troops into battle, and King David was a very successful warrior, he had spent many years leading troops in battle. The story starts by saying, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.” (1 Samuel 11:1, NRSV) It is almost suggesting that if David had been where he was supposed to be, there wouldn’t have been this problem. And to an extent that is right. If David were taking seriously the needs of his people, instead of relaxing in the grandeur of the palace, things might have been very different. But David was at home, and because the palace was so much taller than the homes of the rest of the people, he was able to invade the privacy of a woman who was quite simply engaging in the prescribed RELIGIOUS RITUAL of purification.

She was not displaying herself for him. She wasn’t even taking a relaxing bath. She was fulling religious requirements so that she could rejoin society.

When David asked about her, he was told who she was – including her father’s name and her husband’s. He knew she was married. She knew she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t say no. Perhaps she tried and it didn’t matter. Perhaps she was afraid he’d kill her husband. Perhaps she didn’t fight because she knew it didn’t matter – it didn’t. The king wanted her, and he got what he wanted. Her wants didn’t matter, her NEEDS didn’t matter.

It is disgusting, despicable, horrible, horrifying, immoral, and all too common.

So is the cover up – the murder that King David ordered when Uriah had too much integrity to enjoy comfort while his fellow soldiers were in the field. (The story definitely contrasts the moral behavior of the two.)

The next scene in this story, the one we didn’t read, is when the prophet Nathan comes to King David and accuses him. Nathan does so via a story, so the King can see his actions from an outsider perspective.

That’s the role of the prophet. Speaking truth to power, even when people in power don’t want to hear it, and try not to hear it.

In much of the Ancient Near East it was assumed that Gods were like Kings – they liked getting gifts (offerings), they liked being praised (worship), they did a lot of quid pro quo (so people praised gods and then asked god for things), they cared about their own power and influence, they could be punitive or generous as they wished. One of the unique parts of the Ancient Jewish faith was the understanding that YHWH God cared about the moral actions of people, and the care of the vulnerable. This was a really big religious transformation.

And we see it in our story today as well as in the Psalm. With YHWH God, even the Kings are called on their behavior. And not just on their behavior with other kings – on their behavior with those who served them – EVEN foreigners (Hittites were native Canaanites, the people who lived in the land before the Jews). Many commentators assume Uriah had converted, or perhaps his ancestors had but he was still considered ethnically a Hittite. YHWH God also cared about the treatment of women – and it doesn’t seem to me that most powerful men of the era did.

The Psalm makes similar points. It conflates believing in God with treating people justly. It names evil as “eating up my people” and it seems pretty clear that the ones being eaten up are the vulnerable members of society. It names that God is found with the ones who do right by others. I think it comes to its thesis in verse 6: “You would confound the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge.” (Psalm 14:6) Finally, it begs for God’s presence, so things will be better for those who are struggling.

Today it is assumed that religion and good behavior go together, and it startled me to learn that connecting the two was once a religious revolution, one that came with Moses. Sometimes I fear that religion and good behavior are TOO strongly connected, because truth be told studies say that religious people do not necessarily behave better than others. For example, religious people abuse partners and children at the same rates as non-religious people, and as we know there is a lot in religions that is used to justify homophobia, sexism, and racism.

I worry we aren’t worthy of the narrative that combines morality with religion.

At the same time, I’m really grateful that we HAVE a narrative that says that God cares about EVERYONE, and God lifts up the lowly. I’m grateful for it, because without it it feels like all would be lost. Then we would just have a system where the powerful are powerful, and that’s just how it is, and everyone should deal and work the system to the best of their ability. But when we follow a God who cares about how we treat each other, and how we treat people who are least able to benefit us later, then we at least have a narrative that counteracts the world’s and can help us all make a difference.

I need that story, even when we fail to live up to it.

I need to have a place to aim for, and a vision to live into. I need to have reasons to reject the current system and work for a better one. I need to believe that God cares about how we treat each other and works with us to care for all and to build a better world, so that I can know I’m a part of a group of people who are working WITH God on that, and that between God and each other we can do things that matter! This is part of the value of faith community for me too – to be present with each other, to encourage each other, to learn from each other, to model good living with each other, and to dream God’s dreams together.

It isn’t fun to read the story of David and Bathsheba, but it is good to read the story and know that it wasn’t just allowed, or ignored, or brushed aside. The story still gets told, and David is still the villain, and God still expects better of all of us – especially of those of us in power.

Thanks be to God for a vision of goodness, wholeness, justice, righteousness, and the kindom where all people are cared for. Amen

July 25, 2021

Rev. Sara E. Baron

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

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July 10, 2021
by Sara Baron

“God’s Plumb lines and Our Values” based on Amos 7:7-15 and Mark 6:14-29

There are days when I struggle to care about ancient kings and the problematic things they said and did to ancient prophets. Tracking royal lineages, and power battles in far off lands from times long past isn’t actually all that interesting.

And it certainly doesn’t seem like a formula for speaking a relevant word to God’s beloveds today.

This may even be one of those days.

One of the more distressing parts of the Bible, though, is that when talking about the power battles of men long dead in cultures I need explanatory books to understand, the dynamics of human life appear to be fairly constant over time. We may not have kings. We may not engage in beheadings in this country. But somehow, when it comes right down to it, things aren’t actually as different as I’d like them to be.

Which, actually, is the whole point as far as I can tell.

The teachings of Jesus are absurdly brilliant in their social analysis, questioning of norms, and in the way they make space for people to come to their own conclusions and then claim truth for themselves. Much of the rest of the New Testament uses the examples of Jesus to do the very same work. And, Jesus was a product of his Jewish upbringing, a tradition with a wealth of knowledge in asking great questions, using stories to help people think, and using prophets to clarify that God’s concern includes concern for those who are marginalized.

Or, to say it more simply, the Bible helps us see things as they are, so we can know what we are up against, and work to change it.

In our text from Amos, Amos is having visions, the king sees it as threatening and thus tries to threaten Amos, Amos responds claiming the King has no authority over him because he is doing what God called him to do.

Well, isn’t that power dynamics in a nutshell?

Someone, with God’s support, speaks uncomfortable truths. Someone with power gets threatened by it and responds by trying to silence the truth-teller. But the one who is working with God’s help isn’t silenced by threats. Because God’s power isn’t a part of human power struggles, and God helps us face our fears. Amos even says, “I’m not a prophet, I’m just saying what God tells me to say.” (Fair question on how we know that, but that’s for another day.)

The King Herod / John the Baptist story in Mark is similar in its function. As I was trying to remember all the details of the relationships of the characters and the political plots they were maneuvering, I came across a line in the Wikipedia article on Herodias that made me stop, “Herodias’ second husband was Herod Antipas (born before 20 BC; died after 39 AD) half-brother of Herod II (her first husband). He is best known today for his role in events that led to the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.”1

The gist of things is that King Herod had been married off by his father in a political allegiance, and yet he was seeking to consolidate power. He thought that his brother’s wife would be more useful to him in that, so he exiled his first wife and Herodias divorced her husband, and they married. Ironically, perhaps, he was eventually displaced by the angry father of his first wife. Similarly, the things he did to consolidate his power and then to protect himself from accusations against him are exactly the things history remembers him for.

So what’s that story in a nutshell? The King ignored common decency, political allegiances, family ties, and generally accepted morality in order to seek power. The story told in the Gospels is maybe not factual. Instead, it is reflective of the differences between the moral standards of the common people and the fast and loose dealings of those on the top of the pyramid with the lives of those on the bottom.

Our story says that as Jesus was gaining fame, King Herod was living in fear that he was John the Baptist resurrected. That would mean that the Government’s power to KILL wasn’t powerful enough. #Foreshadowing. It also suggests that the King feels a little guilty.

Common morality of the day wouldn’t have permitted a woman to dance in public. So judgement is also present in that. The story also seems to parody how decisions get made about people’s lives. One person is drunk and makes excessive promises, another seeks an easy way out of a difficult situation, and voila, a prophet is killed. As one scholar put it, “A more sarcastic social caricature could not have been spun by the bitterest Galilean peasant.”2

Underlying this story is the knowledge that Jesus was a disciple of John’s, that Jesus largely took up John’s mantle, that the early Christians think of John as the messenger sharing that Jesus was coming, and that the powers of the world would also kill Jesus, and he wouldn’t conveniently go away either.

What strikes me in this story is how many times I’ve heard it. That is, a person with large amount of power in something – government, an industry, finances – wants to accumulate more, does so by illicit means, and then does even worse things to cover it up. And, usually, they get away with it. And, often, everyone knows but no one feels like they can do anything about it. This is the narrative of much of the #MeToo movement. This is the narrative of cover ups in COVID policies. This is the narrative of pretty much every scandal you read about in the news.

In this case, the prophet is the one willing to share the news that others are too scared to say, and to name that immoral behavior is – in fact – immoral.

I think it is fair to say that being a prophet is no fun. And it is very dangerous. (Although I have friends who I think it is fair to say are prophets, and they tend to think some parts of it ARE fun. It may just be that I’m a naturally more cautious person than they are.)

To bring the world from how it is to how God wants it to be requires prophets though. Did you know that the vast majority of theft in the US is wage theft, which almost always goes unpunished?3 One report concludes that wage theft (not paying workers what is owed to them) costs $50 BILLION a year in the US, as compared to the grand total of all robberies, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts in the nation costing their victims less than $14 billion.

Yet somehow petty theft often results in incarceration, and wage theft – in the rare case it is prosecuted – results in fines. The system that lets those with power and money play fast and loose with the lives of people in poverty is still going strong, and our “justice” system empowers it.

This is, of course, one of innumerable examples of how the structures and systems of the world keep on finding new ways to look the same, and what should be outdated in the Bible turns out to be just the same today.

The world tempt us to look away, to justify the actions of those in power, to ignore the cries of the marginalized, to care more about “the economy” then the lowest paid workers in it, to side with the modern kings of the world. There is something deep in human nature that assumes that the ones in power got their by their own merits and the same is true of those without power. But it isn’t so.

God keeps helping us open our hearts so we can see more clearly. God reminds us that the purpose of an economy is to find ways to care for everyone in it, the purpose of a society is to create real justice for everyone so everyone can thrive, and the purpose of a church is to help people expand their own humanity so they can let their hearts be broken by other people’s pain. God’s values aren’t the world’s. God sees fully, profound, beloved value in each and every person, and wants good for all.

And we, dear ones, seek to do the same. May God’s values transform our own, again and again, and again. Amen

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodias Accessed 7/8/21.

2 Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008,) 216.

3 https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/

July 11, 2021

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July 4, 2021
by Sara Baron

If I’m honest, I’m not a fan of my own weaknesses. (I pause now to await the ones who know me well to stop laughing at my understatement.) I would really like to be strong, capable, and impressive in all ways.

I’m not.

I’m a normal human mix of capable and incapable, strong and weak, impressive and profoundly not impressive. It is truly annoying.

From conversation, I’m under the impression that some of you are more at peace with this than I am, and that is such good news. You are all living proof that wisdom, maturity, and the grace of God are profoundly powerful. I’m also aware that some of you are with me, in being frustrated in your own imperfection, and always pushing yourself for more. May God’s grace transform us too.

Anyway, my own sense of self, and my own impatience, are quite a lens to bring to our Epistle reading today. Paul talks about a “thorn in his side,” one that he has asked God to remove repeatedly, and one that he has come to believe is USEFUL in his ministry. The use of the thorn in the side? Keeping him humble, and reminding him that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul, who in this whole passage is modeling a different kind of leadership is refusing to play the games asked of him. Others have come to the church in Corinth bragging about who they are, what visions they’ve seen, and what authority it gives them. Paul has been asked to justify himself and his authority.

The passage we read today is part of him refusing to play along.

It opens with a weird piece about “someone” having a vision, which ends up being Paul, but he refuses to give any details or use it to gain any power over anyone else. Furthermore, he refuses to engage in even arguing about what form the vision took. Paul is NOT PLAYING by the rules.

He is facing people who boast, but he refuses to boast, OTHER than about God, so instead of bragging about himself, he talks about his WEAKNESSES. He talks about the thorn in his side. (No, no one knows what it is. Options in likeliness order include physical ailment, mental illness, outside persecution, or spiritual torment.) And then he talks about God.

I found a wonderful passage from a commentary I was tempted to share, but it was so dense I didn’t think it would help anything. So, instead, I’m going to summarize it for you, and put it in the footnotes.1 2

Paul is being told that the thorn in his side, that weakness in him, is a place that God’s grace can work. For Paul, this connects to Jesus being “crucified in weakness” but raised to life by the power of God. If Jesus’ life was defined by his weakness and God’s strength, then sharing the Good News of Jesus is also about letting God shine through our weaknesses. So Paul doesn’t try to overcome his weaknesses, nor dismiss them (like the Cynics and Stoics of his day). He also doesn’t try to be self-sufficient, which would involve limiting his own needs to limit his dependence on others. Instead, he accepts his “thorn in the side” and other weaknesses, and lets them guide him to dependence – on God.

So, to those bragging about what they’ve experienced of God, Paul refuses to boast, except about his WEAKNESS. To those seeking self-sufficiency, Paul responds with his dependence. This is definitely one of those cases where I can see why Paul was such an effective messenger of the story and love of Jesus.

This humble Paul, who only brags about his weakness, who acknowledges his dependence, who speaks highly of others but not himself, and who names the work of God in anything others might praise in his own life – THIS is the faith I grew up with. This is what I saw in my own church, and at church camp, and in the Annual Conference leaders when I started attending as a young teenager. I watched this being modeled, and I internalized it. The faith of bragging about the accomplishments of others, but not of ones self. The faith of seeing remarkable transformation happening, and thanking God. The faith of humility. This all feels like first language faith to me, the way that things are without even having to think about them.

From where I stand today, I don’t know if that’s good. Or, at least, I don’t know if it is equally good for everyone, or for every time. And I wonder if another person had been with me in those faith-forming experiences if they would have heard it and internalized it in the same ways.

This is funny, because there is a HUGE part of me that says “OF COURSE THIS IS GOOD, this is WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE, this is what being GODLY looks like.” But I’ve learned, over the years, to question everything, especially things that refuse to be questioned.

I wonder if “be humble, only speak of the accomplishments of others, praise God for anything praise worthy in yourself” ends up taking especially strong hold in women, in people of color, and in others who are marginalized, which ends up supporting the status quo in ignoring the wonders and accomplishments of many of God’s beloveds. And, I think about the quiet ways women and people of color are shamed for appearing to be insufficiently humble. I wonder if there are ways that those who are not marginalized are immune to the message of humility, and end up being the only ones comfortable with touting their accomplishments. And then, since others are also touting theirs, they seem the most capable.

I wonder if my first language, faith of my childhood ends up doing more harm than good by reinforcing exactly the ways that society wants to ignore the giftedness of many of God’s children.

Rev. Dr. Eric Law in The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb says, “Our vision of the Peaceable Realm is not based on fear. Instead it is based on lack of fear….This lack of fear is created by the even distribution of power.”3 When humility is used by some, but not others, we end up protecting those in power, instead of moving towards power sharing. Law’s book discusses a cycle of Christian living between death and resurrection: 1. Giving up power, choosing the cross 2. Cross, death, powerless 3. empowerment, endurance, faithfulness 4. Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Powerful. He emphasizes that we need to hold things in balance, not staying in one part of the story, but living the cycle over and over again. In fact, he talks about those with power giving power away, and that is if this is a way of life, power gets shared.

I think that maybe the faith I grew up with is one with GREAT value, especially in any situation where I have power. It is good to brag on others, lift others up, focus on inter-dependence, be aware of one’s weaknesses, and take it as an invitation to invite another’s strengths.

However, I think it is, maybe, only part of a fuller story. It is also important to see how God has gifted us, and think about how we want to use those gifts for the kindom. It is important to hear how what we have to offer blesses others. It is important to receive power, particularly when we are in a situation where we don’t have much. I think the full cycle is bigger than the one I’d internalized.

So, I don’t know what message you need today. (I don’t know what one I need today.) Maybe the reminder to look for God at work in our weaknesses, maybe to brag on each other, maybe to give up on self-sufficiency – and maybe to get REALLY REALLY clear on your own strengths and gifts and not let anyone take that away from you.

But I do know that Paul in 2 Corinthians and Jesus in his own hometown know a thing or two about being human, being limited, and finding God in the midst of it. And whatever else the message is in these passages today, I appreciate the reminder that God can bring good out of my weaknesses, and that makes them rather wonderful just as they are. Finally, I appreciate the struggle, to reach for a fuller faith, and acknowledge the complicatedness of trying to live as a follower of Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen

1“The apostle is directed to understand his affliction as part of that weakness in and through which God’s powerful grace is operated. It is clear that, from Paul’s point of view, the decisive demonstration of this oracular pronouncement is Christ himself, ‘crucified in weakness,’ but alive ‘by the power of God.’ This is why weakness is the hallmark of his apostleship, because he has been commissioned to the service of the gospel through the grace of this Christ – a grace whose power is made present in the cross. Paul therefore does not, like the Cynic and Stoic philosophers of his day, strive to transcend his weaknesses by dismissing them as trifling. Nor does he, like them, hold to the ideal of self-sufficiency, striving to limit his own needs and therefore his dependency on others. Rather, precisely by accepting his tribulations as real weaknesses he is led by them to acknowledge his ultimate dependence on God.” Victor Paul Furnish II Corinthians in The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company Inc, 1984), 550.

2 Funish, 550.

3 Eric H. F. Law The Worf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality for Leadership in a Multicultural Community (St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 1993) 14.

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 4, 2021

Photo Credit to Barb Armstrong.

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June 20, 2021
by Sara Baron

“God’s Peace – In the Midst of the Storm” based on Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32 and Mark 4:35-41

Two years ago at the Upper New York Annual Conference, Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball guest preached for the ordination and commissioning service. She preached on this text, and what she said was memorable enough that I can no longer hear this passage without her interpretation of it.

You may remember that two years ago the United Methodist world was in turmoil over the passage of “The Traditional Plan” at the 2019 Special Session of General Conference. That is, our denomination has been explicitly homophobic since 1972. Thanks to the decades of work by organizers, activists, and people of conscience there was sufficient pressure to create change. A special session of our denomination’s global legislative was called to respond to the church’s continued exclusion of God’s LGBTQIA+ people. There were several proposals on the table that brought positive change, and one that multiplied the harm already being done.

I still remember standing in shock after the final vote was taken, and watching my phone explode with the global news outlet alerts that – as the NYTimes put it “United Methodists Tighten Ban on Same-Sex Marriage and Gay Clergy.” The homophobia of this denomination had already been an abomination, yet people stayed knowing that the best way to bring change was from the inside. It was long, hard work, but we had felt confidence that God’s Spirit of Love would win in the long run. The decision to pass the Traditional Plan changed all that, and made it clear that over the long run people of conscience CANNOT stay in a homophobic denomination.

That was February. We were still reeling, grieving, and furious when Annual Conference came. Thanks be to God, we’d also organized, and Upper New York will be sending a very different delegation to the next General Conference (whenever the pandemic allows that to happen). Nevertheless, the conviction remained for progressives and even many moderates: one way or another, we will NOT STAY in a homophobic denomination. One way or another, we will be part of a church that welcomes all of God’s people, and soon.

It was into that reality that Bishop Steiner Ball preached. And she did so as a guest preacher in an Annual Conference whose Bishop had been a leader in writing and passing The Traditional plan. She took this passage and asked us to stay in the boat with Jesus. She acknowledged the storm raging around us, she named the reasons we would have to simply bail on the entire endeavor, she made space for hurt, anger, and fear. At the same time, she claimed that Jesus was in the boat with us, in the midst of the storm, and powerful enough to respond to the storm. She believed that Jesus could bring resolution, IF we just stayed in the boat. She offered that while the storm was raging so strongly it could be tempting to just jump into the sea, that the sea itself was not without its own issues. She urged us to stay long enough for Jesus to act, to bring resolution, to find a way forward for the people called Methodists.12

Here we are, two years later, still in that storm, and still with Jesus. The biggest change is that with the global pandemic, we are dealing with multiple storms at once. The storm that is the pandemic keeps United Methodists from gathering to split into different denominations that will be able to live their own faith with integrity. The storm that is the church’s homophobia prevents the denomination from being able to speak with moral authority, even of issues of death and dying brought on by the pandemic.

So here we are, in a boat, in the midst of raging storms. But, Bishop Steiner Ball says that Jesus is in the boat with us. Further, she reminds us that Jesus is able to calm the storms.

I am aware that the global pandemic storms, and the global church storms are themselves far from the only storms attacking our boats.

In truth, I suspect that for many of us the storms raging most strongly are inside us. Narratives and traumas from our childhoods continue to attack within. Existential anxiety has its way with us, often in ways we don’t even see. Assumptions about others, fear of the the unknown, and a tendency to see enemies were there are only people who are different also keep us on the defensive. The whole world turning upside down on us, not yet being righted, and likely to find a balance somewhere other than where it used to be obviously doesn’t help either. People are comforted by the familiar, which means that the past 15 months have been particularly discomforting at exactly the time we’ve most needed comfort.

Which is all to say that I think there are storms raging within us, probably all of us to a greater or lesser extent.

To support this theory, mental health professionals have never been so busy. Now, I’d say that in an ideal world, we’d all get regular mental health care as a means of simply being healthy. But most of the time, most people don’t seek mental health care until they’re well into a crisis/storm and can’t find their way out alone. So very busy mental health care professionals is a signal that many people are really struggling.

There isn’t anything wrong with struggling. It is a human reality. The “Disciple Bible Study” curriculums call such things “the human condition.” There isn’t actually anything wrong with being in a storm. It is also a human condition, and quite often it is well out of our control.

That said, being in the midst of a storm, particularly one like our scriptures talk about today are NOT comfortable. These are the sorts of storms that make it seem more likely that death is on the horizon than life.

And Jesus sleeps through it.

Either he was beyond exhaustion, or he was living non-anxious presence or both. Impressive, Jesus.

The story says Jesus awoke, rebuked the storm, and rebuked the disciples. I feel like it forgets to tell us that he then curled back up and went back to sleep. The storm was silenced. The disciples were awed.

I wonder if any of the storms that rage within us are ones that God would be happy to silence and bring to peace, if we were willing to let God do it. I suspect so. Some storms we are aren’t ready to let go of. Some storms just aren’t done yet. But some of them are only causing us harm, and are ready to be silenced.

Can you tell? Can you feel any of them that have run their course and would be response to “peace, be still!”? Can you even imagine what life would be like without that storm?

To go back to the storm we started with, I learned about the church’s homophobia when I was 13, and started working against it then. I have worked for and dreamed of being a part of a big-C Church that welcomes, affirms, and loves all of God’s people. You have too. This church has been explicitly committed to changing the UMC’s life-denying policies for 25 years now, and was already committed to it before then too!

Yet, it boggles my mind to try to imagine life without this fight – or at least changing this fight from one fighting explicit policy to fighting implicit bias. My identity will need a reboot.

And I think that’s often true of our internal storms too. We’re used to them. They’re familiar. They’re a part of who we are, and we aren’t entirely sure who we’d be without them.

But, friends, that’s exactly what God is there for. God doesn’t want to leave us in the pain of the past, or even the anxiety of the present. God is a source of healing, and energy of revival, a vision for wholeness, a hope for the future. Some of the things we’re afraid to give up, God is ready to take away.

God’s peace is stronger than the storms. God’s peace can hold its own EVEN in the midst of the BIGGEST storms. It has a different kind of strength. It has a deeper kind of being.

So I invite you, to hear the words of Jesus resound in your soul. “Peace, be still.” And I invite you to listen to see what storms God has silenced. Because God is up to good in you, in us, in the world, and when we make space for it, God can transform even the most hurting parts of us. Thanks be to God!

Amen

1Please note that these are my memories of a sermon I heard 2 years ago. As memories are faulty, and tend to have holes filled in with one’s own assumptions, this is likely a high bred of what she said and what I wanted to hear and remember.

2 I take no authority to tell anyone they need to stay in the UMC boat. There are good reasons to leave, all the more for people who are LGBTQIA+. I’m sharing that it was meaningful to me, knowing that I’m not the center.

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May 30, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Come, Holy Spirit”

In Easter evening the disciples were locked up together in a house, afraid of what would happen to them. It was into that enclave that stories of resurrection started to be told. And, it was in that enclave that some experiences of resurrection happened. According to Acts, the disciples were mostly together in that room for a rather extended period of time, praying, and …. just a little bit… starting to organize. As time went on, there were more people gathering together, functioning together as an extended family, but still they were gathered together in a tight circle, in Jerusalem.

And then came Pentecost.

Pentecost was and is a Jewish festival celebrating the first fruits of the wheat harvest. Faithful Jews had gathered in Jerusalem for the festival, just as faithful Jews had gathered for Passover, 50 days earlier. It was another of the 3 festivals that was a traditional pilgrimage feast.

A colleague of mine suggested that the first Christian Pentecost story, the one we read in Acts, required those days apart from the world.

Of course, at this point, we may scoff at 50 days. 😉 To the scoffers, I’ll offer a reminder of the 40 years of wandering in the desert, which the Bible also said was necessary to “get the people ready.”

As you may know, I do not believe in a God who punishes. I do, however, believe in a God who is willing to use any situation as a jumping off point for good. ANY situation. Those ideas can get confusing sometimes for people, because talking about what God does with a situation can SOUND like “God created this situation for good” but I don’t mean that! I just really believe that God is willing and able to enter any situation and seek the best possible outcome from that point, and often God is far more creative than we’d be able to imagine!

In Acts, 50 days after Easter, The Holy Spirit showed up, with gusto. God’s Spirit is a part of the understanding of the Divine in the Hebrew Bible as well, but the way the Spirit shows up is new. To be fair, the symbol of fire as representing God’s presence isn’t new, the burning bush helps us out there. And “tongues of fire” is a phrase that comes from Isaiah 5. The wind a symbol of the Spirit isn’t new either. But added up, it IS new.

God’s Spirit shows up, sounding like a rushing wind, looking like divided tongues of fire, and imparting the gift of being understandable to people of many nations, languages, and cultures. Robert Wall in the New Interpreter’s Bible says, “God’s spirit is poured out upon a community of believers. The Holy Spirit is not a ‘personal’ gift from God that each believer privatizes – ‘you can have your Spirit if I can have mine.’ This same Spirit of one God ‘appeared among them – on each of them’ as the distinguishing mark of a people belonging to God. The restoration of Israel is the work of this Spirit sent by God as promised (see 1:6) which is why the first auditors of the miracle of tongues were ‘devout Jews from every nation’ (2:5).”1

I must admit that this year I was particularly astonished by the list of the places the devout Jews were from. It served as a profound reminder of the history of the diaspora, of the people of Jewish faith being displaced, which is especially notable when Judaism has an especially strong theology as being people of the (promised) land.

This fits the history of the Jewish people, of course. They settled on land that was a crossroads between civilizations, and as Empires expanded they expanded to include the crossroads. As Empires contracted, other Empires expanded, and a long, difficult history of independence, tributes, colonization, and external control ALREADY characterized their history by the time of Jesus. Wars had come and gone. Empires had come and gone. And each time, people had come and gone, dispersing the “people of the land” to many lands.

It fits, as well, that dispersed people of the land would have a tradition of pilgrimage to come back home to the land.

These themes of place feel so strong in this story this year. The followers of Jesus being so afraid that their world contracted to a single room, or perhaps a home. The devout Jews being so broadly scattered and making such profound efforts to come “home” to worship. The ways that distance separated them even when they were in Jerusalem, by dress, and culture, and LANGUAGE.

The idea of a miracle of understanding. Of course, it makes sense to think about Christian Pentecost as being the antithesis of the Story of the Tower of Babel. In the Tower of Babel story, God was afraid the people had too much power together and seprated them with language. In the Pentecost Story, God’s Spirit blesses the people with connection and the capacity to speak and be understood. It could be said that God has gained trust in the people (and then it becomes a question of if we’ve earned it or God just gave it because God’s like that.)

Sometimes I yearn for the miracles of Pentecost, most often when I am speaking with someone whose language I share, but with whom I’m clearly not managing to communicate. The barriers of assumptions, connotations, life experience, expectations, values, and fears can make “shared language” distinctly insufficient for shared communication.

Yet, we are the inheritors of the Pentecost story. As one person put it, in Christmas we get the story of “God with us.” At Easter we learn that “God is for us.” At Pentecost we tell the story that God is IN us. The Spirit residing in and among us makes it possible for us to do God’s work in the world, to share love, to build the kindom – and sometimes even to understand and be understood.

While the pandemic continues around the world, and right here at home, in the United States many people are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccines are making it possible to for life to change again. It may make sense to think of us as emerging from an overly small room. (Acknowledging, of course, the many who cared for us so well that they never were able to protect themselves. I hope for front line workers there is an emerging from fear.)

I believe that God is up to good among us, now, as God was up to good among the disciples then. I’m not arrogant enough to claim I know what God is up to, but I can sense…. something. This sermon is the last one I’ll preach exclusively online, at least for a while and perhaps for always. While we will keep online worship, we will also offer an informal outdoor worship service starting next week. Like the disciples, we’ll be in the city, able to be heard by those walking by. Maybe, God’s Spirit will make us audible in a new way as we emerge. But whatever God is up to, I know it is good. Amen

1Robert W. Wall “Refections on Acts 2:1-13” in New Interpreter’s Bible Vol X, ed. Leader E. Keck et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), p. 57.

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May 9, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Humans: Needing Love and Comfort”

(a sermon dialogue with Rev. Lynn Gardner of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady and Rev. Sara Baron of the First United Methodist Church of Schenectady)

Part 1: Our awareness of our need for mothering (which is our need to be loved, and comforted)

Lynn: It started when I was on my yoga mat. It was early one morning last spring. I hadn’t been sleeping well, and I was up as the sun was rising, moving through familiar yoga asanas, gently stretching, moving, breathing. I was in child’s pose… curled over bent knees, forehead resting on the mat, when the crying began. Everything that my body had been holding in was let loose in a torrent of tears, growing into deep sobs. Worry, grief, fear, sadness, loneliness and anger, pouring out. My heart ached thinking of all those who were suffering alone or separated from anyone who was familiar.

On the day we were born and received the gift of our first breath we depended on our mothers, our parents, or other caring adults in order to survive. As we grew, those needs changed, but our need to be loved and cared for is still part of us. That morning on my yoga mat, I rocked, and cried, feeling the vulnerability of being human… that we need one another. This may be our vulnerability AND our strength.

Sara: The past year has been one of developing my identity as a mother. My child was born 51 weeks ago today. It has been a very long time since I’ve needed mothering as much as I have since I became a mother. It turns out that the capacity to give my child what he needs is dependent on having enough of my own needs met and, quite often, I can’t fulfill both sets of needs on my own, and am dependent on others to hold me up so I can hold him up.

I was raised upper middle class, and I’m white, and I have internalized the message that self-sufficiency is “good.” Which means I’m REALLY BAD at asking for help, and that hasn’t made me need it less. The pandemic has complicated EVERYTHING. When I needed help the most it felt least safe to receive it. When I hit the end of my capacity and could go no further, when tears filled my eyes and I simply could not do what I needed to do, when without love and comfort and support I could no longer offer love and comfort and support… I have spent this year learning that I need to be mothered well in order to mother well. For me, at least, this applies both to parenting AND to pastoring. To offer love and comfort to my congregation ALSO requires that I have something to give, and that means I have to reach out when I need love and comfort too.

Part 2: Stories of times we have received loving, comforting care when we needed it

Support can come in a wider range of formats than I ever knew. There was, for me, one day when everything I needed to do most profoundly exceeded my capacity to do it. Before that day was easier, after that day was easier, but on that day I could simply go no further. I remember texting 3 friends. It was August, and nothing felt safe, especially not in person. One friend got in the car to come help. Another stayed on the phone with me until she arrived and let me cry while being heard. The third texted back and forth all day assuring me that I was allowed to make things easier on myself, and it didn’t mean I was failing as a mother to do so.

Those three friends comforted me that day, they let their love for me become support when I needed it. I think it is fair to say that they mothered me, and BECAUSE they took care of me, I was able to take care of my child.

In some ways this story seems too small, and in other ways it seems … archetypal. Looking back at my life there are innumerable times when my pain or burden was too much to bear. In every one of them, I reached out for support. Sometimes I reached out directly to the Divine, which for me means I disappeared into nature and silence for the hours I needed before I could form words again. Other times I have reached out to family or friends (or my own pastor), and let them hold me up. It is in being held – in any medium- that I can regain my own self-regulation and find my way again.

Lynn: Isn’t it amazing when someone shows up in simple yet deeply caring ways? 21 years ago I went to stay at my parent’s home when my Mom was nearing the end of her life. She had been diagnosed with cancer just five weeks earlier. She was at home with hospice care, laying in a bed where she could look out and see her garden, and my father and sisters and I were caring for her and for one another. A long time friend called and asked if she could come by. She arrived with three hot-fudge brownie sundaes, one for me, one for her, and one for my Dad. Let’s go for a walk, she suggested. We walked and ate. She listened, and we cried and laughed together, and also held space for the comfort of shared silence. That was the most delicious sundae I have ever eaten.

Each of these moments in our lives have served to remind us that we are not self-sufficient, we do not walk or work alone. It is because of our connections that we are.. It is because we have been nurtured that we are functional and able to offer nurture.

Part 3: Growing us into capacity to give mothering

Sara: Our sweet baby is teething. It is miserable for everyone involved. We are very thankful in our house for pain medication. But sometimes it isn’t enough. Sometimes he hurts, and nothing we can do makes the hurt go away, and it is awful. In those moments, all we can do is be with him and assure him he isn’t alone. It doesn’t feel like enough in the moment, but I also wouldn’t dream of letting him suffer alone.

There are many sources of pain in life, physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional. In some cases we are able to do things that change them, like feeding people who are hungry. In many cases we cannot change reality, or the pain people experience, when they are grieving. In those cases all we can do is be with one another, and assure each other we aren’t alone. It doesn’t feel like enough, but the difference between being alone and being supported is significant. Our congregations can be communities of practice… where we continue to learn about giving and receiving care.

This has been one of the worst parts of the pandemic, that the means of support and comfort we are used to offering grieving people have been taken away. I invite those who are safely ready and able to loosen their COVID restrictions to think about how to offer love and support now that wasn’t possible before.

Learning the limits of what comfort I can give has never felt enjoyable, but it seems like the capacity to be a mother grows along with my awareness of my own limitations.

Part 4: The Divine as Nurturer, and Faith as Subversive when it comes to nurture.

The Gospel lesson we read today in the United Methodist church instructs us to “abide in love,” and expounds eloquently on the subject. I believe that this is what faith is all about. In Christian and United Methodist lingo we talk about “sanctification” which is the process of letting go of whatever is not love and being filled up with love so that you can respond to every person in every moment with pure love. In our models, continued faith development is all aimed at sanctification. (John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement believed that people could reach perfection in love during their life times. 😉 I share that as an interesting historical fact.)

In real life though, things are complicated. In many circumstances it is not clear what the most loving response actually is. What looks from one angle like loving nurture looks from another angle like enabling. These days I find myself reminding myself several times a day about the process of emerging from cocoons. That is, when transformed creatures emerge from cocoons it is a slow and seemingly painful process. Over the years many well meaning humans have tried to ease creatures ways out of the cocoon, only to learn that the moths and butterflies are permanently damaged by having the process eased. There is a fine line to walk in care for others, and I find I am never clear which side of it I’m on.

Lynn: Receiving care can also be complicated. Sometimes we just need someone to help us, or for someone to comfort us, but we don’t ask, and feel resentful. Or we don’t know who to ask… or we tell ourselves we don’t deserve it, or that someone else needs it more. And sometimes, it is so hard to just allow ourselves to be cared for… to really receive the love that is being offered.

Prior to seminary, I worked in child care for 20 years. Over those years, and while raising our daughter, I have held and rocked many a tired cranky little one. Whether you have done so yourself or not, I invite to imagine holding an overly-tired toddler, who is crying and pushing away, resisting their need for sleep with every ounce of energy they have. They are so tired… and so upset… not wanting to give up, to let go, and to sink into the arms that are holding them.

Unitarian Universalism affirms that each of us is worthy of love…. That we are each more than our worst mistake. That we are each worthy of care and comfort. We are all held by a larger Love that will not let us go… even when we struggle… even when we push away… I can imagine the Holy whispering, “shhh…. Shhhh….. I’m right here.”

Sara: I’m also deeply aware that while the Divine, faith, and Biblical teaching all call us to love, in our society the expectations around that love vary according to the bodies we occupy. Lynn and I have been reflecting on the human need to receive mothering – the human need to receive love and comfort – and suggesting that faith communities may be sources of giving good care so those in them can then give good care to the world. Yet, I keep thinking about the realities of “emotional labor” and the ways that female embodied people, and people of color, along with others thought in society to occupy subordinate positions are subliminally taught to offer care and nurture to those who are male embodied, white, and empowered. Kate Manne in “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny” talks about the ways emotional labor is thought to be the work of some and the privilege to receive of others, and how this is encouraged with “carrots” and enforced with “sticks.”

This awareness brings some of the deeper challenges of celebrating love and comfort into view. Humans need love and comfort. Humans can give love and comfort. But often the giving becomes the role of some and the receiving the roles of others. I believe that one of the subversive narratives of faith is inverting those roles, and making the giving of love, comfort, and nurture the role of all people – especially the ones in power.

So, dear ones, may we receive the wonderful mothering of the Divine and of the people of faith, and may we soak in love and comfort so that we are able to share it with abundance.

Amen