The Beloveds

January 18, 2026March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“The Beloveds” based on Matthew 3:13-17 and The UMC Social Principle on Racism, Ethnocentrism, and Tribalism

Into a world obsessed with those who have power over others, comes this little story about John and Jesus. The story is a fight to the bottom of the power structure. It is clearly told by early Church to tell us things about Jesus, as it doesn’t really fit the realities of his life. But it is, nevertheless, a rich little story.

While Luke goes to great pains to set up John and Jesus as cousins, that doesn’t happen in Matthew. In Matthew, John is a prophet in the wilderness calling the people to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come” and baptizing the people in the River Jordan. John was functioning as a prophet, and he acquired students who learned from him and taught his ways. Students are also known as disciples, and the way one became a disciple of a teacher or prophet was to be baptized by him.

Which is to say, that by the best guess of the best historical scholars, based on what we know, Jesus was a disciple of John. He was baptized by John and learned from him. Later on, when John is killed, Jesus continues the ministry of John INCLUDING taking on his theme “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come” as Jesus’s main theme. He does, eventually, make it is own.

So we have this historical detail that Jesus was baptized by John, adapted a bit by the early Jesus movement to make sure it is clear that the point of this story is JESUS and not JOHN. So they have John objecting to it, which probably didn’t happen. And they have the voice of God show up… and I have to say I’m less willing to fight about that one.

Why?

Because at every baptism I have ever been present to it has been as if God has been speaking saying, “this is my child, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” So while I’m not about to claim that this voice of God was objectively heard by all present or anything, I think it is one of the fundamental truths of the universe that is especially noticeable at baptism and it seems feasible to me that people could have sensed it at the baptism of Jesus.

In Latin, the phrase is “imago dei” which translates to “in the image of God” and it is the church shorthand for “people are made in the image of God which means that each and every person is holy.” This is one of the most foundational truths of our faith. We share it with other faith traditions, it is a truth that cannot be easily contained.

Everyone is beloved by God. God wishes good for everyone.

And while I always I hear this truth reflected at baptism, let me state explicitly that it applies to people who are not baptized, people who are not Christian, and people who are not religious. Being beloved of God even applies to people who do great harm. That doesn’t mean God is in favor of people harming each other, God’s love for us is just so immense and foundational that it can’t be broken by human action.

(And, yes, sometimes we want to make lists of people who are JUST SO BAD that maybe they’re not included, but dear ones, EVERYONE means EVERYONE. And excluding people from God’s love is not how we practice our faith.)

This is one of the Sundays in the year where I think it is reasonable to engage in extended quotation, particularly of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In my favorite of his sermons, “Loving Your Enemies” he says:

I would like to have you think with me on a passage of scripture that has been a great influence in my life and a passage that I have sought to bring to bear on the whole struggle for racial justice, which is taking place in our nation. The words are found in the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew. And these words flow from the lips of our Lord and Master: “Ye have heard it said of old that thou shall love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”5

These are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. And over the centuries men have argued that the actual practice of this command just isn’t possible. Years ago the philosopher Nietzsche contended that this command illustrates that the Christian ethic is for weak men, not for strong men, and certainly not for the superman.6 And he went on to argue that it was just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who never quite came down to earth.

But we have come to see today that, far from being the practical, the impractical idealist, Jesus is the practical realist, and the words of this text stand before us with new urgency. And far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, love is the key to the solution of the problems of our world, love even for enemies. Since this is a basic Christian command and a basic Christian responsibility, it is both fitting and proper that we stop from time to time to analyze the meaning of these arresting words.

There are many things that we must do in order to love our enemies, but I would like to suggest just three. Seems to me that the first thing that the individual must do in order to love his enemy is to develop the capacity to forgive with a naturalness and ease. If one does not have the capacity to forgive, he doesn’t have the capacity to love. …

The second thing is this. In order to love the enemy neighbor we must recognize that the negative deed of the enemy does not represent all that the individual is. His evil deed does not represent his whole being. …

The other thing that we must do in order to love the enemy neighbor is this: we must seek at all times to win his friendship and understanding rather than to defeat him or humiliate him. …

Now for the moments left, let us turn from the practical “how” to the theoretical “why,” and ask the valid, the vital and valid question, Why should we love our enemies? …

I would say the first reason, and I’m sure Jesus had this in mind, we should love our enemies is this: to return evil for evil only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. And somewhere along the way of life, somebody must have sense enough, somebody must have morality enough, somebody must have religion enough, to cut off the chain of hate and evil. And this can only be done by meeting hate with love. For you see in a real sense, if we return hate for hate, violence for violence, and all of that, it just ends up destroying everybody. And nobody wins in the long run. And it is the strong man who stands up in the midst of violence and refuses to return it. It is the strong man, not the weak man, who stands up in the midst of hate and returns love.1

I commend the whole sermon to you, but I’m going to stop quoting now. While the evils of racism have never been defeated in our country, we are now – again – in a time when the “fierce urgency of now” is present. And, that means that as people of faith, we are once again called upon to reflect HOW we want to seek God’s work in the world. Are we people of love and of non-violence, who believe in the transformational power of love to change the world for the better? Are we willing to be people who practice forgiveness? Are we able to be people who believe in imago dei for those who are doing harm? Are we able to remember that people are more than their worst? Are we willing to reach out in love, over and over again, seeking the well being even of those who do us harm, even when they respond with hatred and violence? Are we willing to use our lives to show the power of meeting hatred with love? Are we strong enough to things God’s way?

There are people in this world, people with power, who don’t believe in imago dei. They believe that SOME people are more HUMAN than others, instead of believing that all people are sacred because all people are loved by God.

Beloveds, these are our “enemies.” And, they are people in need of transformation.

The work of responding to hatred with love changes everything. But it isn’t fast. This is the work of our whole lives. We are often going to be frustrated at backsliding and new incarnations of old evils. But we are people of God. We are people who believe in the power of love. We are people of HOPE. We are people who believe that God’s love is found in everyone and can be kindled into even the people most committed to wrongdoing.

We may not see visible progress right now, but I assure you God is at work. And every act of love matters.

We are called to love our neighbors, to love ourselves, and to love our enemies. Because it turns out all of those people are ones to whom God speaks saying “This is my child, my beloved.” Thanks be to God. Amen

1 https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-detroit-council-churches-noon-lenten

January 18. 2026

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

Sermons

If I Fall

January 19, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“If I Fall…” based on Micah 6:6-8 and Matthew 5:1-16

January is National Mentoring Month, and so this year for Human Relations Day, we decided to look at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in context – along with the people who inspired him, and the people he inspired. Thus, I opened a lot of articles on the people who served as Dr. King’s mentors and I have three things to say based on that: OH MY GOODNESS were those impressive men; thank goodness for Ghandi and his witness to the powers of nonviolence that these mentors heard loud and clear; and finally – what an extraordinary group of superbly well educated men of color!

In the end though, I found myself more interested in Dr. King’s co-mentoring relationships. Perhaps that would be more normally construed as his collaborators. The key, I think, is to remember that Dr. King was the best known leader in the Civil Rights movement, but he was by no means alone. Dr. King worked side by side with Ralph Abernathy, and the impacts on the movement of Coretta Scott King and Juanita Jones Abernathy was also enormous. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was working tirelessly as well, with its wise leaders and faithful on the ground workers. Movements, it turns out, involve a lot of PEOPLE. No one person is a movement, nor can a single person lead a movement alone. Movements are the embodiment of “we’re in this together.”

With the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a woman by the name of Fannie Lou Hamer:

Born in Mississippi in 1917, Hamer was a working poor and disabled Black sharecropper who joined the Civil Rights Movement at the age of forty-four. In 1962, her life changed dramatically after attending a mass meeting at a local church. The gathering had been organized by activists in SNCC. The speakers that night highlighted how ordinary citizens could transform American society with the right to vote, a message that resonated with Hamer. She went on to become a field secretary for SNCC and assisted Black people in Mississippi and beyond with voter registration.

This was dangerous work. In June 1963, Hamer was returning from South Carolina with a group of other activists. They stopped in Wynona to grab a bite to eat. Hamer’s colleagues encountered resistance from the owners of the café who made it clear that Black people were not welcome. The police arrived. And when Hamer exited the bus, an officer grabbed her and started kicking her. After Hamer and her colleagues were arrested, they received brutal beatings from the police officers who also instructed prisoners to do the same. Hamer’s injuries left her with kidney damage, a blood clot in her eye, and worsened a physical limp that she would carry for the rest of her life. However, Hamer was undeterred and continued her efforts to expand Black political rights.

…In April 1964, she joined forces with several other activists to establish the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the MFDP. The group challenged the Mississippi all-white Democratic party. In August of 1964, only months after the establishment of the MFDP, Hamer and others traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to attend the Democratic National Convention.

…The experience in Atlantic City transformed Hamer. Although she encountered resistance, she persisted and delivered the most well-known speech of her political career before the Credentials Committee at the Convention. Hamer used her speech to describe the acts of racist violence Black people faced on a daily basis in the Jim Crow South. She told the stories of shots being fired at the homes of those who supported voting rights, and she told the story of what happened to her in Wynona. As she reflected on the painful experiences that Black people face in the South, Hamer could not help but to question America. In her words, is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives are threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?”1

She was a woman who was inspired by Dr. King, and then inspired Dr. King. They were even known to disagree and push on each other. That is, she was a full collaborator with him in the movement towards freedom. One of many famous quotes by Fannie Lou Hamer is, “If I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.” Another great one, one I think we’re going to need in coming days is, “There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.” Finally, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

I hadn’t heard of Fannie Lou Hamer in my education, I didn’t learn about her until Shirley Readdean’s daughter Cyndee co-directed “Freedom Summer.” I’m so glad I did learn about her, because she was a living force for good, and I needed to know.

The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, with their commitments to freedom for all people, to transforming oppression, and to doing so through non-violence carefully followed the Way of Jesus, and the calling of God. We hear in Micah famous words:

[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

It is awe-inspiring how well the Civil Rights Movement embodied this. Dr. King and others preached goodness for oppressors, including in Dr. King’s sermon “Loving Our Enemies”:

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system..2

As they worked for justice, as they walked with God, they embodied kindness on the deepest levels – calling for true love for those who harmed and oppressed them.

Beloveds, this is a reminder we need. There is no one in the world that we are allowed to discount the humanity of – no one we seek to defeat. We want to change systems, we want to bring freedom, we want to care for the vulnerable, but we aren’t going to get to the kin-dom of God any way but through love – EVEN for those who do immense harm.

No one ever said following Jesus was easy.

Not even Jesus, whose famous Sermon on the Mount blesses those who are struggling with hopes that it will not always be this way. But not with the power to oppress those who oppressed them. The Jesus movement is nonviolent and loving – it isn’t passive, it isn’t willing to let injustice stand, but it is COMMITTED to being nonviolent and loving.

Jesus showed us that the nonviolent love of God could change the world. So too, did the Civil Rights Movement. Today, so too does the Poor People’s Campaign.

Dear ones, in the days to come, I am going to hold on to Fannie Lou Hamer, especially her words, If I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I’m not backing off.” Whatever comes at us, if we respond with a commitment to justice, to goodness, and to being with God – we can bring good out of ANYTHING. (Eventually.)

May we follow the lead of those who call us to love, to justice, and to nonviolence. They have already shown us the power, we simply get to follow in the way and trust in God. Thanks be to God. Amen

1 Keisha N. Blain, “Fannie Lou Hamer Embodied Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Vision of Courageous Black Leadership” March 02, 2022, found at https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2022/03/fannie-lou-hamer-embodied-martin-luther-king-jrs-vision-of-courageous-black-leadership.html, on January 15, 2025.

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

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

January 19, 2025

Uncategorized

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

September 25, 2022
by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen

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

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

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

September 25, 2022

Uncategorized

“The Only Way” based on Isaiah 61:1-4 and Luke…

February 6, 2022
by Sara Baron

I’ve
been wondering about this story of Jesus being attacked on a cliff
for as long as I can remember. How did Jesus get out? Perhaps
because of Sunday School materials from my childhood, I have an image
in my head of people fighting and kicking up a cloud of dust, out of
which Jesus walks unscathed. Or, perhaps this really is the
implication of the end of the story, “But he passed through the
midst of them and went on his way.” (4:30) 🤷🏻‍♀️

The
long standing question of “how did get out of such a dangerous
situation” has often distracted me from a far simpler reality:
this is a disturbing story. Jesus is at home, a place we might think
he would be particularly safe. Jesus is speaking in the center of
religious worship, a place we might hope would be particularly
nonviolent. Jesus is claiming the care of God for the people of God,
to people who definitely knew God and needed care – a gift that we
might hope would be well received.

Instead,
they were “filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the
town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was
built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” (4:28b-29)
Now, I can analyze what was going on that made them so mad. (Jesus
claimed more “honor” than was his fair share, in a system where
honor was a 0-sum game.) But in terms of the story being a disturbing
one, it doesn’t matter that much. This attack on Jesus by his
people, a potentially deadly attack, is just awful.

Scholars
think Luke is using this story to foreshadow how Jesus’ message will
be received – that while some will listen and be moved, others will
respond with violence to maintain the status quo. And, that actually
helps, because it brings into focus that the end of Jesus’s life is
really disturbing too. I have never managed to come to iaece with
capital punishment, and I find each instance of state-sponsored
killing to be … well, a lot more than disturbing. But let’s stick
with disturbing for a moment.

While
I had the opportunity to regularly hear fantastic preachers as a
kid, and had thoughtful Sunday School teachers and intentional Youth
Group leaders, the US culture’s basic atonement theory still
penetrated my consciousness. I grew up thinking that I was supposed
to believe that “Jesus died for my sins” and, since that was
something I was supposed to be grateful for, that meant that Jesus’
death was … useful? Good? (You might think I’d avoid “good”
but if so, consider “Good Friday.”)

As
I’ve grown, I’ve been blessed with spaciousness to consider what I
really believe, and to question things that don’t make sense to me.
While I seek to extend that spaciousness to others, and respect
differences in faith, for me that has meant leaving behind “Jesus
died for my sins” and leaving in its place, “Jesus died because
his movement threatened the power of the powerful and whenever I am
complicit in protecting existent power structures, I am engaging in
the same behavior that got him killed.” (I’ll admit, it has less
of a ring to it.)

I’ve
come back around to finding it disturbing that Jesus, who was a
powerful prophet, a man of incredible morality,
a truly amazing teacher, a notable healer, a wise mystic, AND a
liberator of the oppressed was killed because of exactly those
things. In fact, I’m back to finding it disturbing when people are
killed, and that includes those who are killed by state-sponsored
violence.

So,
this early narrative in Luke is a disturbing story that foreshadows a
disturbing story, which end up bookending most of Jesus’
ministry. All that Jesus offers in teaching, healing, and empowering
has over it the shadow of how threatening people find it to have
systems disrupted.

Luke
uses Isaiah’s vision of someone acting on God’s behalf to

bring
good news to the oppressed,
bind
up the broken-hearted,
proclaim
liberty to the captives,
release
to the prisoners;
proclaim
the year of the Lord’s favor,
to
comfort all who mourn;
repair
the ruined cities,
(etc)

and
Luke notes, right from the get-go, that this vision of God and being
one called upon to enact it is DANGEROUS work.

In
the end, Jesus’ untimely death was initiated by the powerful
religious authorities, who thought that his movement threatened the
well-being of the entire Jewish population. It feels like a
parallel to this story, where it seems that the hometown
faithful were terrified by the implications of what Jesus was going
to do.

They
would all have been saying to Jesus, “Don’t rock the boat!” Now,
“Don’t rock the boat,” is very good advice for getting ahead in
life, moving up ladders of institutional power, being generally
well-liked, and… in lots of cases… surviving. However, it turns
out that it is not the Jesus way, and that means it isn’t the way of
Jesus followers either.

Jesus
followed the path of nonviolence. That one is a difficult path, but
one that is abundant in grace and hope. If we think about the work
named in Isaiah 61, it becomes clear that this is profoundly
nonviolent work. Not only is the work itself NOT violent (a good
starting point) but it is aimed at disentangling the power of
violence that disrupts life itself.

It
is far too easy to ONLY take notice of direct, visible, physical
violence – and miss all the other kinds. Those of us who have been
trained in Safe Sanctuaries were reminded that abuse itself can look
like physical abuse, OR it can look like sexual abuse, OR it can look
like emotional abuse, OR it can look like neglect. Furthermore,
violence can also look like the simple threat of violence that is
used to keep people in check, even if it isn’t regularly used.

And,
on top of that, violence can also be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Violence includes allowing people to be hungry when there is abundant
food – because some people don’t “earn enough” to eat. That’s
a violence that looks like societal neglect. Violence looks like
people not being able to get health care, or get access to necessary
medication, or get life-saving treatment because of who they are or
what they have. That’s a violence that kills, but more out of LACK
of access than direct attacks. Violence looks like campaigns to
doctors to prescribe opiates, knowing they’d lead to addiction,
knowing they’d lead to death – but choosing profit over lives.
Violence looks like the laws we have that prevent people with
convictions from being able to have places to live, or food to eat,
or jobs to provide for their needs – even when convictions
themselves have more to do with our “justice” system than they do
with individual actions.

Or,
to make this a little bit more concise, all forms of inequity and
hierarchy are less visible forms of violence.

So.
Violence is a lot.

Which
means that non-violence is a lot.

And,
for those of you tuning in for the first time, Jesus led a movement
of NON-VIOLENCE and to choose to be a Jesus follower is to choose the
ways of NON-VIOLENCE.

There
was a fun note in the Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic
Gospels¹
that said, “an over-quick resort to violence is often an unintended
public admission of failure. In honor challenge, the party that
first resorts to violence loses the exchange: a resort to violence
indicates that wits have failed and bully tactics have taken over.”²
So part of what we’re seeing in this story is that violence tries to
take Jesus down, which itself proves Jesus right, and he does NOT
resort to violence, but rather walks away from it.

And,
then he spends his ministry as a non-violent religious leader who
attempts to CHANGE the systems of oppression that are less visible
forms of violence. And then he invites us to follow him.

One
of the most visible nonviolent religious followers of Jesus in recent
times was Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and The King Center
continues to teach the principles and practices of non-violence. I
regularly reread them, and seek further education on nonviolence as a
way of following Jesus and respecting the movement Dr. King was a
part of.³
The King Center states, “The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and
MILITARISM are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle.”
and expands on what that means, as well as naming the principles of
nonviolence and steps in nonviolent social change. For example:

PRINCIPLE
ONE: Nonviolence Is a Way of Life for Courageous People.

It
is not a method for cowards; it does resist.
It
is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
It
is aggressive spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

I
highly recommend the teachings of the King Center as further reading,
for good living.

For
this moment, however, I have a very pragmatic suggestion about
nonviolence. I have seen that there are HIGH levels of angst and
anxiety pretty much everywhere right now. I’m told others have
noticed this too, and it is often being seen via emotional outbursts
at strangers (particularly ones who work in some form of customer
service) or at loved ones (because that’s where we most often let go
of steam).

I
believe that one of the most powerful tools of nonviolence is
COMPASSION, and I believe it is needed in TWO directions. One
direction is towards others who are struggling, with a hope that we
might respond with calm, caring, empathy when others need it. The
other is towards ourselves – which is BOTH how we gain the capacity
to respond with calm to others AND how we work towards fewer
outbursts of our own.

This
week a fellow clergy person asked for help in dealing with her pent
up anger, and asked clergy sisters how they do it. The responses
were so helpful: exercise! Therapy! Throwing things that are safe
to throw and not at anything living! Medicine! Screaming! …. and
also self compassion. (I was asked, I answered.) To deal with
anger, for me, means I need to know what is under it – what value I
hold or need I have is being violated, so I can figure out how I want
to respond.⁴

Although,
sometimes before I can get to dealing with the anger, I have to do
the work of admitting that I’m angry, and to do that I take the
advice of Thich Naht Hahn, and breath in “I’m angry” and breath
out “I’m angry” until I get the sense that the anger has been
acknowledged. Then I can look at the why under the anger.

We
can’t build God’s kindom without doing it nonviolently.

Violence
isn’t going to get us to nonviolent justice. And to be nonviolent is
WORK. It takes INTENTION, and PRACTICE, and COMMUNITY, and heaps of
GRACE. It means we are constantly working on it, in ourselves and
with each other. It means every moment is an opportunity to try
again.

The
world responded with violence to God’s vision of nonviolence, and to
Jesus’ teachings of justice. But Jesus responded with the power of
nonviolence anyway, and it turns out that was enough so that we’re
still here, following in his way, 2000 years later. Nonviolence
isn’t the fastest way, but it is the only way. May God help us along
our way. Amen

As
we all grow and learn, we’re trying to learn how to listen to the
lessons of our emotions AND learn how to allow our emotions space to
be our teachers WITHOUT letting them hurt us or others. May God help
us learn those lessons. Amen

1I’m
well aware that my sermons could be set up as Bingo games, with this
book being one of the squares, Walter Brueggemann being another,
etc. Just acknowledging reality here.

2 Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual
Notes: Mark 1:21-34” p. 244.

3
https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/

4
https://workcollaboratively.files.wordpress.com/…/wc…)

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

February 6, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

June 6, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Only Love Can Do That” based on Psalm 130 and Mark 3:20-35

Yet, with this enormous range of worship is and can be, I maintain my hope that it is useful in expanding kinship, in nurturing love, and in expanding the kindom of God. Hopefully, also meets our deeply felt need to connect with the Divine. As the Psalm says,ngdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand,” were rephrased by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King into, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.“

In the Gospel, Jesus is experiencing attack. He was a healer, and a successful one. This disconcerted some people. Isn’t that the way things go sometimes? Someone is doing their thing, their uniquely gifted by God to take care of each other thing, and somehow or another people get upset about it. Maybe Jesus was undermining the revenue streams for other healers. Maybe he was getting a little too famous a little too fast. Maybe the way he went about it decreased dependence on the official religious mechanisms. Maybe he was supposed to be “nobody” and it upset things far too much for him to turn out to be “somebody.”

But somehow or another, this attack on Jesus feels… normal. He was doing a good thing that helped people and others took offense. Welcome to life itself, right?

In this case, the ones who went on the offensive against Jesus didn’t have much to work with. After all, how offensive is it really to heal people and not ask for payment? So they SAID that the reason he had the power to heal was because he was evil. Or, in their language, he was given the power over demons by the head demon.

Now, Jesus tends to be pretty patient with people who are struggling, or downtrodden, or under attack. But, according to the gospels he usually wasn’t above defending himself with quick wit. Mark says that Jesus replied, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” AKA, if evil were being used to drive out evil, it would work against the power of evil.

Or, again, in the way that speaks far better to me, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”1

While I was pondering all of this, in the midst our Wednesday night study “Caring for Inactive Members” Rev. Bob Long shared his understanding of the difference between anger and hate. (Note that is what I remembered him saying, so please assume any faults are mine, not his.) Anger is a sign of caring, a sign that something one values is being violated, and that the person experiencing anger cares enough to want to change what’s wrong and maintain the relationship. On the other hand, hate is a desire to no longer be in relationship with the other, and does not involve caring.

PLEASE NOTE: While I really appreciate this, and all ways of humanizing the experience of having emotions, and any reminder that anger can be fruitful in bringing justice and resolutions, I am also sorely aware that anger can also be used as an excuse for harm, punishment, and abuse. ANGER is a part of life, one that can useful as a way of noticing what we value and guiding us towards actions that fit out values. Anger is not, however, excuse for violence in words or actions. There is a fundamental difference between being angry and taking anger out on others. The former is normal and good. The latter is not.

In this moment in time, we live in the midst of deep and deepening divisions. We’re told that some of the divisions in society are intentionally created by outside nations, seeking to lessen the power of the United States in the world. Others are flames intentionally fanned for the sake of political power. Still others have been used to break apart the mainline denominations, so that our voice in calling for justice and the building of the kindom would be lessened.

And NOW we’ve added to all of this various ways of responding to a global pandemic, questions about masking, vaccinating, social distancing, opening and closing of various businesses, and schools, and places of worship.

There are deep and deepening divisions. Many of them move people to anger. Anger fits, positions on issues of life and death are deeply held. I fear, however, that some are moving people from anger to hate.

Further, I fear that with each and every deepening division, we get better at division and less skilled at connection. I fear we’re getting better at hate, when we’re called to get better at love. To quote MLK again, “Psychologists and psychiatrists are telling us today that the more we hate, the more we develop guilt feelings and we begin to subconsciously repress or consciously suppress certain emotions, and they all stack up in our subconscious selves and make for tragic, neurotic responses.”2

I also fear we’re letting the energy of division come home to roost. The way the outside world works in soundbites, and us vs. them, and gossip, and triangulation, and fear mongering and a refusal to engage in direct communication… all these pieces of division are getting NORMALIZED. So are attacks, like the ones against Jesus that started this whole story in the Gospel.

So, let’s take a few moments to remember again what being a part of the Jesus-movement, kindom building, God-centered, beloved community is all about. It is far easier to focus on what we’re meant to be when we remember what that is.

In the end of the Gospel passage, Jesus says “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

He expands his family. He refuses the boundaries that tell him who he is to love, protect, and care for, and he simply embraces more people in that role. He expands the kindom, his own kindom, to include those working with him in expanding God’s love in the world.

To expand kinship is to expand who is “us” …eventually until there is no “them.” To expand kinship is to have enough trust and respect for other kin to discuss disagreement, disappointments, hurts, and fears directly. To expand kinship is to listen, even to long-winded, indirect stories that may or may not eventually come around to the topic at hand (but … I mean… maybe not DURING a meeting?? ) To expand kinship is to disagree and not let that disrupt relationship. I hope that you’ve seen this in your life, family members who like each other immensely and have enough space in that liking and loving for real differences.

It is my hope that some of what we do in worship is expand kinship. Worship is seeking to connect to the Divine together. Over the past 1 ¼ years, the “together” has taken on new meaning, and has proven to us that there are a lot of different ways to be together. Worship itself is quitea wide range of things. Silence, and word, and music – sometimes a particular worship has only of those forms! Prayer, scripture, and reflection – again, sometimes one is dominant over others. The forms of prayers vary. The types of music vary. The length of service varies!!! The structure and form of the service, and even of the reflections can also vary greatly. I’m reminded that there are a significant number of people in our midst for whom the more profound form of worship is service, and others for whom the Divine is most reachable in nature.

Yet, with this enormous range of worship is and can be, I maintain my hope that it is useful in expanding kinship, in nuruting love, and in expanding the kindom of God. Hopefully, also meets our deeply felt need to connect with the Divine. As the Psalm says,

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in [God’s] word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning. (Psalm130:5-6)

Worship make space for that connection. It is time set apart to connect. May worship bring us closer to love, to God, and to each other. May worship even help us gain the strength and courage to keep on connecting with each other across differences. Or to put it another way, maybe worship can function a way to prevent anger from becoming hate. Or maybe it is even more powerful than that. Maybe worship is able to nurture love in us, and love is the thing most powerfully able to drive out hate. May it be so. Amen

1Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010 – originally 1963), 47

2 Martin Luther King “Loving Your Enemies” sermon Nov. 17,1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Found at https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church (He’d edited by the time it was published in Strength to Love.)

June 6, 2021

Uncategorized

“Nonviolence” based on 1 Samuel 3:1-10 and John 1:43-51

January 17, 2021
by Sara Baron

I’m
intrigued by the words in 1 Samuel, “The word of the LORD was rare
in those days; visions were not widespread.” The story says, in
those days, it took a while before the one being called by God
realized it.

Since
the beginning of October we have offered a “Contemplative Prayer
Service” on Sunday mornings at 10AM. Since the middle of November
it has been online. I’ve gotta admit, it has exceeded my
expectations. They were pretty low 😉 It turns out that getting on
zoom, muting your mic, and praying while other people are sitting on
zoom (mostly with their mics off) praying actually IS more connected
than praying alone.

It
is easier to be still then.

This
week I’ve found that I can’t get through the day without some silence
in prayer. I just get too agitated. And the angst builds and
builds, until I take time away from inputs to simply be with the
Divine.

These
defined times of prayer – with others in the Contemplative Prayer
Service as well as the ones I’ve taken out of deep and abiding need –
have reminded me of some things I’m embarrassed I’d forgotten.
Perhaps I hadn’t forgotten, but at the very least they came as well
needed reminders when other things had started to take precedence in
my being.

Ready?

First,
God is still THERE, or HERE, or however you say it. I’d like to
claim I NEVER forget that, but each time I settle into prayer and I
sense the peace that passes understanding and the grace that abides
I’m … surprised again. Maybe this is just because God’s goodness
is better than I’m ever able to remember, but each and every time I
encounter it I’m relieved to find it there.

Second,
stillness is …. possible. It often feels impossible right until it
happens. I get drawn into the news, into the COVID statistics, into
my own to-do lists, and then I get distracted by baby cries or
squeals, – or emails or texts – and the whole of life seems to be
carefully created to keep me from finding stillness (and letting me
have excuses about it) but then when I do it, it is still there
waiting for me and it is GLORIOUS.

Third,
there is a vibrant, thriving, almost tangible connection between all
living things and the Living God. When the noise of the world isn’t
in the way, the spiritual wonder is breath-taking.

Perhaps
these reflections are able to serve as a reminder to you of things
you also know. Or perhaps they serve as a reminder of a need to find
time for contemplative practice.

For
me, they serve as a source of transformation. My emotional responses
to the world right now are….sharp. I’m horrified. I’m terrified.
I’m disgusted. And yet, closer to home, I’m also delighted, and
exhausted, and grateful, and worried, and relieved. It is just a
whole lot to hold.

I
have been thinking about the retreat we did in 2017 with Bishop Susan
Hassinger, looking at spiritual practices that uphold social justice
work. This might also be called the grounding for building the
kindom, or following the way of Jesus without burning out.

The
needs of social justice work, of kindom building, are so BIG that I’m
overwhelmed by them unless I get grounded in the unfailing love of
the Divine. Worse, in this moment, I’ve finding it easier to get
pulled into the polarization of our society – which dehumanizes
“the other side” than ever. This is a BIG problem, particularly
for one who seeks to be a Jesus follower.

Are
you ready for today’s challenge? One of the great interpreter’s of
the life and teachings of Jesus in our tradition, the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote,

To
our most bitter opponents we say: “We
shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to
endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force.
Do to us what you
will, and we shall continue to love you. We
cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because
noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is
cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you.
Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the
midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still
love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our
capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for
ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we
shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double
victory.”¹

I
feel quite confident that the most bitter opponents of the work of
Rev. Dr. King, and the kindom, have been hard at work in our society,
and their work has exploded into violence, death, fear-mongering, and
the disruption of our democracy. Rev. Dr. King worked against the
forces of white supremacy, by working for the full humanity of all
people.

And
that man, that wise prophetic man, that man whose life itself was
taken by the violence of the world, is the one who said, “Do it us
what you will, and we shall continue to love you.”

He
refused to face violence with violence, he believed that the Jesus
movement was founded in NONVIOLENCE. He refused to meet hate with
anything but love. Now, of course, LOVE did not mean “compliance.”
Love meant naming evil, love meant good analysis of power dynamics,
love meant strategic planning of protests, love meant taking care of
the people’s spiritual well being so they could keep on working for
God’s greater good. Love does not require us to back down. Love
does not require us to become passive. Love does not require us to
become silent.

But,
love does require us to seek the well-being of ALL OF GOD’S BELOVEDS,
and dear ones, this week, that includes people who are part of white
supremacist groups, and people who are part of QAnon cults, and even
the people who use those people to gain and keep power. Love
requires us to want what is good for all of them, although – thank
goodness – that doesn’t include that they get to keep power or
continue using violence. Perpetuating violence hurts both the one
who is violated and the one who violates. No goodness or love comes
out of it.

But
following the way of Jesus, nonviolent, loving resistance, that
builds the kindom. You may remember the admonition in Matthew to
turn the other cheek, “But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.
But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;
and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as
well.“ (Matthew 3:39-40, NRSV) Walter Wink’s teaching informed me
that these teachings are the ultimate in nonviolent loving
resistance. In those days there were two forms of striking a person
– one used for equals and one used for inferiors. A backhand vs. a
slap. The left hand was NEVER used because… well… toilet paper
hadn’t been invented yet. To turn the other cheek is to respond to
the diminishing insult of a backhand with an invitation to hit again
– but this time as an equal. Similarly, the Hebrew Bible forbids
anyone from leaving a person naked in the process of seeking loan
repayment. So, if a person seeks restitution of a loan by demanding
your OUTER garment, and you offer your INNER garment as well, you put
them in the situation of having to refuse to take both or stand in
violation of religious law.

I
sort of wish today’s gospel lesson has the question “Can anything
good come out of Nazareth?” asked to Jesus himself, but I think
John does well with it anyway. The answer of the whole book is “YES”
and the person asking the ignorant question is immediately aware of
his error. Loving nonviolence here includes seeing the world, and
its locations, a new.

I
am a little bit concerned that because I have focused on spiritual
grounding for kindom building, and nonviolent resistance
as the form of kindom building, that someone might not have
heard me speak imperative truths. So, please give me a moment to be
abundantly clear:

People
who perpetuate violence in the name of Christianity are not following
Jesus.

Christianity
itself has been profoundly co-opted by white supremacy in this nation
(and many others), and it is our obligation to CONTINUALLY root it
out, transform it, and be self-aware of how it is playing out in our
lives and communities.

The
violence we have seen in terms of mobs attacking governmental
institutions in this country are the angry expression of
mostly-white, mostly-men who believe they have a fundamental right to
be more important than others. Like any other abuser, they are most
violent when they fear they are losing control. THEY ARE LOSING
CONTROL, and they are truly terrifying as such.

The
progress we have seen in humanizing people from the fullness of
humanity is NOT GUARANTEED – these angry abusive mobs have friends
in very high places, and a lot of backing.

God
is always, always, always on the side of full and abundant life for
ALL PEOPLE.

So
that’s the side we are on. We don’t want power consolidated with
mostly white mostly men because no one group is able to adequately
seek the good of all groups. It is only through shared knowledge,
resources, and power that we can seek the common good.

And
THAT is why I want us to be grounded in contemplative prayer, good
analysis, and God’s grace. Because I believe those are means of
countering the insidious voices of white supremacy and it’s close
cousin the patriarchy. To move towards the kindom requires seeking
clearly what is happening, and letting God’s love transform us, and
the world through us.

So,
dear ones, please find the time to connect with grace.

Please
allow grace and love to fill you up.

Please
let Rev. Dr. King’s reminder of the way of Christ continue to
challenge you.
Please recommit to
Jesus’s way of nonviolence.

And
may God grant us wisdom for the facing of this hour. Amen

1Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “On Loving Your Enemies” found at
https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2015/01/19/martin-luther-king-jr-on-loving-your-enemies/35907
on March 29, 2018.

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

January 17, 2021

Sermons

Untitled

January 19, 2020February 11, 2020
by Sara Baron

Two
years ago, our niece got a new game for Christmas: Harry Potter,
Hogwarts Battle. We usually spend New Years together, and it is a
great 4 person game, so Kevin and I got to break into the game with
our niece and her mother. It is now fair to say that this is our
favorite game, and the four us clocked A LOT of hours playing it.

Beyond
the really fun Harry Potter connections, and the truly excellent game
design, I think we all love it so much because it is a collaborative
game. The players are all working together towards a goal, so in the
end either everyone wins or everyone loses. Which also means that no
one of us ends up as the winner while the rest of us have lost.
Truthfully, I really like board games, and most of the ones I play
have winners and losers, and I’m generally OK with that, but there is
something really great about a collaborative game. It is especially
engaging because each choice we make impacts each other player, so we
have to pay attention to what each person needs and what each
person’s strengths are, and how each person can make the best use of
their strengths.

The
game is hard, and we lose sometimes. Really, we lose about half of
the games we play, and we sometimes give up a game before playing
just because the starting conditions are too difficult. But the
collaboration makes it interesting enough that even losing isn’t THAT
bad. (Most of the time.)

I
find it interesting that the collaborative game is so much fun. When
I was growing up our church had a copy “The Ungame” which was
mean to be a fun game that was collaborative rather than competitive,
and while I fully support the creators and their intentions it was
the least fun game imaginable. Yet,
there is so much already in our capitalistic society that is
inherently about winners and losers, and zero sum games, and
competing against each other – and I’m really, really glad that
there are now super fun games that don’t buy into that model.

Collaborative
games seem more like the model of working for the common good. Maybe
it is just because I was born and raised in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, but the moment when I finally actually noticed the word
“commonwealth” and thought about what it meant was eye-opening
for me. I think of the common good and commonwealths as other ways
of speaking about the kindom.

Over
the past 3+ years we’ve talked about Intersectional Justice and
Intersectionality a lot, but just in case the ideas are still fuzzy
for you, here is MFSA’s definition of its “intersectional
organizing principal.”

All experiences of marginalization
and injustice are interconnected because the struggle for justice is
tied to concepts of power and privilege. Intersectional organizing
recognizes that injustice works on multiple and simultaneous levels.
Because experiences of injustice do not happen in a vacuum, it is
imperative to: develop the most effective strategies to create space
for understanding privilege; organize in an intersectional framework
led by marginalized communities; and build effective systems of
resistance and cooperation to take action for justice. Practical
intersectional organizing always focuses on collaboration and
relationship building.

To
bring that a little bit more into reality, intersectionality means
acknowledging that working on ONE issue and making as small as
possible so you can make some gains really doesn’t help that much.
For example, it is said that 101 years ago women gained the right to
vote in NY state, that misses that it only applied to white women.
That came from a choice to empower white women at the expense of
women of color and was NOT intersectional organizing. There have
been a LOT of times organizing has worked this way, most of the time
it has worked this way, and it has done a lot of harm.

During
an anti-white supremacy training, I was taught to think holistically
about power. That is, we all know what traits are most associated
with power in our society: white, male, rich, straight, English
speaking, cisgender, citizen, with a full range of ableness,
educated, tall… etc, right? In each case, there is an opposite to
the description that is disempowered. I’m expecting you are
following thus far. Well, because the people who have the traits
connected to power control the resources, they use most of them! And
then, it turns out, the people who are DISCONNECTED from power end up
fighting to get access to the scraps of resources that the powerful
are willing to share. There are two
REALLY bad parts of this – first of all, to get access to those
resources usually means playing by the rules of the ones who have
power, and secondly, those without power are usually set up to fight
AGAINST EACH OTHER for access to those scraps.

That
is, when white women decided to try to get the vote for themselves,
and not seek voting rights for all women, they made a decision to
play by the rules of how power already worked, and to distance
themselves from people of color to try to get what they wanted and
needed. And, this happens time and time again.

Intersectionality
is about seeing the wholeness of the power dynamics, and the
complicated realities of people – who all have power in some ways
and lack power in others – and holding the whole together while
working for good. It is really, really hard.

It
is probably also why I teared up when reading Isaiah this week. The
passage quotes God as saying, “It is too light a thing that you
should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore
the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.“ The way I
heard that was, don’t just work for the benefit of a few, even if
they are the ones you identify with – work for the well being of
ALL. And all, in all places, including enemy nations!!

Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his transformational
work on racial justice, work that make our country noticeably better.
Yet, at the end of his life, he had broadened his work, and was
organizing around poverty. As several of the past year’s
Intersectional Justice Book Club books have pointed out, the powers
that exist in the United States have VERY INTENTIONALLY used race to
divide people, in large part so that impoverished white people and
impoverished people of color wouldn’t start working together against
their common oppressor. Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign was
designed to bring people together for their common good, and truly
for every’s good. As King once said, “In your struggle for
justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to
defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that
he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking
justice for him as well as yourself.” Because, truly, oppressing
anyone harms both the oppressed AND inherently, the oppressor.

Today,
other’s have picked up Dr. King’s mantle, and there is an active Poor
People’s Campaign underway. While their “Fundamental Principals”
are expansive – there are 12 – they are a coherent whole and I
couldn’t edit them down. I want you hear, and be filled with hope,
and maybe even be motivated to work with this campaign, so here they
are:

We are rooted
in a moral analysis based on our deepest religious and
constitutional values that demand justice for all. Moral revival is
necessary to save the heart and soul of our democracy.
We
are committed to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those
most affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and
ecological devastation and to building unity across lines of
division.
We
believe in the dismantling of unjust criminalization systems that
exploit poor communities and communities of color and the
transformation of the “War Economy” into a “Peace Economy”
that values all humanity.
We
believe that equal protection under the law is non-negotiable.
We
believe that people should not live in or die from poverty in the
richest nation ever to exist. Blaming the poor and claiming that the
United States does not have an abundance of resources to overcome
poverty are false narratives used to perpetuate economic
exploitation, exclusion, and deep inequality.
We
recognize the centrality of systemic racism in maintaining economic
oppression must be named, detailed and exposed empirically, morally
and spiritually. Poverty and economic inequality cannot be
understood apart from a society built on white supremacy.
We
aim to shift the distorted moral narrative often promoted by
religious extremists in the nation from issues like prayer in
school, abortion, and gun rights to one that is concerned with how
our society treats the poor, those on the margins, the least of
these, women, LGBTQIA folks, workers, immigrants, the disabled and
the sick; equality and representation under the law; and the desire
for peace, love and harmony within and among nations.
We
will build up the power of people and state-based movements to serve
as a vehicle for a powerful moral movement in the country and to
transform the political, economic and moral structures of our
society.
We
recognize the need to organize at the state and local level—many
of the most regressive policies are being passed at the state level,
and these policies will have long and lasting effect, past even
executive orders. The movement is not from above but below.
We
will do our work in a non-partisan way—no elected officials or
candidates get the stage or serve on the State Organizing Committee
of the Campaign. This is not about left and right, Democrat or
Republican but about right and wrong.
We
uphold the need to do a season of sustained moral direct action as a
way to break through the tweets and shift the moral narrative. We
are demonstrating the power of people coming together across issues
and geography and putting our bodies on the line to the issues that
are affecting us all.
The Campaign
and all its Participants and Endorsers embrace nonviolence. Violent
tactics or actions will not be tolerated.

This
campaign is DEEPLY good news. I encourage you to look them up, their
demands are even better (but ever longer) and well worth the read.
There are a lot of opportunities to volunteer with and support the
Poor People’s Campaign, and I’d be happy to connect to to those who
are organizing – as would your Intersectional Justice chairs.

Working
towards justice for all is really, really hard work. It can even be
overwhelming, but as Isaiah says, God is out for the well-being of
the whole world. Before you get overwhelmed though, let me remind
you that God has a LOT of partners in this work and no ONE of us is
called to do all the work. In fact, we’re called to trust each other
and each other’s work, and to carefully discern what our work is to
do. Love exists, its power can spread, justice is possible, and good
people are at work. We are meant to be a light to ALL the nations,
and with God at our backs, we can and we will. And it is possible
because of collaboration. Thanks be to God. Amen

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

January 19, 2019

Sermons

“Meditation of My Heart” Page based on Leviticus 19:9-18 Psalm…

September 30, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

What sort of world do we want to live in? What world are we trying to create? This is a central question of faith, and the answer has sacred names. It is often called the kindom of God, it is also known as the beloved community. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the solution to the race problem.”¹ I believe that this vision goes back to the beginning of our faith tradition, and is the the vision of the Torah itself. (The Torah is a name for the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.)

Today I want to look at that vision for the world, and build on it into the vision we see God seeking to build from the world as we know it today into what it could be. The vision we’ll see was one that detailed how society should be set up, specifically outlining how to to create a just system where even the vulnerable can thrive.

Not everyone sees this vision in the Hebrew Bible. Many Christians have been taught to distrust the vision of the Hebrew Bible. The Torah is often interpreted into English as “the law” and that has gained disfavor in many Christian circles. Paul wrote in Romans 7, “But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Romans 7:6 NRSV) Those following his ideas have seen the law as old, as dated, as dead – and thus definitely not as life giving.

I think we miss a lot when we simplify that much. “The law” is a series of rules, regulations, and expectations about what it would take to develop a stable community that values human life. They’re profound, intentional, and life-giving.

The Torah vision emerges out of the core conception of the Divine in the ancient Jewish faith – that God was a God who cared about how people treated each other. God wanted the people of God to create a community where all of God’s people could survive, and thrive! This was notable in a time when most communities conceived of gods and goddesses who cared only for how humans treated the gods and goddesses – related to worship and sacrifices. Instead of a concept of God that is self-serving, the Torah vision sets out a series of rules and regulations about how humans are to treat each other, under the impression that this is what God wants from them. God is pleased when people care for each other. This is the foundation of our faith tradition, and of the Torah vision for good living.

As we see in several of the 10 commandments – don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet what your neighbor has – how neighbors get treated is central to how a stable and supportive society is formed. Of course, we also see in the 10 commandments that how God is understood matters – don’t have other gods, don’t make idols, don’t take the name of the God in vain, and even I would argue, remember the Sabbath day. These two facets coincide with the great commandments as found in the Hebrew Bible. Leviticus 19:18b, “but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” and the Shema, found in Deutoronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” On these two foundations – care for each other and love of God, ancient Israel was built.

According to John Dominic Crossan, the vision was one of distributive justice, and we see that as staring with the Sabbath. Sabbath is a distribution of rest, that applied to both Israelites, and foreigners. It applied EVERYONE, and came every week. That prevented people from being dehumanized by constant work. One day off out of seven means that there is an identity other than work. The Sabbath laws were also about distribution – distribution of rest and thus humanity! The Sabbath rules also, in a way, applied to the land. Fields were mean to lie fallow every 7 years. The Jubilee year was also an extension of Sabbath. Leviticus explains this in chapter 25:

“You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. (Leviticus 25:8-13, NRSV)

This brings us to the the distribution of land, that land that each family returned to! Every tribe got a portion of the land and then every family got a portion of the tribe’s land. That is, every family got land on which they could live and farm. There was a careful distribution of land to enable all of the Israelites to have subsistence.

Then, there were rules and regulations to make sure that the land wouldn’t be appropriated out of the hands of the family!! One of those was the rule that loans had to be forgiven every 7 years so that debt did not accumulate. The other piece was that land could only be LEASED, as we heard in the Jubilee passage a moment ago. If a family got into financial trouble and had to sell their land, it could only be leased for up to 49 years but it could not be sold outside of the family. This meant a family could not permanently lose their basis of subsistence.

There is one exception to the land distribution though. One tribe did not get ANY land. That was the tribe of Levi, the Levites. The Levites, instead, lived off of the tithes of the other nations. The Levites were the “holy people”, from that tribe the priests were chosen. The Levites were set aside to deal with matters of the Divine. They were the moral compass of the community. The Levites were dependent on the other tribes for their survival when they otherwise had so much power, it kept them motivated to seek the well-being of the tribes because they were interdependent. It also meant that while most of society was at work farming and tending to herds, there were people pondering, considering, and attending to the big picture. It wasn’t that they were closer to God, simply that they got to spend more of their time attending to the things of God on behalf of everyone else.

The Torah vision had other safeguards in place to try to keep things just. Loans could not be given with interest. That means that there was no penalty for needing a loan. One did not go further into poverty because one was in poverty. It also means that those who were doing well enough to offer loans did not glean further wealth from it.

The was also a provision for gleaning. Those who owned land were banned from picking the edges of their fields as well as from going back to pick a second time, making sure to get it all. That way, those who didn’t have land – the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners, had a way to feed themselves by picking the leftovers. I am also under the impression that some of the work of the tithe was to feed the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners. That is, that even though the Torah tried to make sure everyone got land, there were also careful provisions for the exceptions! This is summarized in Leviticus 19, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:9-10)

Finally, the Bible absolutely obsesses over having a fair justice system that shows no partiality. To go back to Leviticus 19 for a concise version of this, “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:15) The very concept of justice in the Torah vision is tied into the lack of partiality, neighborliness, and to God’s own nature. Almost all of those Leviticus 10 provisions end with “I am YHWH.” God’s own being requires this care of people, and this care of people is what builds a society that reflects God’s own being!!

Of course, ancient Israel often failed to live into the Torah vision. That’s why we have so many prophetic books filled with prophets calling kings and the powerful into compliance with the care of the vulnerable and justice for all!

Now, I do not wish to live in a theocracy, I think they tend to go poorly. But, I think there is a whole lot in the Torah vision that is worth considering and pondering. I don’t see a whole lot of justice in our society, and I do see a LOT of partiality. Starting with where we are today, what do we see God at work trying to create? How is God seeing to make sure all people have sustenance? How is God at work to make justice systems just and fair? How is God trying to ensure the vulnerable are cared for and that those who have experienced oppression or harm are heard? I believe we can hear this work of God, if we listen for it; and see this work of God, if our eyes are open.

Psalm 19 celebrates the vision of the Torah, it celebrates the Torah itself! It is beautiful, isn’t it? It calls the Torah a source of reviving the soul, and wisdom, and clarity. It says the Torah is sweeter than honey and better that gold! It thinks this communal living that attempts to reflect God’s love of God’s people is THAT good! What delight is there in envisioning a society, a WORLD, where all are cared for?

The Torah-vision, the kindom of God, the beloved community, they are different ways of saying the same thing. So too, I believe, is the often repeated quote from Rev. Dr. J. Edward Carothers, teaching of the church existing to “to establish and maintain connections of mutual support in ever widening circles of concern.” Just so, the Psalmist says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” As people of faith, we are called into these visions – to see them, to dream them, to move towards them, to celebrate them as they come into being, and work towards them. Sometimes the biggest work of all is to dream big enough for God. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Martin Luther King Jr. 1957, found at http://www.wearethebelovedcommunity.org/bcquotes.html. Accessed on 9/27/28.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

“Life, Death, and Resurrection“ based on Isaiah 25:6-9 and Mark…

April 1, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

When I was a little girl, 8 years old I think, my family adopted a calico cat we named Marble Cake. We adopted her from the Humane Society, and she was beautiful. She was a little bit wild! The first time I held her, she extended her claws and exited by walking down my back. My parents thought she’d been mistreated earlier in her life, and assured us that if we were kind to her she would settle down.

The thing is, they were right. She changed in the matter of months. She was sweet and cuddly, a wonderful lap cat, and a fantastic companion for 18 years! Looking back on that moment when she settled into our lives, I’m especially grateful for my parents’ wisdom. Marble Cake needed to be able to establish her boundaries and have them be respected, so that the love we wanted to give her could break through. If we had ignored her, she wouldn’t have experienced love. If we had violated her boundaries, she never would have come to trust us. Worst of all, if we had fought back when – acting in fear- she hurt us, there would have been escalating violence.

I suspect that the story I just shared is particularly obvious to most of you. Hurting mammals respond with fear and fear often comes out as aggression. And any mammal who has been hurt needs consistent, gentle, loving care; and when it comes, miraculous changes occur. The irony is that human beings forget that we too are mammals, and we too need consistent, gentle, loving care. This forgetting causes problems on both the personal and the societal scale.

I want to look at the ways this plays out on the societal level. Let’s think for a moment about a group who is seen as a threat. This happens often enough! In fact, in the time of Jesus, the Jesus movement itself was seen as a threat. Conversely, from the perspective of the Jesus movement, the domination system of the Roman Empire was a threat!

Each of them responded VERY differently to the perceived threat though. The Roman Empire and its Roman appointed Jerusalem leaders worked the way most societies do throughout time. They decided to eliminate the threat, silence it, stop it. More concretely, they decided to kill Jesus to prevent the movement from continuing. Even though the Jesus movement was a nonviolent one, they stopped it violently. This is the most common way that the world works 🙁

Within the Jesus movement, those in power and authority were also a threat! The Jesus movement compromised primarily Galilean peasants whose lives were already threatened by the ways money flowed to the top in the domination system with didn’t leave enough for everyone to survive. They were further threatened when the Jerusalem leaders got scared of them. Jesus wasn’t trying to eliminate anyone though, he wasn’t even thinking of them as threats or as enemies. This is the man who taught love of enemies. Jesus was trying to change the system so that everyone benefitted, INCLUDING those who were currently oppressors. His nonviolent movement was aimed at the commonwealth of God where everyone can thrive. Now, of course, the oppressed are the most harmed in any system of oppression, BUT the oppressors are always also dehumanized by their participation in the system. Jesus was trying to bring a fuller life and a deeper humanity to all people, he was trying to bless the oppressors.

Reflecting back on Marble Cake, the Empire hit back when the cats claws came out, and Jesus loved the cat. Sometimes this is easier to see closer to our lives today. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote,

To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.¹

Rev. Dr. King and his followers acted like Jesus and his followers. They followed the path of nonviolence that transforms violence itself with the power of love. It is not an easy path, but it is a transformative one.

The world in the time of Jesus, as it was before him and as it has been after him, tended towards the ways of violence, oppression, and domination. There is a contrast between the ways the world most often has worked and the ways God would have the world work. And the primary difference is that the world uses violence to uphold inequity while God calls us to nonviolence and profound equity. (As people normalized to a capitalistic system, this should be squirmy.)

Jesus threatened the domination system of his day, in many ways. He offered free healing, which upset the economic systems dependent on gaining wealth from people’s illness. He taught everyone who came to him, which flagrantly defied the rules of social order (most particularly that only men were worthy of studying God). His teachings illuminated the injustices of the world around him. He spoke in ways that called out those who benefited from oppressing others, including in his own faith tradition. Additionally, he engaged in nonviolent direct action against the injustices of the Roman-Appointed Temple and the Roman-Controlled Passover celebrations. Worse yet, he was profoundly popular with the masses who were rekindling the power of their own faith tradition to find hope, connection, and reasons to challenge the way things were.

So, the Roman appointed Jerusalem leaders killed him. Yet, he maintained his commitment to nonviolence. He didn’t fight back, he didn’t flee, nor did he accept that what was being done was acceptable. He was killed, but he remained nonviolent and committed to God and God’s vision. He didn’t let the threat of violence, and the fear it induces, change his path.

This becomes particularly significant today. Marcus Borg said, “Easter is God’s YES to the World’s NO.” The World, with its preference for systems of domination and oppression, killed Jesus. The threat of violence became the punishment of death, and the world’s strongest commendation. But it failed.

Violence couldn’t force Jesus to comply, or conform, or even fight back and become a part of itself. Violence was powerless against Jesus! Death was powerless against Jesus, because they couldn’t change him or stop him! Because Jesus was able to face violence with nonviolence and disrupt its power, we know that we can too.²

Furthermore, the reason the Empire used violence against Jesus was to stop the Jesus movement. In that, it radically failed. Initially, their tactics worked. Peter was too afraid to claim Jesus, even after he’d followed him to find out what was happening. The disciples stayed away while he was crucified. (Exception being the female disciples who seem to have been there the whole time, although to be fair to the males, I don’t think they were seen as a threat and therefore weren’t threatened in the same ways. Likely they were mostly invisible to those who killed Jesus.)

So, the tactics of violence to induce fear worked BUT only temporarily. Then SOMETHING happened and changed things. Those same disciples who had denied Jesus and disappeared into the night became the leaders of the continuing Jesus movement and were unstoppable by the threat of violence from that point onward. All of the (remaining, male) disciples remained nonviolent while they were killed by the violence of the Empire. Whatever it was that changed the disciples from fear to fearlessness, from allowing violence to impact their actions to being impervious to violence, that’s what we call resurrection.

And it is our inheritance today. Jesus had a commitment to nonviolence, one that refused to be changed by the threat of violence. His disciples learned it. Today we celebrate it, and in our lives we are able to claim it! We are, today, the Body of Christ continuing his work and his legacy, and that requires that we use his means to seek his ends. To be followers in the way of Jesus “requires the unconditional and unilateral renunciation of violence.”³ Without that, we would easily fall into the other methods of fear, retribution, and fighting violence with violence. And Rev. Dr. King so clearly told us, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”⁴

The system of domination, oppression, and violence killed Jesus, but failed to stop his movement. God and Jesus can’t be stopped even by death! The Jesus movement got stronger. God’s work in the world built strength!

Mark tells us all this with only an empty tomb. In this earliest of gospels, all we get is the already fearless women, the suggestion of resurrection through a messenger, the hope for the disciples, and the fear that ends it all. This is the original ending of the Gospel of Mark and it is strikingly abrupt. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The end 😉 Scholars think the ending is intended to motivate action, that the listener would think “well, if the women didn’t tell, I have to” and/or “if they were afraid, I can overcome my fear and participate in the resurrection that they’re missing!”

To live out God’s nonviolence, is to live out God’s love, and is to live the kindom of God in the now. Some of this living is in celebrating, and that’s our particular work today! We are to see, name, and celebrate. We see, name, and celebrate nonviolence, the kindom, and resurrection. It is all around us, when we are looking. It is in the decrease in worldwide poverty and hunger, but also in the loving way our breakfast volunteers greet our breakfast guests. It is in the work of UMCOR, but also in the loving greetings shared as people enter the church. It is in the long, hard, work to change the norms and laws of society for the better but also in laughter between strangers.

Nonviolence, its expansive love, and its incredible power have changed the world and will change the world. Their power is seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus AND in his followers throughout time. May it be seen in us, in the strength of our love, and in the clarity of our commitment to follow his ways of nonviolence. May it be seen as we celebrate the resurrection and the reminder that violence cannot stop the love of our God. Amen

1Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “On Loving Your Enemies” found athttps://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2015/01/19/martin-luther-king-jr-on-loving-your-enemies/35907 on March 29, 2018.

2Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press: 1993 it seems), 141.

3Walter Wink, 149.

4King (same sermon on “Loving Your Enemies”)

–

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