rest – First United Methodist Church Schenectady

“Being Fed and Given Rest by God” based on…

April 15, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

As human beings, we come into the world with needs. New
babies need milk, diaper changes, human touch, soothing, temperature
control, shelter, communication, emotional mirroring, safe spaces,
tummy time, and lots and lots of sleep. As far as I can tell, our
needs as humans grow from there.

Our needs remain complicated as well. We have physical
needs for food, drink, clothing, shelter, and equally important
social and emotional needs to be heard, to be understood, to play, to
find peace, to connect. Nonviolent Communication teachers share
lists of universal human needs, the one I use most often lists more
than 90 of them.

Because there are so many, and because life is so
complicated, it is rare for us to have our needs met at the same
time. Nonviolent Communication theory suggests that everything we
say and do is really about trying to get those needs met, and I
haven’t seen any reason to disbelieve it. It may help to know that
needs for peace, contribution, learning, purpose, and celebration
exist – so some of the needs make space for us to want to do things
that impact others.

The Isaiah passage opens up for me the dream of having
needs being met, perhaps even to have all of them met all at once.
Without Isaiah dreaming it, I’m not sure I could conceive of this.
Furthermore, the dream isn’t of some weak, minimalistic set of needs
being met. It is all of them being met well. Using the direct,
physical needs of thirst and hunger, Isaiah speaks of being offered
water, wine, milk, and rich food – without having to even pay for
them!

These were not foods that average people were eating –
these were the foods of the rich, and Isaiah proposes that God wants
all the people to access those good foods. This is an opening to
thinking about life with God, life in relationship to God, life that
is shared under God’s vision of how things are supposed to be.

How things are supposed to be is incredibly disconnected
from how the world actually was, and how it actually is. This
passage comes from the end of Second Isaiah, which dreams of a
different life for the exiles who God is going to lead home. The
people have been in captivity in Babylon, and their captivity is
about to be transformed. The hope of the passage is that in coming
home to Ancient Israel, the people will also come home to God’s ways.
Walter Brueggemann writes,

“The initial verse, perhaps in the summoning mode of a
street vendor, offers to passersby free water, free wine, and free
milk. This of course is in contrast to the life resources offered by
the empire that are always expensive, grudging, and unsatisfying.
Israel is invited to choose the free, alternative nourishment offered
by Yahweh. Thus, although we may ponder the metaphor of free food,
the udnerying urging is the sharp contrast between the way of life
given in Babylon that leads to death and the way of Yahweh that leads
to joyous homecoming.”¹

The vision of Yahweh for Ancient Israel, which I believe
is still the vision of God for all people, is for the people to have
enough to survive AND thrive. The world itself produces plenty, but
our societies distribution patterns prevent the “enough” from
getting to the people. According to the Poor People’s campaign, in
the US today, 43.5% of US population are in poverty or are
low-income.²
Those old systems of the empires – the ones that bring the wealth
created by the many to the top – those are still happening.

It is funny to think of our needs being met, not only
because there are so many of them, but because even the idea of
universally satisfying the basic physical human needs is so far from
reality. What would it look like if all people had enough to eat –
of nutritious and delicious food? Can we quite imagine it? What
would it look like here and elsewhere if the housing stock was mold
free, well insulated, repairs were up to date, water was safe to
drink, AND homelessness was eliminated? It is a thing to ponder.
Can we imagine universal health care in this country, and one that
works? Where people can afford both preventative care and
necessarily life-giving measures? What about this – can we imagine
a world where there are enough mental health care providers for all
who need them, and all are offering top notch, compassionate care
(and the mental health care providers aren’t over worked, are
adequately paid, and have time and energy to do necessary self care)?
Oh what a world this would be!! Ready for one more? Can we imagine
a society with expansive parental leave policies for people at every
income level, with excellent nursery and day care for babies AND
nursing and adult care for adults in need, provided by people who are
adequately compensated for their imperative work, and trained to
offer it at the highest levels?

Can we even dream it? Those are the BASICS, and Isaiah
invites us to dream them. Those aren’t quite milk, wine, and rich
foods. Those are merely clean water and enough bread for everyone.
Even with these pieces met, a lot of problems would remain. But if
the BASICS were met, it would matter a lot. And it is POSSIBLE.
This is not an unattainable dream – the capacity to make it happen
already exists.

I think it is a dream that Isaiah pushes us to
contemplate. If we don’t dream a little bit, we can’t know what we
are working towards, and we have no chance of getting there.

Of course, if we had a system where basic needs were
met, it would radically upend the economy, and society. It is a very
BIG dream. To have people’s needs met would mean that some of the
value of their labor would have to return to them, and that more the
value of all of our labor would be needed to care for those who
cannot labor. We can’t have a system that cares adequately for all
people AND one that allows the work of most to enrich the few.

In addition to dreaming a dream of human needs being
met, Isaiah’s passage also condemns the system as it was for how it
worked. It indicts the labor system for enriching the empire at the
expense of the labors. It also called out the thinking that allowed
it, called people out of the idea that working harder within the
system would find them a way to get to satisfaction. This is one of
the hardest lessons for us today. Working harder in rigged systems
only exhausts us, it does not get us what we need. We still have a
system where people “spend your money for that which is not bread
and your labor for that which does not satisfy,” because the labor
is not permitted to bring satisfaction!

God’s dream is NOT a system of competition, of forced
labor, or even of economic gain over another. God’s dream is NOT one
where people have to work harder than their neighbors into to fight
for the scraps they need to survive. This is true BOTH with regards
to food and health care AND with regard to love and beauty. God
wants us to have what we need, and the earth is capable of providing
it, but not when people are exploited for other’s excess.

I suspect is is this system of thinking that is
reflected in the later words of the “righteous” and the “wicked”
– the ones who are willing to let go of the systems of exploitation
of the empire to move into God’s vision are the righteous, and those
who continue to participate in it and be co-opted by it are the
“wicked.” This isn’t just me. Brueggemann came to the same
conclusions 😉 (and that makes me feel SUPER smart.) “’The
wicked’, I suggest, are not disobedient people in general. In
context, they are those who are so settled in Babylon and so
accommodated to imperial ways that they have no intention of making a
positive response to Yahweh’s invitation of homecoming.”³

Between all of this, and the echoes from the Psalm, I’m
wondering us and about how well we are doing “making a positive
response to Yahweh’s invitation of homecoming.” How well are we
able to leave behind the systems and thought patterns of oppression
and competition to move into a brave new world? How interested are
we in the possibilities of the present and the future?

For me, some of the process of freeing myself from the
systems of oppression come in the practices of Sabbath-keeping and
meditative prayer. It is EASY to get pulled in to never-ending
productivity, but when I STOP trying to be productive, I’m more able
to figure out what the goal of the production is anyway! It is easy
to get pulled into a roller-coaster of emotions with the 24 hour news
cycle, but when I stop and get quiet, I can hear which parts of what
is happening I’m most able to respond to in a useful way. The times
of quiet in my life are when I can hear my own soul, and the Divine
prodding, when I can let go of how I’m supposed to present myself,
and simply be. And unless I’m doing those things, I’m VERY easily
swayed by the systems of oppression.

This is where spirituality intersects with both justice
work and my own well-being. It isn’t healthy for us to live in the
levels of anxiety that modern life produces, but it isn’t easy to let
go of i either! (In a different sort of church, that might merit an
“amen.”) It is hard to focus on what needs to be done to build a
better society and world, particularly when dumpster fires are
happening all around us – but the capacity to build focus is part
of the gift of spiritual practice, as is the process of being able to
prioritize.

Beloveds of God, are we finding the ways to listen to
the Holy One? God’s guidance is worthwhile – the Psalmist even
finds it worth clinging to. Are we taking the time for rest, for
Sabbath, for prayer, so that we can have those needs met and be able
to envision a world where many needs are met for all people? The
invitation is given to us – to be fed, to rest, to be filled, to be
satiated. May we receive it, and pass it on. Amen

1Walter
Bruggemann, Isaiah
40-66
(Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998),159.

2Institute
for Policy Studies, “The Souls of Poor Folk: A Preliminary Report”
(December 2017)
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/PPC-Report-Draft-1.pdf,
page 8.

3Brueggemann,
160.

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

March 24, 2019

Sermons

“Taking Refuge in God” based on Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16…

April 15, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I find it terribly interesting to be human, particularly
the irrational parts of being human. For instance, I am quite
capable of articulating the difference between God and the Church.
Here, I’ll prove it to you: God is the creator of all that is, and
the grounding source of love that universe is build on. The Church
is a gathering of people who have learned about God largely through
Jesus of Nazareth and try to be responsive to God, including in
sharing in the effort to make the world more loving.

OK. I know there is a difference. I believe myself to
be rock solid on the difference.

Except that many, many, MANY times in my life, I’ve
gotten confused between the two. When the Church (big C) has messed
up, has proven itself to be entirely too human, has broken my heart,
and has failed to be what I think it should be – I’ve responded by
getting distant with God, as if the failures of the Church are God’s
fault. I’ve done this repeatedly in my life, and I don’t seem to be
capable of remembering the difference between the two, even though I
already know it (mentally).

This seems like a particularly good time to remember
that God is God, and the denomination, the Annual Conference, even
this local church are not. God is dependable, steadfast, and loving;
even when God’s people “turn away and our love fails.” Holiness
is present, even when we don’t feel loved or heard by God’s people.
The Spirit offers us rest, support, and abundance; even when life is
feeling frenetic, unhinged, and scarce. The Divine calls us to
healing, to wholeness, to authenticity, to full life; even when at
the same time we hear voices telling us to form ourselves into
something we just aren’t.

God is God, and God is GOOD. God’s steadfast love
endures forever, and it is enough.

In the language of the Psalm, God is our refuge, our
fortress, our dwelling place, our shelter. We are at home in God,
and we are safe. We can relax with the Holy One, we can trust in
God’s love, and goodness, and desire for our well-being. We don’t
have to fight to be “enough” or different than how we really are.
We aren’t competing against each other for God’s love, because it is
not a finite quality. Our natural state is “beloved by God.” We
don’t have to earn it or compete for it. It already is.

That, dear ones, is how grace works. Just in case it
has been a while since you’ve remembered the nuances of grace, grace
is a word for God’s unconditional love for all of creation, and it is
God’s nature to be loving, to be full of grace. Grace isn’t earned,
it just is, because it is God’s essence. As followers of John
Wesley, even talk about various forms of grace including previenent
grace, the grace that comes before (like someone wearing too much
scent). Previenent grace is God’s love for a person that comes
before that person is aware of God, or of God’s love.

Wesleyan theology says that later on, if we become aware
of God, and of God’s love, and decide to work with God for good in
the world, we are impacted by “sanctifying grace”, also known as
the process of sanctification. This is the process by which things
that are not loving in us are allowed to wilt away, while love takes
deeper and deeper root in us. It is the process of letting our lives
be defined by God’s grace for us and for others. It is letting love
take over. The idea of John Wesley is that the work of Christians in
their own lives is to be sanctified, to become every more loving
until love is all that is left.

I like that part 😉

Deuteronomy is … it is many things at once. Walter
Bruggemann, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, often talks about how
the text criss-crosses generations. He says, “The rhetoric works
so that the speaker who is a belated rememberer of an old event
becomes a present tense participant in that old event. In
‘liturgical time,’ the gap between past time and present time is
overcome, and present-tense characters become involved in remembered
events.”¹
This gets even more criss-crossed when we attempt to put this text
into context.

Deuteronomy places itself on the far side of the river
from the Promised Land, it is a series of speeches by Moses to the
people before they finally enter the Land. So, from that
perspective, this series of instructions of what to do with the first
fruits of the land – the promised land – is a future tense
reality. Within the text, the people are dreaming of living in the
land, and haven’t gotten there yet. Yet, the instructions are for
what people will say with their tithes, and the words people are
saying reflect back on the process of getting to (and into the land)
which in the story hasn’t happened yet.

If you want to add more layers (which clearly I do),
think about the fact that this was likely written down during the
exile – so a person who once lived in the land but did no longer,
was writing down the words of one who never lived in the land, to
those who would enter the land, about what they would say when they
got produce out of the land, about their history before they got to
the land. Which is to say, I think Brueggemann is right, and there
are ways that time gets messy in these texts 😉

I’m interested, as well, in the fact that re-telling in
this liturgical way of the entrance into the Promised Land doesn’t
talk about the wandering in the desert. It is huge theme in
Deuteronomy, where it is said time and time again that the people
needed to learn that they could rely on God before they could be
ready to deal with the abundance of life in the Promised Land, so
they wouldn’t think it had come to them from their own doing. It
also functioned to led the old generation pass away, so that those
who had known the oppression of slavery were not the ones who build a
new thing. However, none of that is mentioned in this particular
piece, even though the rest of the history is.

Bishop Karen Oliveto posted on Facebook this week, “You
can take people out of Egypt but the main task of liberation is to
take Egypt out of the people. Perhaps this is why wilderness
wandering is necessary in our journey?” That was when I noticed
that this particular text glosses over the wandering. Perhaps it
doesn’t have to be named here, because in the idea that the person is
giving first fruits, we know they haven’t forgotten the lessons of
the wandering. In any case, remembering that the wandering exists to
teach us liberation is definitely of use!

I’m struck by the way the Promised Land is constructed
as being itself a refuge, throughout the Bible. Granted, just like
churches, it is an often broken one, and just like churches it gets
confused with God. When the people lost the land they took it to
mean they’d lost God’s favor. Yet, it might be easier to read this
text with awareness that land IS sacred, and that means land is HOLY,
and certainly for those who have been without land, land is a refuge
onto which they can build a life. Space can become home, it can
reflect God’s own home-like attributes.

Did you hear the end of the passage? After the first
fruits have been given and the past has been remembered, it says,
“Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside
among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God
has given to you and to your house.” I LOVE this part. After all
the labor of growing and harvesting the food, after all the
remembering (and bouncing around in time) the end game is a feast of
bounty to which ALL are invited. All, including those without land.
All, including those who don’t know or worship God. Those with
plenty, those without, those set aside to do God’s work, those who
are doing normal daily work, those who don’t have work – ALL the
people are coming to the feast. The work that is given to God is
meant to be redistributed so that everyone can access it together.

That Promised Land, the one the people were waiting to
enter? It wasn’t meant to just be a refuge for them. It was meant
to be a refuge for all. The “law” of the Torah seeks to ensure
that widows, and orphans, those without someone powerful to care for
them, will still have enough. The Torah seeks to ensure that
outsiders – the foreigners, the immigrants, the refugees – will be
welcome and cared for. The Torah OBSESSES over the poor, and puts in
place practices that will prevent long term poverty and allow people
to be lifted up. The land isn’t meant to be a refuge for some, or
for the lucky, or for those who do right. It was designed to be a
refuge for all – a refuge that reflects God’s nature.

Now, after fussing over these texts sufficiently, I want
to get a bit practical. God IS our refuge, and an excellent refuge
at that, but we are not always prepared to receive the goodness of
God’s gifts because we tend not to pay attention them. We are
something, maybe too busy, too distracted, or too scared. (Scared
because we’ve been around broken humans enough to be afraid that God
isn’t as loving as we’d hope, since humans often aren’t.)

However, the rest, the refuge, the HOME that God IS for
us, is a gift to us that we can receive if we make time and space to
do so. I, personally, am best able to connect with this gift when I
practice Centering Prayer. Centering Prayer is “just” being,
breathing in and out, and letting thoughts float away without
judgment or attachment. It is a type of prayer that takes practice,
but it is transformative. Other times, to access the rest, the
refuge, the home that God IS, I need to be in physical places where I
feel safe; other times I need to be with those with whom I can laugh.
Still other times, a quiet walk in the woods, a good deep cry, or
some time coloring mandalas will make space within me to let God’s
gifts in. What helps you? Are you doing it? Do you need help
finding new or different ways to let God’s rest, refuge, offer of
home take hold in you? If you do, let’s talk.

Because the world doesn’t need us exhausted, aimless,
and scared. God and the world most need people being sanctified by
grace, and I think we should make space to let God help us be those
people! Amen

1Walter
Brueggemann, Deuteronomy
(Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 2001)

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

March 10, 2019

Sermons

“What Angers God” based on Amos 8:1-12

July 17, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Most of the time, when people quote Amos, they quote the sweet part (Amos 5:24) which says, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” What they miss is that the verse they know is in the midst of more pieces just like the one we just read. The paragraph that verse is in, is attributed to God, saying:

21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;

I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

25 Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images that you made for yourselves;27therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

I say that mostly so that you don’t think our passage from Amos today is the weird part of the book. Amos loves justice and righteousness, and he speaks about a God who cares about how people are treated. But, even for prophets, Amos isn’t a cheerful one. He believes that the people of God have utterly failed to uphold their end of the covenant and that their utter destruction is imminent. He says so, and people hate it.

Looking at today’s text, this is one of the times that Biblical translation totally ruins the play on words. Amos sees a basket of summer fruit and the word for “summer fruit” sounds like the word for “end.” Therefore the first hearers would have noticed the play on words and been able to follow, but for us the textual connection is just obscure. We are left to trust the Hebrew scholars who tell us that it goes like. that This is a vision and a pronouncement about the end of life as Israel knew it.

Most scholars think that the book of Amos reflects prophetic oracles that derive from Amos himself, although they have been edited and a false ending added to soften the original end of the book! They think it came into its present form during the exile (587-539 BCE), so about 200 years after the prophet lived and spoke. As one scholar puts is, the oracles of Amos, “mainly condemned the ruling class in the north for their oppressive treatment of poor and needy members of society, and threatened that Israel would be punished by God, probably by military invasion and defeat. … Amos does not condemn Israel for faithless foreign policies; rather, he concentrates on the treatment of one section of society by another.”^¹ This oracle certainly fits that description.

There is a lot of destruction predicted, and that may reflect both the historical sayings of Amos and the historical remembering of both the Northern Exile (722 BCE) and the Southern one, since it got written down after both of them. I would like to focus, though, on the complaints that Amos names as the issues God is having with the people:

that they “trample on the needy”

and “bring to ruin the poor of the land”

they are impatient with religious observance, wanting to get back to making money

they cheat the people with improper weights and measures

they are “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals”

instead of selling food to people, they sell them mostly inedible food leftovers

These are both individual and communal wrongdoings. While each individual seller is responsible for their own actions which are wrong, that’s not all that is happening. It is because EVERYONE is doing this trampling that the poor are trampled. If some of the merchants were fair, people would have good options. If there were regulations of weights and measures, the people couldn’t be cheated. Society has to look the other way, and the empowered have to choose to do nothing in order for the poor and powerless to be so completely decimated. The wrong that is done is done by each person doing it and by the whole for not stopping it.

The line “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” is one of the more provoking in the Bible. It exemplifies the reality of greed – that when one person is trying to get rich, the people they are getting rich off of are paying the price. In reality, this was likely happening. It was common in ancient days (and ones not so long ago) for people to get so deeply into debt that they would sell themselves or their children into slavery to pay off the debt. The vision of God in the Torah which forbids interest AND forbids the selling of ancestral land, seeks to create a society without people being sold to pay off debts, but the people weren’t living that vision. People were cheating each other to make greater profits off of sandals, and those who were poor and vulnerable were being bought and sold because of the injustices of those profit margins.

I can imagine the justification of the grain sellers in the markets in Bethel, their responses to hearing Amos’s claims. Can’t you? They would say, “I have to feed my family! And I can’t do that if I sell the wheat in pure form because the harvest wasn’t good enough.” They would say, “I know my scale isn’t balanced, but did you see the guy over there? His is way worse!” They would say, “Yes, I’m doing OK for myself, but I work hard and I’ve earned what I have!” They would say, “It is the people’s choice to buy where they want, it isn’t my responsibility to take care of their well-being.” They would say, “If you don’t have enough money, you don’t get to buy the good stuff.” They would self-justify to the end, and in doing so deny their shared humanity with the people who happened to be poor or needy.

This spring I went to a training put on by the United Methodist Women about Human Sexuality so that I qualified to teach “Human Sexuality” MissionU this summer. They’re coming quickly! During the exercises we did to experience the curriculum we heard from a survivor of child sex trafficking. In the video she mentioned how many children are trafficked and how many people they were expected to sleep with every night. I did the math my head. By low estimates, 2,000,000 times a night, a child is paid for sex in our country. Suddenly it occurred to me that this means that there are A LOT of people choosing to use the bodies of children in this way. My mind was blown. I had no idea that so many people were engaged in such behavior, and it made me rethink our society as a whole.

It also led me to continued research, and I found quotations from men who bought sex with sex workers which are entirely too disturbing to be read from this pulpit.^² Even more distressing was that according to the research that is out there (which is mostly LOUSY by the way) the people who are buying sex are pretty NORMAL. Talk about “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandal” though! People who have enough to spend some as discretionary income are using it to buy access to the bodies of people who have no choice. (Although I acknowledge the reality that there are people who choose out of true free will and not just economic circumstances to sell their bodies, I believe that is rare enough and the harms done to those who do not truly have choice are severe enough that it is worth focusing on those who do not have control.) Most of sex that is bought and sold is done of desperation, addiction, and usually a lack of control over one’s life. Yet, people buy it.

People BUY access to another person’s body – quite often young girls who have been taken away from their families and friends. It is very clear to me that the harms that Amos spoke about, the “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandal” are very much still alive and well here and today. In Schenectady we know that there is plenty of prostitution and sex trafficking, and we know that once the casino opens we will have a lot more.

We also know, at least if we are listening to Amos, that God cares about the people that society ignores. The poor, the needy, the disenfranchised, the “least, the last, the lost, and the lonely” to name a few. God gets upset over the treatment of people who society tries to pretend don’t exist.

This week I was given the honor of being invited to sit on a panel to talk about the #BlackLivesMatter movement in Schenectady, and in particular the relationship between minority communities and our police forces. There were many articulate comments made about the ways that people who live in dark skin are told that they don’t matter. Some of the worst of those are known to us in the homicides perpetrated by police, but there are a million tiny cuts that happen every day in our city and county and country to people in dark skin.

Our society defines some people as mattering and others as not. That’s why we have to say #BlackLivesMatter. That’s why we have to be informed about sex trafficking and think about the reality that people BUY one another – if even only for minutes at a time. God is angered by the ways we dehumanize each other. God is angered when we allow injustice to fester and the vulnerable to pay the price. I’ve said before, and I still believe that the root sin is dehumanizing other beloved children of God. Everything derives from that.

Amos threaten the people with being abandoned by God, defeated in war, and the destroyed by an earthquake. That is to say, he thought God was angry, and angry enough to act on behalf of the people that the king and his empowered court had abandoned. I agree that God is angry, although I disagree with Amos about God’s methods. Given the injustices of today, I simply hear God crying and begging us to pay attention all of God’s people.

In the #BlackLivesMatter conversation we were encouraged to participate in Study Circles (I believe they will be coming back and we will get information out), to talk to people are different than we are, and to continue the work of educating ourselves on racism and – where it applies – white privilege. There is also a plan for continued conversation in our city.

With regard to sex workers and human trafficking, there is a a local resource that is doing great work. (Please consider this your mission moment in the sermon.) “Patty’s Place is a drop-in support and referral center for women engaged in sex work. They provide basic services such as food, showers, hygiene items, clothing, HIV testing, and a secure resting place, which help these women be safer in their current lives. They also offer counseling and referrals for longer-term services that can help women improve their lives and leave the sex trade. Most of the women with whom they work have suffered from years of abuse and have a variety of overlapping problems and needs. Patty’s Place gives these women a network of supportive relationships and help navigating the diverse services they need.” If you want to help, their two biggest needs are volunteers and donations. Volunteers are needed to do outreach and to do administration work. Donations are useful both as money and as supplies. Today they are mostly needing new underwear in all sizes and deodorant. If you get donations to us, we will get them to Patty’s place.

As the casino gets closer to opening, we are needing to prepare for expansions of dehumanization in our city. Studies tell us that there will be more trafficking and more people looking to buy sex. They also tell us that there will be more corruption, which means more injustice. There will likely be more crime, and more of it violent. As incumbent as it already is on us to re-humanize other people, and to recognize all people as beloved by God, there are going to be new challenges to that work. The current projections are that the casino will open in the first quarter of 2017.

There is a lot of work to do. Some of it, however, is in getting quiet and listening. We are not going to be able to invert all of the damage to our communities created by the city. Singlehandedly, we cannot even solve the struggles our city already has. We will need to focus a bit, listen for how we are best able to rehumanize God’s people, and get ready to do it. That is, while I encourage us to continue the work of building the kin-dom, loving the people, transforming injustice, and acknowledging all of God’s children, I also encourage us ALL to take some deep breaths. Maybe even a few months of deep breaths. Things are going to get harder around here, and we are going to need to be calm, centered, steady, and supportive of each other to be useful in changing things.

We aren’t called to be like the merchants in Bethel that Amos spoke to. Instead, we are called to take responsibility for the ways that our society diminishes beloved children of God, and do our part to change it. Some of that involves being quiet and observant to notice what is going on. Thanks be to God that there are so many ways we can participate in acts of love and justice. Thanks be to God that we are called both to action AND to Sabbath. May we learn to do both well. Amen

1John Barton “Introduction to Amos” in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible edited by Walter J Harrelson (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2003) 1279

2Two of them, “Prostitution is renting an organ for 10 minutes” and “Being with a prostitute is like having a cup of coffee, when you’re done, you throw it out” found at http://www.ksufreedomalliance.org/sex-trafficking.html

–

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

June 17. 2016

Sermons

“The Kindom of God”based on Psalm 42:1-6a, Luke 8:26-39

June 19, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I spent a large portion of my seminary years at a gay nightclub called Oasis, which, as it was located in “The Inland Empire” in Southern California was largely populated by Latino men. Being a pastoral intern and learning how to be a pastor often felt like walking on a tightrope. Being a seminarian felt like being a head without a body. I went to the club to hang out with my friends. I went to the club to dance. I went to the club in defiance of what everyone expected me to be doing in seminary. I went to the club because it was so much nicer than going to straight clubs and being creepily hit on.

Mostly though, I went to the club to be more fully human. The darkened space, the deep pulsing of the bass, the squeals of delight, the sweating bodies, and the freedom to MOVE balanced my life. It got me out of my head, and into the wholeness of my body. It was a sanctuary from TRYING so hard to BE and to BECOME someone other than who I was. It was part of being a whole person, and not just a desexualized, dehumanized, pastoral person. It was fun, it was ridiculous at times, and it was definitely fully embodied.

As a straight, white, cisgender seminary student, the mostly Latin gay club was a sanctuary for the fullness of my humanity. It was safe space to be. For the men I went dancing with, the space was far more important. It was community, it was family, (it was a dating pool), it was space where they were allowed to look at (and often touch) other men without reproach. For the men and women who might otherwise have been closeted, I suspect the space was even more important. It was a place to be accepted as who they were, even if mostly anonymously. For those from families and communities who believed that God’s grace had limits, it was space to shake off those shackles and be free.

All week I’ve heard of the gay club as “sanctuary,” and all the more so on Latin night for people who are Latino, Latina, and Latinx. Personally, I believe it, because on my own micro scale, I’ve lived it. I believe it, because I can imagine a little bit, how much more important the experience of sanctuary has been for those for whom the space was actually made – the very same people for whom most churches are places of violence rather than safety.

As followers of Jesus, our lives are meant to be focused on building the kindom of God. It is the work that Jesus was doing in his life time, and it is the work we continue as the Body of Christ through our lifetimes. The kindom of God is the world as God would have it be: a time when the resources of the world are shared with freedom and all people have enough to survive and thrive. The kindom of God is the time when all people treat each other as the closest of kin, taking care of each other and supporting each other’s needs.

This was the work of Jesus. He found ways to help people connect with each other and support each other even in the midst of the challenges of the Roman Empire’s occupation of Galilee and Judea. This is the work we are still at. Weeks like this past one are ones when we are particularly aware of how far the world is from the kindom.

Like broken Gentile man in the gospel, the brokenness of our world is Legion. Thinking only of Orlando, there are so many ways that the kindom of God was desecrated. The work of the kindom is toward peace and wholeness: violence defiled it. The work of the kindom is toward safety and security: gunshots profaned it. The work of the kindom is to end racism and acknowledge the profound beauty and humanity of people with all skin tones: the kindom was violated when ever more vulnerable brown-skipped bodies were filled with bullets. The work of the kindom is to eliminated xenophobia and acknowledge our shared humanity with people from all nations and ethnicity: the kindom was profaned in the targeted attack on the Latin community. The work of the kindom is to build up the vulnerable and enable all people to live full and abundant lives: the kindom was defaced when the targeted population was the vulnerable LGBTQI community. The work of the kindom is to care for the sick and injured, including the mentally ill and injured: the work of the kindom was dishonored by the ways the shooter failed to be treated.

Friends, a massacre happened at a gay club on Latin night. The horrors are Legion. The world is so broken.

Yet, our question today is the same question we bring everyday: what is our role in bringing the kindom of God today? It seems that there are many ways forward. One is living into the grief, which must be one. Another is in letting the anger within us rise and motivated us to action, which also must be done. But for today, for this one day, my sense is that our role in brining the kindom of God is to at rest and to be comforted. The comfort won’t take away the grief, and it won’t take away the anger. But in the midst of tragedy, one of God’s yearnings is to comfort the people, and one of our responsibilities is to receive the comfort.

In our tradition, even Sunday is seen as a mini-Easter, a day to remember the power of God to bring life into the world. In our tradition, as in many, the space in which we gather to worship is a “sanctuary.” The word itself comes from Latin through French, deriving from Latin “sanctus” for “holy.” Because the law of the medieval church held that no one could be arrested in a sanctuary, another meaning derived as well, one that indicates that a fugitive is safe and immune from those who would harm them. At times, our church sanctuaries still function in that way.

Gathering together in holy space, where all are meant to be safe, to celebrate the work of the Living God over and over again is part of the rhythm and ritual of building the kindom. Our sanctuaries are the places we experience enough safety to be able to connect with God, with each other, and with the deepest parts of ourselves. They are imperative to the creation of the kindom, as they are what the kindom will actually be (just on a bigger scale!) They are imperative to the creation of the kindom because they form us into kindom people.

Gathering in this space today, we bring with us grief, anger, confusion, and fear – at least. In this sacred space I hope we are able to let go of our grip on each of those and let God’s love and hope find a home in us again. We gather in this space, letting God comfort and heal us, resting in faith that God’s comfort and healing will be with all those who need it.As one scholar reminded me this week, “the words ‘heal’ and ‘save’ are the same in Greek.”¹ That’s a fact to put in your memory bank and keep the next time someone says something theologically stupid. It will keep your head from exploding. 😉 One of the most consistent messages of Christianity has been “Our God saves.” When translated to “Our God heals” this is a message to soak in. In the Gospel lesson, God working through Jesus heals a man whose harms are “Legion.” In and through us, and others, God is at work to heal the world’s Legion harms as well.

Some of our response requires us to pay attention to grace, wonder, and beauty around us. Today we had the opportunity to participate in the sacrament of baptism, officially welcoming Kate Rosemary into the Body of Christ, and promising to teach her how to love God and God’s people. What a source of wonder she is! What a joy it is to see her thriving! What a source of life renewal and energy she is! This beautiful, happy baby and her loving wise parents remind us of the goodness of life. The wonder of baptism reminds us all that we are welcome among God’s people. There is a lot to be grateful for.

Today we also have the opportunity to celebrate the High School graduation of Chris Rambo Jr. As many here remember, Chris Jr. and his faith Chris Sr. came to this church when Chris Jr. was young and many pieces of his soul still hurt. Chris Sr. was in the process of adopting him, a call he had known for many years. This church baptized Chris Jr., and confirmed him, has celebrated him and occasionally scolded him, loved him, and expressed how proud they are of him.

I don’t know what Chris Jr.’s live would have been like without Chris Sr., but I imagine most of his achievements would not have been possible. He would not have been on the Academic Honor Roll at the Capital Region Career and Technical School in his Junior and Senior Years. He would not have volunteered for the Crop Walk, fundraised for the BOCES Christmas Toy Drive, packed Thanksgiving dinners, insulated homes for Habitat for Humanity and Global Volunteers, walked dogs at the Damien Center, performed hurricane relief in Schoharie County, sang Christmas carols to shut-ins, performed maintenance at Sky Lake Camp & Retreat Center, and served many breakfasts and dinners at First United Methodist and Schenectady City Mission. He would have not become a volunteer fire fighter, nor a certified scuba diver, nor Red Cross certified in First Aid and CPR for Adults, Children,

and Infants. He likely would not have been able to play volleyball, wrestling, and basketball for Guilderland. And quite likely his life would not have made it possible for him to enter the Automotive Technology Program at Hudson Valley Community College this Fall.

God’s love has been the motivating force in Chris Sr.’s life for a very long time. God nudged Chris to become a father to someone who needed him, and Chris to the call very seriously. Chris Jr. was a hurting, struggling kid whose life has been transformed by his father’s love and by the love of the adults he has come to know through his many activities and this church. His life and his successes are proof of the power of the love of God in the world. Healing has come. Life is good. There is much to be grateful for.

Friends who went to Orlando this week reported the existence of dance parties. The LGBTQI community was healing itself through dance. The Latino/Latina/Latinx community was healing itself through dance. The same experience that had been violated with horrific violence was reclaimed to continue its work of healing. There are many too deep in grief to dance. There are may too profoundly wounded to dance. There are way too many who will never dance again. Yet those who could and would, danced. The life-force in them required reclaiming their bodies, their anthems, their lives, their space, their sanctuaries.

It is time to reclaim sanctuaries. I say this as act of defiance. Acts of terrorism and violence, particularly mass murders in communal spaces are intended to make us afraid. Sanctuaries have been violated, but they must be reclaimed. Fear has been poured into the water of our country and our world, but we cannot continue to drink from it.

We must reclaim sanctuary in this space and for the world for the sake of the kindom. We be formed into full expressions of God’s love while we live in fear. So, our work is to make space for the wonder: for Katie Rosemary, for Chris Jr, and for dance parties. Our work is to attend to the goodness along with the horrors. Our work is to find space and people among whom we feel safe and to soak in the goodness. Our “work” is to let God comfort us, and bring us rest. Having hung with God before, I suspect this work will transform itself soon enough! We might as well enjoy Sabbath, Sanctuary, rest and comfort for now – for the sake of the kindom. Amen

Sermon Talkback Questions

What emotions did you bring with you today?
Are there other aspects of the Legions of horrors that need to be named?
When have you experienced sanctuary most profoundly?
What do you sense God calling you/us to today?
What else is necessary in you/us to feed us for the building of the kindom?
I listed Kate’s baptism, Chris Jr’s graduation, (really, Chris Sr’s adoption of Chris Jr), and dance parties in Orlando as signs of hope. I really wanted to add the “act of nonconformity” passed by the New England Annual Conference. What else did you want to add?
How else do we reject fear?
Where and how else can we work to reclaim sacred space? (Dancing works for me, what works for you?)

1 James W. Thomas “Exegetical Perspective on Luke 8:26-39” , p. 171 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

June 19, 2016