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Sermons

“The Work of the Kindom” based on Matthew 5:13-20…

  • February 9, 2020February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I
often hear it said, “Like a fish in water,” reflecting the idea
that a fish isn’t aware of water, which is meant to help us notice
our own contexts.  During a wonderful and life giving conversation
with a person from a FAR more conservative Christian upbringing, that
person said to me, “Your Christianity sounds exhausting.”  I was
unclear about the meaning of that and asked about it.  The person
replied, “All I have to do to be right with God is profess my
belief in the right things and then trust that all is as God wills it
to be.  But you think that you are responsible along with God, so you
think you have to fix all the things that are broken, and so you
never get a break as long as the world is still broken.”  I sat
with that for a minute and then admitted, “Yes, it is exhausting.”

I
hadn’t seen it until it was pointed out to me though, and I remain
very grateful for that conversation and that person’s willingness to
be in those conversations with me.  

As
much as I adore Isaiah, and as much as I adore Isaiah for passages
like this, the temptation towards exhaustion is certainly raised.
Walter Bruggemann1
does wonderful work with this passage, pointing out that it
criticizes “feel good worship” that doesn’t lead to action,
worship done to manipulate God, worship without humane economic
practices, and a lack of neighborliness.  Three things are asked of
God-worshippers: “(a) shared bread, (b) shared houses, and ©
shared clothing.”2
Food, shelter, and clothing being imperative for life, worshippers
of God are to see those who are struggling as beloved members of
their own families and provide for them.

Doris
Clark told me once about her childhood in rural Western NY.  Her
family, like all the other families around, lived on a small family
farm.  Their lives were sustainable, but not wealth producing.  One
of the nearby families was impoverished because they’d had many
children and the resources they had didn’t stretch far enough for all
the mouths they had to feed and bodies they had to clothe.  Doris
reflected on the fact that her family, like all the other families in
the area, shared their excess with that one family and were able to
keep them afloat.  She also reflected that what had seemed possible
with one family out of many, when all were interconnected felt VERY
different from responding to poverty and need in this place and era.

That
was another fish noticing the water conversation for me.  I knew I
was overwhelmed by the needs around us, but I hadn’t ever experienced
anything different in order to be able to make sense of it.  As of
the last census, more than half the kids in our city live under the
poverty rate, and recent administrative changes to social service
programs has made that far worse.3
The Schenectady City School Districts puts it this way, 79% of our
school children are “economically disadvantaged” which translates
to “eligible for free or reduced lunch.”4
On these statistics alone, it feels like a different world than the
one Doris grew up in.

And
the challenge is that these aren’t the only problems we are aware of.
Just to put it into perspective, we are aware of gross injustice at
our borders, including nearly 70,000 children in cages and
deportations of integral members of communities; we are are of gross
injustice in our so-called justice system, which has the impact of
decimating communities of color with imprisonment, probation, and
life-time bans on social service supports for crimes that are
committed equally by people of all races; we are aware of a gross
injustice to our the youngest members of our society when parents
don’t have paid leave and aren’t able to spend the time with their
infants that is needed; we are aware of a raging climate crisis that
has one of our continents burning and then flooding at unprecedented
levels, seas rising, extreme weather events becoming normal, and mass
migration pressing the capacities of nations; we are aware of
governmental instability around the world, of dictatorships and wars
and genocides…. and I just picked SOME of the big issues floating
around us today.  

And
so when I hear Isaiah speaking for God saying, “Is this not the
fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of
the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is
it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless
poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover them, and not
hide yourself from from your own kin?” I admit to some feelings of
utter exhaustion, and sometimes even hopelessness. I know God is big,
but humanity isn’t terribly faithful to God and our problems are
ENORMOUS.

So,
a person might say, pick one problem, one close to home and work on
that!  I’m game for that, let’s look a childhood poverty in
Schenectady?  Where does it come from?  This one I know the answer
to!  People who are the caregivers of children in Schenectady don’t
have enough money.  (Mathematical proof complete.)

So,
why don’t the caregivers of children in Schenectady have enough
money?  Well, that gets complicated.  Some of it is because there
aren’t enough jobs; some if it is because there aren’t enough jobs
that pay a living wage; some of it is because people don’t have the
knowledge, training, or skills to get the jobs that exist; and some
of it is because people aren’t able to participate in the workforce
get so very little money to live off of; some of it could even be
because people don’t have good skills in financial management.  But
that’s only the beginning.

When
we root down deeper in these questions we get to a lot of other
issues.  Schenectady definitely deals with impoverished people of
color being being imprisoned – with the greatest impact being in
the African American community, and a person in prison can’t make
money while in prison and is profoundly impeded from doing so
afterwards (not can they get the support they need.)  Schenectady
City Schools have been underfunded by the state for decades, making
it exceptionally difficult to provide the services our students need
to thrive, ESPECIALLY given the struggles students have when they
grow up in impoverished neighborhoods.  This also means that many of
our graduates aren’t prepared for the job market.  We clearly also
have struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, which is complicated
by drug companies that have decided to make profits off of people’s
lives.  We in this community are deeply impacted by the cost of
medical care, which has impoverished many and prevents even more from
getting the care they need.  We also struggle with old housing stock
and a high water table that results in some of the highest asthma
rates in the country.  

There
are also the complicating aspects of poverty – the part where
everything in poverty is more expensive: the cost to cash a check
without a bank account, bank fees if you don’t have a high enough
balance, buying things on credit and paying much more with interest,
INSANE interest and fees, trying to eat cheaper food and paying for
it with health, the pure cost of eviction and then the increased cost
of housing after eviction, the increased cost of buying food near
one’s house when that isn’t where the grocery store is but the store
is far away and costs too much to get to, the smaller earning power
of women – with larger impact when men are imprisoned, the impact
of stress on the body and the family, and the list goes on and on.

Right,
so everything is intersecting and it isn’t easy to change.  A few
years ago I went to TEDx Albany and heard some great speakers offer
wonderful inspirational stories.  Most of them that year were about
the speaker’s intentional work to change the lives of people living
in poverty, and that was great!  But I was a little horrified to
realize that all of them were working on poverty on an individual
level.  That is, “if I help this person (or these people) in this
one small way, it increases the likelihood that they’ll be able to
get out of poverty.”  Excellent, for sure, and a great use of
compassion and capacity.  What scared me was that no one seemed to be
looking at poverty on the larger scale.  Because in our society,
when one person or family fworks their way out of poverty, someone
else falls in.  

Our
capitalist system depends on there being a lower class and an
impoverished class… because all those ways that poverty is
expensive are ways that other people are able to make money of of
people’s suffering.  

This
isn’t new, it isn’t news, and it definitely isn’t just the USA.  One
of the things that is most helpful about the gospels for me are that
they are based in a very similar economic system, and so the analysis
of Jesus is particularly applicable for us today.  The context of
Isaiah is a little bit more complicated, and that’s good too.  This
passage is from Third Isaiah, reflecting the struggles of the
community newly back from exile.  So, they were still a vassal state
to an external empire, but they also had some freedom, and were
trying to rebuild their society.  Thus, the normal struggles of “what
does justice look like” were relevant for them.  During the exile,
the people left behind were defenseless and struggled mightily for
generations.  And, during the exile, the people taken into exile were
used as slaves and struggled mightily for generations.  That’s a hard
place to start rebuilding from!  And it might be an easy place to
become individualistic.  After all, everyone has had a hard time,
there aren’t a lot of resources, it might make sense to gather what
you can and share it sparingly.  

But
also, the people were FREE, and they were REBUILDING, and they were
grateful to God for this new era were particularly faithful to their
worship and religious rituals.  Which is where we find this passage.
The people are worshipping, yes, but aren’t living out God’s values.
God’s values are ALWAYS for the well-being of the whole, the care for
the vulnerable, and the acknowledgment of shared humanity with those
who are struggling.

And,
yes, sometimes this is really hard, and it is almost always
overwhelming.  And these problems are big, and complicated.  There
are three pieces of good news here though:  1.  God is on the side of
vulnerable, and God is a really really good ally, 2.  The Body of
Christ works so that if each of us do our part, big changes happen,
but we only have to do our small part, 3.  The Poor People’s Campaign
is working on all of this and they’re amazing.
(Copies of my sermon have the NY state fact sheet attached.)5

Actually,
there is a 4th
piece of really good news, and this is one I should talk about more.
One of the most valuable ways to change the world is to settle into
God’s love for us.  Because when we are TRYING to be lovable, we tend
to get really defensive about our errors and then that leads to us
judging others to protect ourselves, and things can go downhill
quickly.  But when we TRUST that God loves us, and also that God has
good work for us to do in the world, THEN we can participate in the
world as expressions of that love, and things just go far better.  As
we allow ourselves, and our humanity, and even our weaknesses and
failures to be acceptable to ourselves and visible to others, we tend
to get better at letting other people be human too.  And as we do
that, we increase our capacity to see other people as fully human and
fully beloved by God – and THEN we have the best possible
motivation to work towards bettering the lives of those around us.  

So,
dear ones of God, I invite you to do what you can do to settle into
God’s love for you, and also to follow God’s will in the world: to
create more justice, to break more yokes, and to bring freedom to the
oppressed.  May God help us all.  Amen  

1Yep,
it is paragraph three and I’ve now cited Isaiah and Brueggemann.
#ProgressivePastorCredentials.  Also, if you were wondering, my
computer knows how to spell Brueggemann.

2Walter
Bruggemann, Isaiah
40-66
(Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 187-189

3https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Census-Most-Schenectady-kids-live-in-poverty-3925563.php

4http://www.schenectady.k12.ny.us/about_us/district_dashboard/demographics

5https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/New-York-Fact-Sheet.pdf

Sermons

“Requirements” based on Micah 6:1-8 and Matthew 5:1-12

  • February 2, 2020February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

By
my records, this is the 4th time I’ve preached on the
Beatitudes here, and the 7th time overall.  To be honest,
this makes things a little bit challenging.  To be a responsible
preacher, I think I have to go over the basics each time, but to be
an INTERESTING preacher I need to offer you something new.  The
Beatitudes, however, have been around for a while and they aren’t …
well…new.

In
fact, they’re so not new to those of us with lifetime exposures to
Christianity, that I’m not sure we can hear them anymore.  Bruce
Malina and Richard Rohrbough wrote the “Social-Science Commentary
on the Synoptic Gospels” which is one of the most useful books I’ve
ever met.  They put the Gospels into a social context, and use it to
explain how things would have made sense in the stories and to those
first hearing the stories.

Their
commentary on the Beatitudes is particularly helpful, as they
DISAGREE with the general consensus that “blessed” can be
translated as “fortunate” or “lucky” or “happy.”  Those
are all good translations of the Latin version of the text,
but they miss the social context of Jesus’s day.  Instead, they point
out:

The language used here, i.e. ‘blessed’ is
honorific language. … Contrary to the dominant social values, these
‘blessed are…’ statements ascribe honor to those unable to defend
their positions or those who refuse to take advantage of or trespass
on the position of another.  They are not those normally honored by
the culture.  Obviously, then, the honor granted comes from God, not
from the usual social sources.1

The
honor bit of this isn’t simply honor like we understand it today.
One of the primary points of the book is that honor and shame were
understood as a zero-sum reality in the Mediterranean region at that
time.  One was born into a certain amount of honor or shame and the
only way one gained honor was by gaining it FROM someone else and
that person then experienced an increase in shame.  Honor was the
FUNDMENTAL value in society, and it was a “limited good.”  In
fact, the “poor” and the “rich” in the New Testament are not
actually economic terms to begin with.  Rather, to be “poor” was
to be a person living with less honor than one was born to, and to be
“rich” was to have gained honor from others.  Malina and
Rorhrbough put it this way, “The ancient Mediterranean attitude was
that every rich person is either unjust or the hair of an unjust
person,” one who had stolen from others what they had.2
They conclude that,”The terms ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ therefore, are
better translated ‘greedy,’ and socially unfortunate.’”3
(This isn’t to say poverty wasn’t an issue, it was just such a
UNIVERSAL issue that it wasn’t actually the focus.)

This
understanding of honor, and the connection of honor to “blessed
are…”, is the key to understanding the Beatitudes in their
original context.  The challenge is that sometimes the text has been
used to mean the opposite of it’s intention.  When “Blessed are…”
is translated “lucky” it can SEEM like the beatitudes are saying:
“Lucky are the ones who struggle, don’t worry about them, they’re
better off than you think.”  Thus the social order of the day,
whatever day it may be, is upheld and people’s suffering is
justified.

That
sounds sort of like what a STANDARD set of honor and shame statements
would have been – the ones describing society as it was in Jesus’s
day:

Honorable
are those born into good families.

Honorable
are those who are spoken well of in the town square.

Honorable
are those who own large estates.

Honorable
are the elected officials who make the rules.

Honorable
are those who have many servants.

Honorable
are those who have the status to control others.

Honorable
are those who have the ear of power.

Honorable
are those who can enforce their will with violence.

Honorable
are those who speak, and others have to listen.

That
is, honor belongs to and is used by those are are already powerful,
important, and wealthy.  So, shame belongs to the powerless, the
unimportant, the poor, and those who lose status.  This clarifies
just how different the statements in Matthew’s gospel really are.
Because those that society shames, God does not.

Given
the information we have, the Beatitudes might be heard as:

Honorable to God are those who have lost the
honor of society, while they do not own the kingdoms of earth, they
are part of the kindom of heaven.

Honorable to God are those who are mourn, while
they have lost that which matters, loss is not the final word.

Honorable to God are those who refuse to harm
others, while they may lose out on power and wealth, they will end up
with everything that truly matters.

Honorable to God are those who hunger and thirst
for fairness, righteousness, and justice – it is coming.

Honorable to God are the merciful – those who
do not demand what they have a right to and shame others – they
will also receive mercy when they need it.

Honorable to God are those who are pure in
heart, the kind, for when they look in the world, they are able to
see the hand of God at work.

Honorable to God are the peace-able people, the
ones who reject violence and seek win-win situations, they are like
God.

Honorable to God are the ones who are shamed by
society for making the right choices, they also are a part of the
kindom of heaven.

Jesus
is describing an ENTIRELY ALTERNATE values system, one that ignores
the things that society cared about and instead focuses about caring
for each other, building each other up, not being willing to do harm,
and inverting the assumptions about how honor and shame work.

The
work of Jesus in this Matthew passage tracks well with the questions
posed in Micah.  In this passage God reminds the people what God has
done for them, and they respond with a wish to show appropriate…
well, honor and difference to God.  This leads to the question, “With
what shall I come before the LORD?” and the initial thoughts are
the sorts of gifts one might bring a king to indicate that one
understands oneself to be a vassal – that the approval of the king
is important to your own continued life.    But the answer is that
God does NOT work like that.  God isn’t looking for bribes, like the
kings of the world.  God is looking for something else entirely.

You
may well know this answer: to do justice, and to love kindness, and
to walk humbly with your God.  Sounds a bit like the Beatitudes,
doesn’t it?

I
asked a question last week about how we as Christians are supposed to
be in relationship with the world.  I think, perhaps, this is a large
part of the answer.  We are to exist within an alternative value
system, one that sees the world with different eyes.  We are to see
the values of justice, and of kindness, of humility, of peacefulness,
of humility, of mercy  – and let those values guide our lives.  How
we relate to the world at large is not in rejection or complicity –
it is with seeing it with different eyes.  

In
the video for the Living the Questions study last week Rev. Winnie
Varghese suggests that as Christians we should be dreaming dreams so
big that the world thinks we are CRAZY, and the dreams are
impossible. The reason, she says, is because God dreams of a truly
just society, and we’re supposed to be dreamers with God.  I think
that both Micah and the Beatitudes point us in the direction of God’s
dreams – of value systems that value compassion, collaboration, and
kindness.  May we dream right alongside of God, and act accordingly.
Amen

1Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rorhrbough Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual
Notes: Matthew 5:1-12” p. 41.

2Malina,
400.

3Malina,
401.

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

02-02-2020

Sermons

“Dawn Light” based on  Isaiah 9:1-4 and Matthew 4:12-23

  • January 27, 2020February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I’m
going to enter into the Bible’s metaphors today about darkness and
light, but before I can do so, I need to differentiate Biblical times
from current times.  In particular, today metaphors of light and
darkness reinforce racial stereotypes with claims that light skin
tones are related to lightness which are related to goodness while
dark skin tones are related to darkness which are related to badness.
These correlations are false and harmful, yet they are significant
in our society and have to be named.

The
Bible, however, isn’t racist.  There are a whole lot of problems with
the Bible and I’d be happy to list them with you in a personal
conversation, but racism actually isn’t one of them, because racism
was created well AFTER the Bible was completed.  Any claims of the
Bible supporting racism are, inherently, false.  

When
the Bible is talking about light and darkness I think it is fair to
assume it is talking about light like sunlight and darkness like
cloud covered nights.  It is probably worth remembering that electric
lights are also a feature of modernity that the Bible lacked, and so
light and dark were more constant and impermeable features of life
during Biblical times.

So,
we’re going to talk about light and darkness, and I’m going to follow
the Bible’s lead in acknowledging that humans yearn for light.  But I
want to be very clear that we are talking about lumens and not skin
tone.  After all, none of the people in the Bible were white.

Of
course, there are many positive traits of darkness.  Since reading
about the “Dark Night of the Soul,” I’ve been entirely convinced
that darkness is a gift to us.  A “Dark Night of the Soul” is a
time of discombobulation, and/or confusion, and/or grief – when the
faith a person has doesn’t work anymore and the faith a person will
have isn’t there yet.  It has been described as womb-like, when the
framework of understanding the world, and God, and even one’s self
collapses and then in silence and darkness takes on a new form.  The
new form doesn’t come into the light until it is ready.  Many
Christians have been through Dark Nights of the Soul, some have been
through multiple.  It is a normal and important part of faith, even
if it is profoundly uncomfortable and can be scary.  

So
it isn’t that darkness is bad, darkness is an important part of the
journey.  However, after a time of darkness, light is a precious
gift.

Isaiah
is talking about an experience of light after a prolonged darkness.
He is talking about dawn breaking after a particularly long night.
Isaiah is talking about a dark night of the soul for the whole
community, the whole nation of Ancient Israel, when everything they
had known and depended on was overturned… and then what would
happened afterwards.

After
the gloom, after journeying in the darkness, after living without
light or hope, the light dawns.  The sense of isolation from God and
each other lifts.  The fear and hopelessness that have permeated life
dissipate.  The heaviness of grief grows lighter.  Things start to
make a little bit of sense again, in a new way.

In
place of that heaviness, there is JOY.  The things that were dragging
the people down are broken, and they are able to stand tall and move
freely.  Hope and light abound.

The
narrative of Isaiah, and indeed of the entirety of the Hebrew Bible
is that bad things may come – and do – but they’re never the
final word.  The people are enslaved in Egypt, but God sets them
free.  The people are lost, wandering in the desert, but God shows
them the way home.  The people are oppressed under their own kings,
but God sends prophets to restore justice.  The people are taken back
into captivity in the exile, but God sets them free again.  The
people are oppressed by large empires, but God works towards freedom
time and time again.

Yes,
the darkness, comes, says the Bible.  But the light comes too.  The
darkness is never the final word.

Matthew
decided to use this passage from Isaiah to explain Jesus.   In fact,
he uses it to INTRODUCE the theme of Jesus’ ministry, which was his
teaching of “Repent and believe, for the kin(g)dom of heaven has
come near.”  That is, Jesus was part of God’s work of the light
dawning yet again.  Furthermore, the light and the kin(g)dom are
related.  

We
sometimes shy away from the word “repent” because of the ways it
has been misused around us, but the word itself is just fine.  It can
be understood as “expressing regret or remorse about one’s
wrongdoing”1
or more traditionally to Christianity, as “apologizing AND changing
couse so the harmful action isn’t repeated.”  My friend the Rev.
Dr. Barbara Throrington Green says that to repent is to realize that
you are headed in the wrong direction, to look around to figure out
where God is looking, and then to reorient yourself to look in the
same direction God is looking.  That’s my favorite definition.

I wonder
sometimes if I really understand Jesus’ message yet.  It always feels
like a work in progress.  “Repent and believe, for the kin(g)dom of
heaven has come near.”  I think this is an invitation to leave
fear, hopelessness, and isolation behind and to join with Jesus in
the work of the kin(g)dom – which is work done in community, for
the well-being of all, in faith that with God’s help the kin(g)dom
will come.  But I also think it is about letting go of the things “of
the world” that do harm in order to make space for the things “of
the kin(g)dom” and that is much harder to sort out.  There is a
big, long-standing question in Christianity about what our
relationship is to be with “the world.” Do we stand against it?
Do we ignore it?  Do we recognize it’s gifts?  Do we think of it as
sacred?  Do we call it into more wholeness?  Do we accept it as it
is?

And
that ends up really mattering.  How much do we reject?  How much do
we celebrate?  Why?  How do we even figure out what things are of the
world and what things are of the kin(g)dom when we ourselves are in
both and most people we know are too?  Purism doesn’t happen much in
real life.  I think some of the things “of the world” are
competition, tribalism, greed, pulling ourselves up by pushing others
down, and violence.  Yet, I’ve definitely seen those things in the
church too!  I want to think of the things of the kin(g)dom as being
about the common good, shared resources, the full humanity of all
people, spirituality, holistic well-being, peace, hope, and joy.
Yet, in reality there aren’t clear lines between the two, or at least
not as clear as I’d like most of the time.


Which
worries me, because if I’m supposed to “repent and believe” and
I’m still not entirely clear on what I’m repenting of or believing
in, maybe I’m not helping much in the building of the kin(g)dom, even
though I really, really want to.  

This
Matthew passage is power packed.  It claims and then reframes
Isaiah’s dawning light, it offers Jesus’ ministry and its key ideas,
it includes the calling of the disciples, and then it describes the
work of Jesus during his ministry, “Jesus went throughout Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the
people.”

Perhaps one
doesn’t have to have a particularly good sense of where to draw the
line or how to understand the kindom.  Perhaps in the thin light of a
new dawn , one is only able to see a little bit, and yet that little
bit of light is enough to guide you safely one step at a time.  

We don’t
really have to have it all figured out – no one does, and no one
ever has.  But there is a need to trust God, and trust ourselves, and
trust each other, so that we can take a little bit of light and let
it lead us.

There is
deep goodness in the darkness, and I hope we’ve savored its lessons.
May we prepare ourselves for light dawning, and to take tentative
steps in the early morning light, moving as well as we can toward the
kin(g)dom.  Amen

1  Apple
dictionary

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 26, 2020

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. We
    believe that equal protection under the law is non-negotiable.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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

“The Call of Baptism” based on Isaiah 42:1-9 and…

  • January 12, 2020February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Last
weekend, Congregation Gates of Heaven hosted a service of unity for
the Capital Region after acts of anti-Semitism in New York made it
clear that a response was needed.  The event was jointly sponsored by
the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York, the Capital Region
Board of Rabbis, and Schenectady Clergy Against Hate.  By best
estimates over 800 people showed up!

(Interfaith Chapel at the University of Rochester)

The
event was particularly moving, even as the need for it was
distressing.  Schenectady Clergy Against Hate are well practiced in
pulling together community witnesses after attacks on faith
communities.  In our country today, that’s a good skill to have.
That said, I deeply wish we didn’t have the first idea how to respond
to violent attacks in faith communities.  I wish we’d never had a
violent attack to respond to.

Yet,
we have.  

And
while the acts of violence have often been perpetuated by individuals
acting as lone wolves, there is a disturbing connection between them.
Within a society, violence and the threat of violence act as means
of control, particularly of disempowered groups.  

I
would love to believe that in this forward thinking year 2020 we have
reached new heights of open-mindedness and equity, but evidence
proves me wrong.  Violence against people of minority faith
traditions, against people of color, and against women and non-men
continues, and indeed in some areas are expanding.  I believe this
violence functions as a way to maintain control over each of those
groups.  That isn’t to say that is a coordinated effort, but rather
the way that power works in our society impacts who gets attacked and
what impact is felt.  As each “lone wolf” acts, they function to
perpetuate the system of control.

And,
I believe this is against the will of God.

I
hope is is painfully obvious to say this:

God’s love is for Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sihks, Pagans, Druids, Agnostics,
Atheists, and members of other faith traditions.  God’s love is not
determined by a person’s faith tradition nor faithfulness, and to
claim otherwise makes God very small and mean indeed.

Similarly, God’s love knows no
national boundaries, language barriers, or income requirements, nor
is it impacted conviction histories.  That just isn’t how God works.

And, consistently, God’s love is
for females, males, people who are intersex, and people who are
non-binary all the same.  

None
of this is news.  We KNOW this.  And yet, perhaps we have not been as
vocal as we need to be about sharing this.  It is painfully obvious
that the world around us does NOT know this.  There are a multitude
of forces around us that define who has value and who doesn’t, and
therefore imply that some people matter more than others – and GOD
DOES NOT AGREE.  

The
Intersectional Justice Book Club discussion yesterday was on Michelle
Alexander’s The New Jim Crow,
in which Alexander names the ways that the War on Drugs has created a
racial underclass by imprisoning mostly men of color and then
enabling discrimination of those with convictions.  She points out
that drug use and drug sales occur across racial groups equally, with
a little bit more happening among white people, and yet 90% of
convictions are of people of color (with the vast majority of those
people being of African American descent.)

She
names, quite directly, that if we cared equally about people of
color, we would not permit such a system in our society.

And
yet we do.  

At
the service last weekend, the speakers gave us work to do.  Their
messages included that we have to:  

Advocate
for religious freedom for each other.

Speak
respectfully and affirmatively of other faith traditions AT ALL TIMES

(For me, this works mostly as:
call out the problems in my own tradition before looking for others,
and I haven’t finished on my own tradition yet. 😉  )

Call
out anyone who doesn’t speak respectfully of a faith tradition

Repent
of the times we have contributed to messages of hate

Remember
the contributions of people of other faith traditions

Seek
legislation that makes attacks on faith groups hate crimes

Have
hope

Become
more loving

Rabbi
Rafi Spitzer, of Congregation Agudat Achim in Niskayuna, specifically
reminded us to attend to the things of the Spirit, as a means of
becoming more loving and more peaceful.  That’s the particular
role of those of us who are part of faith traditions: to become more
loving and more peaceful as part of contributing to the world become
more loving and peaceful.  (May it be so.)

This
got me thinking about how well we are doing at developing the things
of the Spirit.  There are lots of ways that things are going well –
we have many ways for people to meaningfully contribute to building
the kindom, we have space for people to be loved as they are, there
is beauty that feeds us, there is space for questions and for being.

I
think there are also ways we could be making more space for the
things of the Spirit.  The most historic Wesleyan question of all is
“How is it with your soul?”  Let me tell you, this is NOT an easy
question to answer, and it is not a question you can ask others if
you are unprepared to hear the real answers.  That said, it is a
great question.  “How is it with your soul?” invites us to think
deeply about the answer, and share it with someone else.  It brings
our faith journeying into contact with each other.  A course I taught
once invited participants to answer the question with weather
metaphors, which turned out to be amazing (“it is cloudy, with a
distinct change of tornadoes”, “it is bright and beautiful, but
bitterly cold,” “the fog is very, very thick”) but I think that
there is even more value in having to answer the question directly.
So, one tiny little thing we could do: we could ask each other “how
is it with your soul?”  

Perhaps
you might even be willing to ask someone this during the time of
passing the peace?  And, dear ones, if you don’t want to answer,
perhaps a weather metaphor might share the gist without being too
vulnerable?

On
a similar note, I don’t think we check with each other enough about
our spiritual practices.  During Lent two years ago we did a study of
a Richard Rohr book, and thus had a regular shared practice of
centering prayer.  It was amazing.  For many of the participants it
was the most regular prayer practice they had, and it was a wonderful
addition to their lives.  (I believe centering prayer is easier in a
group.)  My suspicion is that many of us in this community do not
have regular prayer practices.  Some of this may be due to not ever
having found a prayer practice that works, some of this may be due to
not being the sorts of people who want REGULAR practices, some of
this may be due to allowing other things to take precedence.  I will
admit to you that while I had INCREDIBLE prayer times during my
renewal leave, I allowed them to become lax again this fall and have
been struggling to pick them up again.  I adore prayer, but it is
very (VERY) easy to allow myself to get distracted with … well,
anything and everything else.

Yet,
I know that my own development as a person, and a person of faith,
and into being more loving and more peaceful is directly correlated
to the time I spend in prayer.  My prayer practices tend to be the
quiet and reflective sort, and thus the kind that let me see myself
clearly and make decisions at the right pace for me.  Without them,
I’m pretty anchorless.

So
that’s the second thing I can think of – we could be more
intentional about checking in with each other about prayer and/or
meditative practices – including sharing what works for us,
admitting what isn’t working for us, and being willing to talk about
what impedes us from practicing.  My personal experience says that
when I’m avoiding prayer, I’m mostly afraid of that some judgement
I’m making on myself is shared by God.  Thus far, it never has been.

Of
course, prayer practices are a WIDE range of things that can include
walking, or dancing, or bike riding, as well as sitting quietly,
writing, or coloring, and for many they even include conversation.
We as a church talk about and develop our prayer and meditative
skills more – I think it would benefit us and the world.  

For
the first time this year, when I read Isaiah 42, I didn’t get worried
about the servant like I always have before.  Instead, I heard it as
being all about the nature of God.  The passage tells us about God
who has joy in people, who wants justice for all the nations, who
doesn’t move us towards justice with violence, who is patient and
consistent and trustworthy.  This God, the very one who made all of
creation, is with us and working towards good with us.  What has been
and has been hurt and broken is NOT all that can be, there is new
goodness that can and will come with God.  Healing and hope are
possible.  

These,
you see, are things of the Spirit.  They are things of seeing clearly
what is, and yet seeing what can be.  And those things of the Spirit
are what our baptisms are all about.  Baptism welcomes us into the
community of the Spirit, so that we can work together towards love
and peace for all.  And baptism teaches each one of us that we are
beloved by God,  which means we don’t need to prove ourselves worthy
of love, and means that we have love in abundance to share.  

Dear
ones, there is a lot broken in the world, but God isn’t done with us
yet.  And as we share with each other and seek out the Divine, we
make it possible to bring more goodness into the world.  May we do
it!  Amen

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

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 12, 2020

Sermons

“Hope for Restoration” based on Isaiah 35:1-10 and Luke…

  • December 15, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I did my seminary work in
Southern California (Los Angeles county) which is a desert climate.
The choice to be far away in a different subculture of the USA was
intentional, as I figured I could use some perspective on the
Northeast.  The desert climate part wasn’t intentional.  I just liked
the school, so I decided to go there, and it happened to be in the
desert.  I had no expectation, whatsoever, that this would be
relevant.

So, clearly, it was.  The first
piece of learning came from the campus itself, which was planted with
biblical plants so we as the students could have a better sense of
what the Bible was talking about.  Because I’d grown up in the water
abundant Northeast, I hadn’t really considered the ways that my
visioning of the Bible was insufficiently desert like.  

Then came the fact that I don’t
LIKE the desert.  I hated that the sides of the road were filled with
pebbles with nothing growing in them, because without watering,
things just didn’t grow.  I hated being dehydrated, and the amount of
water I had to drink to be hydrated.  I didn’t like the heat.  I came
to resent Palm Trees for being there when trees I knew and loved
couldn’t be.  (Can you tell LA wasn’t a natural fit for me?)  

Somewhere along the line as we
learned about Christian history it became clear how much of early
Christianity was formed by the words and actions of solitary desert
thinkers, and later monastic desert communities.  The so-called
“Desert Fathers” were new to me, but heavens they were important.
My classmates who were native to the area waxed poetically about the
beauty of the desert, and its starkness, and the rich spiritual
depths of being alone in such a stark environment that was so
unfriendly to life.  I understood part of what they meant, I love the
great outdoors, and I have felt closest to God in nature.  Except, I
don’t actually LIKE stark and dangerous landscapes.  They are
DEFINITELY beautiful.  For me they are startling in good ways too,
but not really in God-connection ways.  My soul isn’t a desert soul,
although I recognize that desert is as good of a climate as any
other.  (This is all about my preferences, not about what is good.)

But then, in the winter of my
second year, a friend read that the recent rains we’d had were
sufficient to make the desert bloom.  The desert blooms erratically,
it isn’t an every year sort of thing.  More than that, this was the
100- year bloom, and plants believed to be extinct were in full bloom
under the unusual conditions.  We drove out to Joshua Tree National
Park to see it, and it was breathtaking.  From afar, the landscape
actually still seemed stark – it wasn’t as if the plants were more
abundant than they’d been before.  But as you looked, flowers were
EVERYWHERE.  The flowers were more diverse and more delicate than I’d
ever seen before.  We saw a burning bush in bloom – you can
definitely tell why it is called that.  Out of what seemed to be bare
rock came tiny flowers.  Rock faces exploded with color.  

There was nothing in my life
that had prepared me for the desert bloom.  Even now, it stuns me,
the transformation of it all.  That hidden in the starkness was
beauty beyond my imagination.  The flowers were bright, and
different, but sooooo fragile.  It was often hard to believe they
existed.  It blew my mind to see yards of dusty pebbles in every
direction, the floor the desert, and then to notice a tiny little
flower breaking through all on its own.  

To say it directly, I have seen
nothing that proclaims resurrection more than the desert in bloom,
and I think it is radically unfair that this desert hating
North-easterner got to to savor the 100-year desert bloom, and see
life emerge from what looked like lifelessness.  But I’m thankful
anyway.  

Isaiah starts this profound
passage with imagery of the desert in bloom.  I shared all that,
because I don’t think that we who know spring flowers, and summer
flowers, and even fall flowers can hear how BIG the vision of the
desert in bloom is for desert people, nor how much of a miracle it
is.  The clear joy of this passage fits incredibly well with the
desert in bloom.  It is abundant, it is colorful, it is unexpected,
it is hope-filled, it is transformative.

Isaiah is talking about the joy
of homecoming in this passage.  The assumption is that the people
will be taken into exile (true, they will) but that someday God will
act and let them come home (also true).  This vision of homecoming is
bursting with joy.  The act of coming home after the exile is called
“restoration” or “the return” and this restoration passage
bubbles with joy in God.

It starts with the imagery of
the desert in bloom, and then it EXPANDS into human healing.
Physical limitations are lifted, healing occurs, strength is given
where there has been weakness.  Then it takes the desert metaphor
even further.  Streams of water will flow, pools of water will
emerge, springs will break out.  I think my favorite line is the one
that says, “the haunts of jackals will become swamps.”  Now THAT
is a transformation.  

In the midst of this beautiful,
blooming, and now lush landscape, with healing for all in need of it,
there will emerge…. a way home.  And the way will be safe from all
attackers, and easy to follow – impossible to get lost on.  On that
path, the people will travel home, and life will be restored to what
it shall be.

And, of course, there will be
joy and singing, and so much of it that sorrow itself will fall away.

What.  A.  Vision.  

It seems hard to believe Isaiah
could start with the desert in bloom and then grow imagery from
there, but he does it.  Exile and return/restoration is one of the
big themes of the Bible, likely because while the story happens once
to the Israelite people, it happens time and time again to us in our
lives.  

When I was 13 I broke my femur
and was put in a straight leg cast.  For months I was unable to
navigate stairs on my feet (well, my foot) at all, I had to sit on
the steps and move up or down them one at a time.  During that time I
restlessly dreamed of the day when I would be restored to walking up
and down stairs on my feet again.  And then, of course, once I was,
it mostly lost its luster.  For better or worse I’ve had plenty of
injuries in my life though, and my capacity to do stairs has
dissipated and then returned rather a lot.  Perhaps because of the
depth of the yearning in my younger years, sometimes while I’m on a
set of stairs, I remember to be grateful for the capacity to use
them.  

I think exile and restoration
have a lot of emotional resonance too, because in large part they are
about “home.”  And home is a big huge deal to humans.  What does
home feel like?  What does it mean to leave home?  How does it feel
to be between homes?  Or homeless?  Or someone with a foot in more
than one home but no one place to call home exclusively?  When we are
sick, or injured, we yearn for home.  When we think of displaced
people in the world, we recognize the pain of being far from home and
without a new place to try to make home.  And, as North Americans, we
come from people who have left homes.  Those whose ancestors came
from Europe or Asia often left home voluntarily.  Those who ancestors
came from Africa were enslaved and torn from their homes.  Those who
ancestors were native to the Americas were displaced by the Europeans
who came here.  I sometimes wonder if some of the displacement in our
society comes from our shared histories of being displaced in the
world.  In any case, “home” is something that matters to humans,
and exile and restoration are all about home.

Now, the imagery of Isaiah is
assumed when we come to Luke.  Isaiah’s vision of restoration and
return home are premised on God’s actions, and so are Luke’s.  John
the Baptist is going to be seen as the forerunner of Jesus, the one
who starts the path in the desert so Jesus can complete it – and we
walk it.  The language of Zechariah’s song is that of redemption,
salvation, mercy, and rescue.  ALL of those emerge out of the desire
for restoration and return.  They are the yearning not just for home,
but for a safe home, and Zechariah names that “fearlessness” is
an impact of God’s work in those days.  As John, whose name means
“God is Gracious” will prepare the way, and Jesus will walk it,
the result will be peace, fearlessness, and light.  Redemption,
salvation, rescue all resonate with people being safely HOME.

It is the tradition of
Christianity to follow Christ, since Christians means “little
Christs.”  I’m all for this, but sometimes I think it is worth
considering when we are being asked to be “little John the
Baptists.”  Often, I think our work is the prepare the way, and to
be prophets of what is possible with God.  Perhaps this is just the
longview of building the kindom, acknowledging that some work gets to
make the BIG changes, but before that happens, there have been years
or decades or centuries of preparing the way for that to happen.

In our Advent Study on John
Shelby Spong’s “Unbelievable” last week we discussed his idea
that morality is always contextual, and thus always in flux.  So, we
talked about how public morality has changed in our lifetimes, and
you know what?  It has been GREAT!!!  Space has been made for people
to be who they are and to be accepted and loved as they are in ways
that once seemed impossible.  LGBTQIA+ rights have expanded, and
rights and opportunists for people with disabilities have been
normalized, people who are divorced as no longer stigmatized, nor are
those who have sex outside of marriage.  Women’s work opportunities
have exploded.  All of us in the room had grown in our awareness of
racism and privilege, and had hope for the country to change its
practices.  The changes were truly inspiring.  Also, work on all of
that inclusion and all of those rights was being done well before any
of us were born.  Many, many people have prepared the way and we are
able to see their work with gratitude.

The work we do to prepare the
way is the work that we may never see the impact of.  But, we trust
that God will make sure the next steps happen, and God’s people will
follow through, and the preparation will not be in vein.

So, dear ones, prepare the way.
Work on building that safe and beautiful highway home for ALL of
God’s people. Because, someday, it will be complete and the people
who walk it will be singing songs of joy and gratitude for what God
has made possible.  And that which God makes possible, God lets us
work on!!  Thanks be to God for that, and for beautiful homecomings
of many varieties.  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

December 15, 2019

Sermons

“Hope for New Life” based on Isaiah 11:1-10 and…

  • December 8, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

It
is common to call the writer of the Gospel of Luke… Luke, which
makes plenty of sense. It isn’t likely to be historically accurate,
but it is pretty simple to remember. Whatever the writer’s real name
was, the person who wrote the Gospel of Luke and its 2nd
volume
the book of Acts, is said to be the best writer in the New Testament.
From my perspective I can tell that Luke does great work with
foreshadowing, telling stories within stories to enrich both stories,
symbolism, and themes. However, the really good stuff, I’m told is in
his Greek vocabulary and syntax which are simply just outstanding.
“Luke” was a VERY well educated person, and a master of the craft
of writing. Given how small the percentage of literate people were at
that time, being so well versed as a writer indicates not only
brilliance and skill but also power and privilege. One simply would
not become that great of a writer without a lot of access to unusual
levels of resources.

Luke
is probably my favorite Gospel writer, and I love Luke for his
emphasis on people who are poor,  marginalized, and vulnerable, and
because they fit those categories, the women. Luke tells the story of
my faith, presenting Jesus as an ally to those most in need of
rescue, and as an organizer able to help people rescue themselves.
This has a bit of cognitive dissonance to it. Based on WHAT he
writes, Luke is a writer of the people. He is empowering, noticing
those society disregards, and telling the stories that the powerful
don’t want told. Yet, based on HOW he writes, Luke is one of
society’s elites.

Which
sounds to me like Luke being a living example of the power of Jesus –
to convince people to work together to build the kindom no matter
where they begin life, to be FOR ALL the people as they grow.

Isaiah
was a prophet, and from what I can tell, a prophet is a speaker for
the people. The Torah set up a society that treated people justly,
and prevented an upper class from ruling over a lower class. Yet,
people being people, power, money, and influence tended to coalesce
at a top and become a burden to the many. God’s prophets spoke out
against it, and called people back to God’s vision of a just, equal,
and equitable lifestyle.

Which
is a long-winded way of saying that we have two passages today that
are “of the people” and yearning for justice. They do so in ways
that can be a little bit uncomfortable. There are not simply passages
that suggest “a rising tide lifts all boats” but rather ones that
talk about REDISTRIBUTION of wealth1.
These are passages that are good news for the poor, the lowly, and
the meek … but not for the rich, the proud, and the powerful. I
find the “rising tide lifts all boats” sort of justice easier to
swallow. This stuff is … harder.

And
yet, my activist friends assure me that we aren’t going to get to
justice only by being nice. So, let’s examine these texts for wisdom.
This shoot that come from Jesse in Isaiah, have you noticed that it
comes AFTER the tree has been cut down. This is a sign of hope after
destruction and hopelessness. The passage as a whole feels like a
cousin of last week’s passage. In this case, the new offspring of
Jesse (which is to say the new Davidic king) is going to be so
perfectly imbued with the Spirit of God that the new King will rule
as perfectly as God’s own self would.

The
impact of life as ruled as God would have it ruled is shockingly
different. When God’s spirit is in leadership, and when the people
are following in God’s ways, there will be peace even among animals
who are in each other’s food chains 😉 Safety becomes the center
point of this – the lamb, the kid-goat, the calf, and the human
child are all safe in the presence of those most apt to harm them.
This is another way of talking about not needing to be afraid,
because there is no motivation to do harm. In this case, it is clear
that there are no people oppressing other people, no one is “eating
up” the resources of the weaker people to make themselves stronger.
Security, hope, and peace are the result of God’s Spirit. That’s the
kindom.

Mary’s
song hits the same notes. Mary is continuing to process that she, who
is lowly by the standards of the world, is now “blessed.” She
attributes this change to God, and notices that this is how God
works. She says it is God’s nature to do great things, to show mercy,
to be strong…. to bring justice. And she names how justice comes.
It is by scattering the proud and bringing down the powerful –
while lifting up the lowly. It is by feeding the hungry but NOT
giving more to those who already have too much. Mary’s song is,
itself, strong and justice seeking. She identifies with the lowly,
who God lifts up. And it is even more interesting to hear that
knowing that the writer of the Gospel probably identifies with the
rich, and wrote her song this way anyway.

While
we know absolutely nothing about Jesus’s mother with any certainty,
we do know Jesus had a mother.  The name Mary was associated with her
a few generations after his death, which isn’t a great reason to
assume it is true, but sort of like “Luke” we can go with it. I
suspect Mary got associated with the name of the mother of Jesus
because Mary is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Miriam. Miriam,
the sister of Moses, has the oldest words in the Bible attributed to
her, and saved her brother so he could save the nation Israel.
Associating Mary with Miriam is A-Ok with me.

Other
conjectures we can make about Mary include: she was Jewish, she was
from Galilee – most likely Nazareth, she was poor, and it is likely
she was young. She may have been a very faithful Jew, as Judean
settlers were intentionally reclaiming Galilee for Judaism around
that time, and the ones who went were often the ones who were
committed to the cause. She also might have been influenced by either
the Roman Empire’s violent destruction of the nearby city of
Sepphoras in her childhood or by the radical Jewish teachers in the
Galilee who taught that the God of liberation was going to liberate
again. In any case, while the leaders of the Temple during her
lifetime were appointed by Rome and the “official” religion had
been compromised, it is possible (probable?) that Mary knew a faith
that was untainted by the influence of power.

Which
is to say, that while Luke wrote the words we hear today, and put
them into Mary’s mouth for our story – they MAY well reflect her
faith itself. At the very least, Mary’s song words as an incredible
foreshadowing of the power of God that people saw in Jesus, and I
believe Jesus’s faith was likely formed by his mother’s.

In
Mark, Jesus is referred to as Mary’s son which is unusual in that he
was not referred to as his FATHER’S son. With the presence of a
punishing military force nearby, before Jesus’s birth, there are some
particularly awful possibilities about his father. What we know is
that at some point Mary was pregnant, expecting a child, and likely
pretty scared. I say that because maternal mortality rates were high,
infant mortality rates were high, and resources in Nazareth were
scarce. It is very likely that Mary herself was hungry, including
during her pregnancy and while she was breastfeeding Jesus. She had
seen extreme violence from the Empire, and had reason to believe it
could come back at any time. She MAY have been facing the possibility
of being ostracized from her community. Thus, I think it is fair to
assume she was scared.

Even
stripping away most of that, scared seems right. For years, Kevin and
I have struggled with some big questions: is it OK for us to choose
to bring a child into this world knowing the dangers of Global
Climate Change? Is it ok for us to choose to bring a child into this
world when there are other children who need to be parented? How much
capacity do we have to offer care and support for a child given our
other commitments?

After
long talks, prayer, and good counsel, we decided that our ideal
family would include a child born to us and a child adopted by us. So
we started trying to have a child and…. well, nothing happened.
Eventually we made an appointment with an adoption lawyer, and
decided to try private infant adoption. We filled out paperwork, got
background checked, had a home study, and were ready to sign a court
petition requesting that we be approved to be able to become adoptive
parents when we learned that I was, in biblical phrasing, “with
child.”

Now,
I live in the 21st
century,
with pretty great access to resources. While our country is weaker
than it should be, particularly in the care of women of color,
compared with ancient Galilee we have low maternal mortality rates,
low infant mortality rates, plenty of food, and low threat of
violence. Yet as an expectant mother, I’m scared. While I find it
excessive to overly identify with “Mother Mary,” preparing to
parent has certainly helped me see why she’s so popular. Also, why
she has every right to be scared. We have been wondering how on earth
will we prepare a child to be kind, compassionate, and moral in this
crazy world? How will we teach them of God in ways that feel relevant
while the world shifts under our feet?

Let
me assure you that we did NOT sign that paperwork and adoption is
officially on hold. Let me also admit to you that being the pregnant
pastor of this church for the past two months hasn’t been the easiest
thing I’ve ever done. I haven’t been puking (WIN) but I have been
constantly nauseated, and instructed to eat every hour. I’ve been
exhausted and my emotional resources have been down. At the same
time, I have experienced significant collateral friendly fire as this
church has worked together on the reality of our budget deficit.

Between
the friendly fire and being less resilient than usual, I have spent
time considering if pastoring this church – or even being a pastor at
all – continues to be the right path for me. Some of this is simply
about parenting: I’m nervous about being away from home 4 nights a
week like I usually am now. Some of this is about ministry’s
demands: what will it mean to have to establish the sort of
boundaries my child will need, and what will I do when the needs of
the church are in conflict, and what will happen when someone feels
that their expectations aren’t being met? Some of it is about our
child and this church. On one hand I can’t imagine any church but
this one being part of raising our child. I love the way children are
cared for during worship. I love our Sunday School and its teachers.
I love the way children are treated here, and I love the ways God is
understood and taught here. However, on the other hand, my stress
level has been sky high, and recently I’ve seen a lot of behavior I
wouldn’t want a child to learn about much less associate with this
church. So I’ve been wondering, is this a safe and secure place for a
child – our child – to learn about God? Will this place fulfill
Isaiah’s vision of a child being able to put their hand in a snake’s
den safely?

In
slow, careful deliberation, with conversation, and consultation, and
prayer, and a LOT of obsessing and worrying, I’ve decided not to give
up on ministry just yet. Then, even more slowly, I realized that –
for now – this church is worth the pain. I simply love you all.
Furthermore, I don’t believe that this church IS its worst behaviors.
Dear ones, I believe that this faith community is an expression of
the kindom of God. I believe it is a little bit of Isaiah’s vision,
and has the capacity to build the world into one of peace and
justice. I’m well aware that we have lots of hard times ahead (and I
am terrified
of
the boundaries I’m going to have to have as a parent, please be
gentle with me) but I believe you are worth it.

So,
anyway, I see why a prospective parent would be scared. And I am
gaining a new appreciation for the ways in which a new generation
provides new opportunities: 1) for regeneration, 2) for making right
the things we haven’t gotten right yet, and 3) hope for the future.
We are hoping to raise a child to know God’s love, follow Jesus, and
speak with and for the people.  And I find myself reflecting on how I
hope this community will continue to exist and teach and raise up
future generations to do the same. Given all this, I see why a
prospective parent would choose to stick with the God of Liberation,
of Hope, and of Peace.  And I see why Mary was amazed at her luck in
getting the chance to do so.  Being a part of the work of God is a
blessing and a great opportunity.   Thanks be to God. Amen

1 Someone
pointed out after worship that a rising tide may lift all boats, but
it doesn’t help people who don’t have boats.

Sermons

“Hope in God” based on Isaiah 2:1-5 and Luke…

  • December 1, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

This
Advent we are Waiting in Hope, and our guides for that waiting are
going to be Isaiah and Luke. All too often we jump into Luke chapter
2 on Christmas, without examining Luke chapter 1 to prepare the way.
This means we are going to spend Advent with Mary, with Elizabeth,
and with Zechariah.  Which means that we need a content warning
for Advent.

Luke
1, not unlike Genesis, spends a lot of time dealing with issues of
fertility and infertility.  These are tender topics for many people,
and I will be seeking to deal with them tenderly.  However, you are
not obligated to stay present if these topics are simply too much for
you right now, and I am available to talk if you want to.  (Or, I’m
willing to find you someone else to talk to if you’d prefer.)

Luke
starts by telling the story of Zechariah, an old priest, and his wife
Elizabeth.  They had no children.  This is a VERY common story in the
Bible, in fact it feels like a throw-back to the matriarchs and
patriarchs who all had trouble conceiving until God intervened.  (And
this is part of why these stories are so hard.  If infertility could
be solved with prayer alone, there would be much less of it.)  This
story rings of Abraham and Sarah, of Issac and Rebecca, of Jacob’s
wife Rachel, of Hannah and Elkanah.
This is a familiar story.  An angel tells Zechariah, while he is
serving in the temple, that his prayers have been heard and Elizabeth
will become pregnant.  Zechariah expresses some disbelief because of
their age, which is punished with being unable to speak until the
baby is born.  The baby to be born will be, according to Luke, John
the Baptist.

A few
months later, with Elizabeth pregnant, the story is interrupted with
our reading today.  This story is NOT familiar.  It doesn’t sound
like the Hebrew Bible at all – although it does sounds like its
contemporary Greek stories.  As far as the Bible goes, though, this
is a brand new account.  And it is breaking into an old, old story.
In this new account a young woman, who has been legally married to
her husband but is still in the one year waiting period in her
father’s house before she joins her husband in his house, is greeted
by that same angel.  The angel says “‘Greetings, favored one! The
Lord is with you,” and the story says that Mary is perplexed.  

This
make sense, I think.  By the standards of the world, Mary wasn’t
favored.  She was poor, she was young, she was female, she had very
little power, and she lived in an unimportant little village that was
outside of a city that had recently been ransacked by the Roman
Empire.  She was, by no means, favored by anyone nor anything.  Nor
was their any previous evidence that she was favored by God.  R. Alan
Culpepper writes in the New Interpreter’s Bible, “’Yet, Mary, God’s
favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock who would
later be executed as a criminal.  Acceptability, prosperity, and
comfort have never been the essence of God’s blessing.”1
Mary seems to still be processing this.

She
is, however, wise enough to keep her objections to herself – unlike
Zechariah.  So the angel continues to tell her about her upcoming
pregnancy with the child who would be named Jesus, “the rescuer”,
and would claim a unique connection to the Divine.  This time Mary
expresses her confusion, indicating that she understands how
conception works and thus that it shouldn’t be happening to her.
Perhaps because she doesn’t ask for proof, she is given it, in the
form of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

At this
point, the story comes to one of the greatest acts of courage I know
about.  This impoverished young woman, with everything to lose by
taking this risk (including her own life), responds “Here am I, the
servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  I
know that this story is Luke’s creation, Luke’s intentional
foreshadowing of the Jesus story.  I know this didn’t HAPPEN.  And
yet I can’t help but be stuck by this line.  It feels like the sort
of answer that the woman who raised Jesus and taught Jesus of God
would give.  It feels true in a way that is deeper than the story
itself.  Mary is a risk-taker for God.  She trusts in the
Divine even when it makes no sense and by all reasonable standards
should be done.

In this
story, through this brief interaction, Mary moves from confused at
the idea that she could be favored by God to an unquestioning
willingness to do whatever it is God needs of her.  The foreshadowing
of Jesus couldn’t be much better.  This unique story about Mary has
echoes all over it of Hannah and her faithfulness.  These are the
stories of the women’s faith, the women who raised men of great
faith.  The men didn’t come to their faith alone.

We
will come back to Mary next week, and to her extraordinary courage
and unique insight.  But for now we’re going to transition to the
vision of Isaiah, a vision that came when everything else looked like
it was going downhill.  Most of the time first Isaiah (the first 40
chapters) has to warn the people of what will happen if they don’t
trust in God, but this vision is an after vision.  Of what will come
SOMEDAY, one way or another.  The more I examine it, the more
striking it is.

Many of us
are familiar with the closing lines,

“they
shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
   and
their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword
against nation,
   neither shall they learn war
any more.”

but it
really struck me this week that these lines are about much more than
peace and a lack of a need for war. These lines are about not
needing defenses anymore, about not needing borders anymore,
about being unafraid for safety, and a sense of deep security.  

The only
way that people could be so secure is if they AND EVERYONE ELSE
already had enough, and resources were already fairly shared, and
there was no injustice or inequality that needed to be rectified.
I’m told that the threat of violence is what allows for income
inequality.  Thus the opposite must be true, where there is equality
there is no need for violence.  Furthermore, this has to be
widespread equality and equity, because there is no fear that
outsiders will break in wanting to share in the prosperity –
because they have it too.

Now
this makes perfect sense as a correlation to the earlier parts of the
passage.  It has already said that YHWH-God has become acknowledged
as THE Sacred one, and EVERYONE is worshipping YHWH-God.
Furthermore, they’re all learning God’s ways.  Well, God’s ways is a
way of speaking of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, which
contain a vision of a just and equitable society.  In that society
land is distributed to all so all can provide for themselves, those
who struggle are helped by their family and community, anyone in need
is cared for by the excess of those who have enough, and justice
itself is blind to power and influence.  This is the society that God
dreams of, and this is what people would be studying as “walking in
God’s ways.”  

In Isaiah’s
vision, this message is shared far and wide AND God’s self is the
judge arbitrating between people – so justice is definitely just.
So, yes, this is a reasonable set up for what otherwise feels like an
overly idealistic vision of peace.

In this
context, it is the reasonable extension.  If everyone buys into God’s
vision and enacts it, of course there would be equity, equality,
justice, and peace.  Of course weapons of destruction could become
tools of creation and means of food production.  That’s what God is
capable of doing.

And this
got me to thinking.  Do we dream this dream deeply enough?  Do we
consider what it would be like to be fearless?  To feel safe?  To
live in peace?

I
haven’t spent nearly enough time living into this dream.  What would
it be like to assume that all people, as they age, will have enough
resources to be cared for with tenderness and love in ways that
respect their humanity and maintain their freedom?  What would it be
like to know that all children, whether or not they have living and
able parents, will be nurtured, played with, fed well, have safe
places to sleep, clothing appropriate for the season, and access to
great education to help them thrive in body and spirit?  What would
it be like to remove locks from all doors, knowing that no one aims
to do us harm, and no one would have a need to take anything we have?
What would it be like to know that all people, regardless of their
employment status, or marital status, or socio-economic status, could
receive great healthcare when they need it?  What would it be like to
know that people all around the world shared all these gifts, and no
one in any other nation wished us harm because of harms we’d caused
taking resources we needed?  What would it be like to know that there
were no guns left in the world, and no one had motivation to make any
more?  What would it be like to live without the threat of nuclear
war, nor biological warfare, nor even internet viruses????

What if we
weren’t afraid, and didn’t need to be?  What if we could all care for
each other, and support each other, and grow together?

Friends,
that’s the sort of hope we’re preparing ourselves for in this season
of Advent.  Not because we necessarily expect to see it in our
lifetimes, but because that’s what we’re working for and we have to
keep God’s vision in front of us so we can be a part of enacting it.
May we, indeed, beat swords into plowshares, nuclear warheads into
flower gardens, and study war no more – because it isn’t needed!
Amen

1Alan
Culpepper, “Luke,”
in The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 9
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994) 52-3.

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

December 1, 2019

Sermons

“Connecting Joy and Gratitude” based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and…

  • November 25, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Kevin
and I have three cats, which is one more than we think we should
have.  However, all three are very sweet, and unusually
human-centric.  It is difficult to walk in our house without a cat
underfoot, and unusual to sit without a cat making space for
themselves on one’s lap.  I cannot tell you how many sermons I’ve
written with a cat sitting on a wrist, although before you worry too
much, I’ve stopped allowing that out of fear of carpal tunnel.  

Because
we have three, sweet, human-centric cats, we experience a lot of
purring in our lives.  This is unconditionally a wonderful thing.  We
fall asleep to cat purrs.  We wake up to cat purrs.  Often, our cats
will walk up to us, look at us, and start purring – expecting that
as soon as we see them, they will get petted.  (Yes, they are spoiled
rotten, we know.)

It
is so easy, if you are noticing it, to hear a cat’s purr, or a
brook’s gurgle, or the wind whispering in the trees as songs of
praise and contentedness to the God of Creation.  When listening to
those sounds, it can feel like all is well in the world, and that as
creation itself sings a love song to God, my soul is moved to join
in.

I
love those moments when it feels like all is well in the world, and
the majesty and wonder of God is visible and celebrated in creation.
I love it just as much as when I see unexpected grace and kindness
between people – which also seems like the majesty and wonderful
God being visible and celebrated in creation.

Those
sorts of moments used to come to me a lot.  After all, I have been
blessed to spend a lot of time in the beauty of creation and with
wonderful people who show grace in shockingly beautiful ways.

One
of the great honors of being a pastor is being allowed into the
vulnerable parts of people’s lives.  In moments of transition and
identity shifting, to be welcomed in feels like a miracle.  I am
always grateful when people are willing to let me be with them when
things are at their hardest, and God feels particularly close when
people are in their deepest needs.  God’s care meets people’s
tenderness, and I get to see it happen.

Over
the course of years, cumulative patterns within people’s hardest
times have formed for me.  Some of the patterns are beautiful and
striking – from God’s grace, to people’s capacities for strength,
to the ways we can build up each other’s resilience.  However, some
of the patterns have also been heartbreaking.  I am able to see the
impact of poverty on people’s lives, the prevalence of family
violence, the profound lack of effective mental health care for the
most vulnerable, the enormous number of traumas in our society, the
depth of the impact of the -isms on individual and communal life, and
the myriad of ways the church itself has harmed God’s beloveds.

Some
of you wish that I was more comforting in the pulpit, that I could
ease the anxieties of life and lead you to a higher plane of praise.
Dear ones, I do too.  I would love to ease your lives,  as well as to
offer you comfort and hope for the future.  Those are reasonable
desires, particularly when the world feels so heavy.  

The
challenge is that the world feels heavy to me too.  Further, the
brokenness I see in the world and the impact it has on wonderful
people’s lives feels like a broken promise to me.  I know that many
people were raised to see the brokenness, in large part because they
didn’t have a choice not to, but I thought the world MOSTLY worked
and only OCCASSIONALLY didn’t, and when it didn’t all we had to do
was work together to fix it.  And I believed this for a very long
time.  And still, today, I notice in myself that I’m shocked every
time something I thought worked fine actually doesn’t.  While my
mental and spiritual analysis of the world is – I think – largely
clear-sighted and aware of power and privilege, I’m still emotionally
disquieted with every new piece of information about avoidable harm
that is done.

While
this may be appropriate human development in one’s 30s (or, I fear,
one’s 20s – I may be behind based on how lucky I’ve been), many of
you are well beyond it.  You’ve seen the brokenness, made peace with
it, and are ready to focus on the good stuff again.  And you have
every right to be impatient with me while I struggle to catch up with
you.  In the model Marcus Borg suggests, I’m still working out
critical thinking about how the world and God work, while many of you
are already fully in post-critical naivete (which is a WONDERFUL idea
and place to be), ready to make meaning out of life – however
beautiful and broken it may be.

I’m
pushing myself to try to catch up, but I’m not sure the pushing will
work.  I’m pretty sure my only option is to be where I am, and try to
hold in tension that other’s aren’t in the same place.  I do want you
to know that I hear you, and I’m trying.  I am also open to learning
from you, how you moved beyond being aghast at what is wrong and into
a fuller connection to life as it is.

There
is one trick I’ve found, and I think it might be useful to others, so
I’m going to share it.  I’ve been taught to see anger as a USEFUL
thing.  This was not immediately obvious to me.  My prior
relationship with anger had been one of strict avoidance (in myself
as well as with others).  The teachings of Nonviolent Communication
say that anger is a red flag – not the bad kind- that lets us know
that something we really value is being violated.  Thus, when we feel
anger, we can know that something we care about is being harmed, and
we can stop and find out what it is that we value so deeply.  That
gives us two incredibly important gifts:  first, knowing what we
value is always important to know (although it isn’t always obvious
to us), and secondly that now we have a potential productive path
forward.  Anger itself is rarely productive, other than as a way to
point out that something is deeply wrong.  However, once we know what
we value, we are a big step closer to finding out how we might
respond to that value and ask others to join us.

So,
for example, there is a lot of anger in this church right now.  The
work being done to attempt to balance the budget has arisen great
passion.  Almost everyone is upset, most are angry, and many of you
want to stay home and avoid the whole mess.  However, there have been
some amazing insights from the anger, already, even though no
resolution is in sight.  We are able to see clearly that MANY, MANY
people care deeply about this church and are willing to show up to
care for it.  Similarly, people are willing to sit through long and
uncomfortable meetings out of their love for this church.  I’m hoping
that some of that care and passion might be shared in stories (like
the HW you got two weeks ago to share your faith stories with another
member of this congregation, just in case you didn’t do it yet…).
One of the things I’ve heard most consistently, under the anger and
under fear, is that people want this church to survive and continue
to be a gift from God to its communities for the long run – and
thus there is strong motivation not to make decisions that might harm
the church’s long term well-being.  That’s a value on this community
and its positive impact in the world.  Thanks be to God that so many
people care so much about this church and its impact!!  

Similarly,
I hear a lot of anger about the possibility of changing the way that
we do some of our ministries, making it clear that the ministries we
do are of value in people’s lives and are worth taking very
seriously.  I’ve also heard a passionate desire to be just in our
decisions and to be good and fair employers, values that we advocate
for in the world and want to enact in our lives together.  So, yeah,
there is a lot of GOOD that anger is a clue for, and anger can be
mined for many valuable insights.  

That
is not to say that an obvious way forward has emerged from those
passions or values.  To some degree, they conflict, and other
constraints exist.  However, as long as everyone’s passion comes out
of a love for this community and a desire for it to be well, we have
a better starting place to hear the possible ways forward.

For
me, all of this is really about the gratitude we are encouraged
towards in the Epistle reading which tells us to “rejoice in the
Lord always, again I will say: Rejoice” and “whatever is true,
whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever
is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and
if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  

It
is easy to tell people to be grateful, and it is easy to show
evidence that gratitude is a good spiritual gift that leads to
improved lives.  I suspect that we all agree on gratitude being good.
However, that doesn’t make it easy.  Sometimes to get to gratitude
we need to work through anger and notice what is actually wonderful
and valuable underneath.  Sometimes we have to slow down and smell
those proverbial roses.  Sometimes we just need a moment to savor a
cat’s purr.  

I
do think that there is a whole lot more worth celebrating in life and
in the world around us than we could name if we spent the rest of our
lives naming things.  And I think spending a significant amount of
our time working on noticing and appreciating those things is
worthwhile. Even better, it think anytime we are getting angry, we
have a clue about something we really care about – something we are
already grateful for.  So, however you get there, may you find the
ways to “rejoice in the Lord, always” because God IS good and
creation has innumerable wonders for which we can give thanks.  May
we do so.  Amen

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

November 24, 2019

Sermons

“The Stories We Have to Tell (and tell, and…

  • November 10, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Several
years ago I had the honor of celebrating the life of a woman who had
spent her life as a nurse.  She was fiercely independent, had never
married, was wonderfully fashionable, and LOVED being a nurse.  At
the end of her life, she had dementia, and it took almost everything
from her – knowledge of her loved ones, words, mobility, and the
rest.  All that was left of HER at the end of her life was one simple
motion.  It was the careful, life-saving motion of surgical
preparation – washing her hands.  After she’d lost even her own name,
she kept on washing her hands.

I
often wonder what that piece of me would be – the one last
lingering aspect of myself that would go last.  Truthfully, I’ve
never figured it out, but it feels like an important question.
Similarly, when I am spending time with a person earlier stages of
dementia, I pay attention to what stories come up time and time
again.  My theory is that those stories are core identity stories,
they are key to how the person understands themselves.  As such, I
try to notice what stories I’m telling repeatedly (hopefully to
different people), and figure out why those are the stories I’m
telling.

Not
to give away all my secrets all at once, but I also pay attention to
the phenomenon of repeated stories in groups – because I think
stories that more than one person tells are likely stories that
matter.  Also, I find the nuances and differences extra interesting.

The
stories that we repeat are the stories that are important to us.  I
suspect there are at least two aspects to why we repeat them:  first
because they are part of how we make sense of the world and secondly
because we’re still trying to make sense of the stories.  Telling our
stories, and having others respond to to them, helps us figure them
out.  

A
few years ago I came across a distinction between two types of
stories we tell.  Most of us, most of the time, tell what this theory
calls “ego stories.”  Ego stories make us look good, focus on
life’s high spots, portray us as having control in our own lives, are
well practiced and linear, well told, and sometimes well spun.  These
are the stories of interviews, of parties with people we don’t know,
of invulnerability and image crafting.

The
other option, according to this theory, is “soul stories.”  Soul
stories are the stories underneath ego stories, ones that tell about
both shadow and light, suffering as well as gladness.  They have a
lot of twists and turns, including telling about when our plans were
undone by life.  Telling soul stories allows us to integrate the
fragments with the whole, in part because they are unafraid of
change, fear, loss, failure, shame, mystery, passion, or ecstasy.
They are often told in poetry, music, or art.  They are the stories
we hold onto in the hardest of times, and the ones most important for
our loved ones to know.  Soul stories are likely to be the ones we
are revisiting at 3 AM, or when we have dementia, or when we die.1

The
truth is that in most settings, soul stories are hard to tell.  They
make us vulnerable, and they tell about things we are afraid of or
ashamed of.  Yet, when we don’t tell them, they get told through
us without our awareness.

All
of this thinking about stories started for me with the language of
Job and the desire in that passage to immortalize Job’s story.  For a
little context, we are hearing Job himself speak in this passage and,
“Since Job has parodied and rejected the language of prayer (vv
21-22) and realized that his outcry brings no response or justice (v.
7) there appears to be no way for him to bring his words before
God.”2
In part, Job worries about how his story will live past his death.
That’s what this is about – preserving his words as a testimony to
the injustice of his life.  “It appears that Job describes three
materials on which his words might be recorded – scroll, lead
tablet, engraved rock – each more enduring than the last.”3

The
phrase translated “For I know my Redeemer lives” refers to a
“kinsman redeemer”, that is “It designates the nearest male
relative, who was responsible for protecting a person’s interest when
that individual was unable to do so.  The [kinsman redeemer] would
buy back family property sold in distress, recover what has been
stolen, redeem a kinsman sold into slavery, or avenge a murdered
kinsman blood.  The [kinsman redeemer] is the embodiment of family
solidarity.”4
Now, just to be clear, this means that what Job was actually saying
was “I have a family member who will avenge me, and even after I
die, he will be working for justice on my behalf.”  And, further,
the assumption is that the kinsman redeemer will be working towards
justice for Job against Job’s opponent: God.  Which is to say that
this passage means exactly the opposite of what I thought it did when
I first read it.  It is NOT the same gist as the Psalm from a
different angle.  This is a passage really angry with God.  (The fact
that I missed this means I wasn’t really thinking about this being
the book of Job when I read the passage, definitely a poor choice.)

In
terms of understanding the passage, there is one more important
piece.  The very end is distinct from what comes before it.  The
commentator in the New Interpreter’s Bible suggests it makes the most
sense to read it this way, “’I know that my defender lives, and
that at the  last he will arise upon the earth – after my skin has
been stripped off!  But I would  see God form my flesh, whom I would
see for myself; my eyes would see, and not a stranger.”  That is,
Job returns to his constant refrain in the book:  that he wants to be
heard by God, that he wants justice from God, and that he wants a
REPLY from God.  Even having his kinsman-redeemer fix things after
his death, or having his story be immortalized isn’t enough.  He
wants to take up this issue with God directly.  

In
function, the book of Job is one long soul story, interspersed with
some ego story assurances from Job’s friends.  Even God’s answers
take the form of a soul story.  The yearning that Job has to have his
story heard fits with the description that they are the stories we
want the people we love most to know – and I think in this case
that includes God.

I’ve
always assumed that God knows my stories, in fact thats one of the
assurances of life – that even if I forget my own stories, they are
still alive within the Divine.  But that means I don’t tend to tell
God my stories as often, even though the telling of stories to God is
inherently good.  And, the book of Job is the great reminder in the
Bible that God is big enough to handle our anger, and it is OK to
RAIL against God.  God doesn’t punish us for expressing our anger,
and God knows the injustices we’ve experienced, and yet we are
welcome to keep on telling them to God as long as they need to be
told.  Because God, of course, can handle our vulnerable soul stories
with shadows and light, and doesn’t need or expect things cleaned up
into ego stories.  This is sometimes one of the weaknesses of formal
worship.  When we have hymns, anthems, and prayers in poetic and
formal language it can lead us to thinking that God requires us to be
able to express the inexpressible.  When in fact, God can handle any
communication, including “sighs too deep for words.”

Have
you tried telling God your stories, instead of just going over them
again and again in your head?  Sometimes it can really help.  For me,
it is most helpful when I WRITE to God (longhand!).  I keep a prayer
journal and I find that all the things swirling in my head and
smashing into each other can be extricated one by one, examined, and
a bit of order can sometimes be found among them.  Or, at the very
least, I can find out what things are in conflict within me.  What
seems massive within, when written to God, becomes less heavy and
more manageable.  I also notice, as I write, what themes I go back
to.  Which is helpful because it helps me to have a better idea what
my version of handwashing might be.  

I
thought, before I did my research, that I’d be ending this sermon
talking about the stories we have to tell of God’s goodness.  Our
versions of “I know my redeemer lives” before it became clear
that was NOT God after all.  (Oye).  I do actually think those are
important stories, imperative ones even.  None of us are here without
a good reason.  That’s just not how life works.  But do others in
your church family know the core stories of your personal faith
journey?  Do they know why you trust in God, or what you are
struggling with in trying to trust God, or why you keep showing up at
all?  Are these some of the stories you keep on telling?  (Why or why
not?)  Those might be interesting stories to start telling – even
if they are soul stories and more than a little vulnerable.  So here
is your homework this week.  (Homework!?!)  Tell one member of this
community one of your personal faith stories – why you are
committed to being a part of this Jesus-movement.  Together, these
are the stories we have to tell, and tell, and tell.  Amen

1  Parker
Palmer and Marcy Jackson, “Ego Stories & Soul Stories” ©
2012 found at
https://www.clearpathcounsel.com/files/4313/3029/8683/Ego_Stories__Soul_Stories.pdf

2  Carol
Newsom, “The Book of Job” in The New Interpreter’s Bible
Volume IV ed. Leander E. Keck et al (Nashville: Abingdon Perss,
1996)  477-8.

3
 Newsom,  478.

4  Newsom,
478.

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  • First United Methodist Church
  • 603 State Street
  • Schenectady, NY 12305
  • phone: 518-374-4403
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