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Sermons

Christmas Dawn Meditation

  • December 25, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I know its early, and I know it is Christmas, so I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to say this, but I’m really sick of this story.  By my rough estimations I’ve read it about 500 times, and maybe 100 of those out-loud.  It isn’t really that good.  Frankly, of the whole story we’re given only 2 verses that really have anything to do with Jesus being born and they’re pretty anticlimactic.     But, again, I know it is early and I know it is Christmas and none of you got out of bed this morning to hear me whine about the Lukan birth narrative.  I’m not sure any of you got out of bed to listen to me do exegesis either, but oh well 😉     As sick as I am of this story, these 14 verses still have surprises left in them.  This year it is the geography that jumped out at me.  It is only in the past few years that I’ve really understood Galilee and Judea.  To be direct about it, Judea, the Southern Kingdom, that came back from exile in 538 BCE was the land of the “Jews.”  That is, the word Jew comes from Judah who was the primary ancestor of the Southern Kingdom.     The Northern Kingdom – Israel – which went into exile first in 722 BCE, never returned.  The “10 lost tribes” did not regain their previous existence as a country.  This tends to become relevant when we’re talking about the Good Samaritan or the Samaritan Woman at the well, because the Samaritans were the hated Northern neighbors of Judea, the place where people who had once been followers of the same God had deviated and intermarried and not got it all WRONG.  

The weird thing is that Galilee is NORTH of Samaria.  So all the things that we say about Samaria should be true of Galilee.  Galilee should be an area of outcasts who don’t follow God correctly, but it isn’t!  The difference was a policital one.  
Judean leaders decided to colonize Galilee as an outpost of Jewish thought and culture, and they had!  The Galilean backwater was an experiment in exporting the “true faith” of the Judeans up into the north.  The three areas were then very different.  Judea with Jerusalem – and Bethlehem – was the center of Jewish life.  Samaria, directly to the north, was distinct enemy territory (which is really dumb since the Empire was the real problem, but that’s how humans work, right?).  To the north of Samaria was Galilee, the backwater colony of Jewish thought and life, a place to go if your family couldn’t make it in Judea.  
Mary and Joseph were from Nazarath, a TINY town in Galilee.  Jesus was from Nazareth.  It is one of the few facts about Jesus that can be even a little bit historically validified.  Jesus, the Nazarean – that’s how he was KNOWN.  
And yet both Matthew and Luke go through great pains to explain how Jesus – known as a Nazarene –  was ACTUALLY born in Bethlehem.  They come up with two very different answers.  Matthew suggests that the family was originally from Bethlehem but after the Magi left, Joseph had a dream and they went off to Egypt to hide away for a few years and then when they moved back they moved to Nazareth.  Luke comes up with the census narrative, which is cute, but has no historical basis.  And even if there was a census, NO census makes you go to the land of your ancestors.  EVERY country wants you to register according to where you live (and pay taxes.)  
But David was born in Bethlehem, and David was the great king.  The awaited Messiah was supposed to be a New David.  And the Gospel writers wanted to make their points abundantly clear.  The new King was, also, like David, born in Bethlehem.  It is where Jacob’s wife Rachel died.  It is where Ruth the Moabite settled.  The great kingS were born there.  

Bethlehem is a 100 mile walk from Nazareth, and that’s without the struggle of getting around Samaria.  Bethlehem is near enough to Jerusalem (about 17 miles).  Jesus, whose ministry centered around the Galilean backwater, is said to be born and die in the same places as King David.    

If the Gospel writers do so much creative work to connect Jesus to David, there must be theological significance for them in it.  Luke also does a lot of work to place Jesus in the political context of the day.  Throughout the first two chapters Luke reminds us again and again who the power players were in the Empire.  This poor boy was born into a world that already had rich, famous, and extraordinarily powerful men in it.  And he was born in the city of the King.  

And then, Luke, tells us that the announcement of the birth of Jesus was made the SHEPHERDS.  Shepherds were despised at the time of Jesus, they were seen as thieves of a sort – because they were always grazing their sheep on other people’s land.  (Which happens when all the land is privately owned.)  They were USELESS.  But after telling us about the Men who Ran the Empire, after doing all that work to put Jesus in Bethlehem, Luke goes on to describe in explicit detail an interaction between the angels of God and the shepherds up in the hills.  

Now, to be fair, David was a shepherd.  So maybe Luke was just going over his point again.  The more I study Luke, the more I can believe it.  Of all the Gospel writers, he is the smartest and the best story teller.  He’d weave something like that in on purpose.  But he also choose to talk about shepherds.  Matthew talks about Magi.  Luke’s shepherds IMMEDIATELY differentiate the sort of King that Jesus is going to be.  

He’s born in the City of David.  He’ll ride triumphant into Jerusalem and die there like David did.  But his kingship isn’t going to look anything like David’s.  He isn’t going to take the throne.  He isn’t going to lead an army.  He isn’t going to go through political machinations to increase his power.  Jesus is going to be the one who pays attention to the poor, the sick, the women and children, the powerless, the refugees, and gives them ways to help each other.  He is going to call the powerful away from their power.  He is going turn the world upside down, and wash his disciples’ feet, and change what even power means.  He’s the son of a backwater carpenter and a teenage mother.  And while we’ve all but forgotten the other great man whose names appear in his birth story – other than their appearance in his birth story – we’re still getting out of bed before Dawn to celebrate the wonder of the one who brought peace to earth and purpose to our lives.  Born in the City of David, but from Nazareth.  Isn’t that everything all at once?  Jesus wasn’t a part of the power structure of Judea, but he changed the world more than any of them did.  All the contrasts, conflicts and wonders of Jesus!  Isn’t it great?   Merry Christmas!  Amen   

– 

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

December 25, 2015

Sermons

“Rejoice!?”based on  Luke 3:7-18

  • December 13, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

In
the book Debt:
The First 5,000 Years,
David Graeber writes,

“If
one is on sociable terms with someone, it’s hard to completely ignore
their situation.  Merchants often reduce prices for the needy.  This
is one of the main reasons why shopkeepers in poor neighborhoods are
almost never of the same ethnic group as their customers; it would be
almost impossible for a merchant who grew up in the neighborhood to
make money, as they would be under constant pressure to give
financial breaks, or at least easy credit terms, to their
impoverished relatives and school chums.”1

What
intrigues me about the “good news” of the John the Baptist is
that he completely ignores this universal reality.  He speaks with
the same expectations and demand to everyone, regardless of their
relationships to each other.  He is calling people back into
community, and they aren’t even community!  

He
starts out being sort of nasty, I tried to wiggle out of preaching
this text because I rather dislike the brood of vipers language, but
upon examination he is saying radically loving things.  (I have come,
rather despite myself, to really like John the Baptism.  It turns out
most of my assumptions about him have proven entirely untrue.)  John
calls on all the people to change their lives, he doesn’t just ask it
of the leaders or of the wealthy.  He makes the same demands on
everyone who comes.

To
the crowds who have gathered, he demands a morality of sharing.  No
one should have two coats while anyone has none.  This is a standard
that makes a lot of sense, right?  It isn’t trivial though.  The
person who has two coats may feel as if they’ve2
earned them, or they really like them, or they are aware of the
differing fashion needs they respond to!!  They may feel that they
aren’t their brother’s keeper, or that there are too many people
without coats to have the coatless be their responsibility.  

That
is, they may not experience the other person as an extension of
themselves.  In functional families, it would not go that way.  If
there were 4 people and 4 coats, the distribution would not be such
that 2 people and 2 coats and 2 people had no coats.  In a functional
family, 4 coats for 4 people would be distributed 1 coat per person.
Calling on people to give away extra coats, and extra food, is
calling on them to take each other’s well-being as extensions of
their own.  That is something we naturally do for people we love and
are in relationship to.  John calls for the extension of that
community.  (This is the problem I have with trying to dislike John.
He sounds like Jesus.)  He calls for it to extend without limit.  

To
the tax collectors, John also extended a challenge.  His words are
deceptively simple.

“Collect
no more than the amount prescribed for you.”  That would, again,
be something we might expect to happen in a family.  If the tax
collector came to the house of their cousin, they wouldn’t ask for
more than they were required to ask!  This is an extension of
fairness to the whole community.  It is treating each person as
someone you’d care about.3

The
final group that John is said to speak to is the soldiers.  They are
probably the most interesting group.  This is not because of what
John tells them, it is an extension of what he suggest to the tax
collectors: don’t take money you aren’t entitled to.  What is
interesting is that they were there at all.  The soldiers were Roman
soldiers.  Why were they coming out to a radical Jewish prophet in
the wilderness?  What was it about being part of the power structure
of the empire, or maybe even more simply about being human, that led
them to banks of the Jordan River and the preachings of the Wild One
seeking a better life?  What were they expecting?  Did they find it?
Did any of them follow it?  Did they have a better life afterward?  

The
challenge to the soldiers, while equivalent, may be even harder than
the rest of what John said because he calls on them to treat people
like family and they aren’t from the same group AT ALL.  They are
different ethnically, and linguistically, and religiously.  The
soldiers were the threat of force maintaining the empire and its
power to take wealth from the poor and transfer it to the wealthy.
John doesn’t call on them to stop being soldiers, he just calls on
them to be GOOD soldiers, and to let go of their greed, and to see
the humanity of the people they were (theoretically not) occupying.  

Then
John goes back into a statement that I find cringe worthy.  He speaks
of Jesus and says, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his
threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the
chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.“  This is called good
news!  And it is.  Christianity has done some terrible things.  One
of them is assuming that there are good people and bad people and God
loves and forgives the good people while sending the bad people to
hell.  Unfortunately, that’s the first thing I hear in this passage.
But I don’t think it is an appropriate reading of the passage.
Instead, I think it is consistent with the rest of the passage.  As
Rev. Dr. Barbara Thorington Green says, the line between the wheat
and the chaff is not between people, it is within each of us.  

This
is a passage of hope.  God’s work includes taking away the greedy,
lifeless, selfish parts of ourselves so that we can be freed for
connection, love, and wholeness.  The burning of the chaff is the
permanent removal of the things that hold us back from love, and the
making of space for love.  This is a process of sanctification.

The
paradigm of the wheat and chaff is easily translatable into an
extension of Isaiah’s beautiful vision.  In that vision, God offers
well-springs of joy for us to draw from; strength and might of the
Divine to trust in; and freedom from fear.  It is a vision of joy and
beauty.  

All
week I’ve been thinking about what it means to rejoice in the midst
of the quiet waiting of Advent.  I’ve also been thinking about what
it means to call for joy when there is so much pain around us.  I’m
not just talking about mass shootings and Islamophobia in our
society.  I’m also profoundly aware of the many in our midst who are
grieving.  For some among us the wounds are fresh or unhealed.  For
others the holiday season itself is a source of pain.  And we live in
a broken world.  Many of us, me included, have too many coats.  And
far too many people have none.  The relationships that lead us to
sharing and wholeness are often not present in our lives.  

To
go back to David Gaeber, he proposes that
“sharing is not simply about morality, but also about pleasure.
Solitary pleasures will always exist, but for most human beings, the
most pleasurable activities almost always involve sharing something:
music, food, liquor, drugs, gossip, drama, beds.  There is a certain
amount of communism of the senses at the root of most things we
consider fun.”4
He says that we tend to share best with those we consider equals.
I’m not sure that John was proposing charity at all – in the sense
that charity is a gift of undeserved love to a stranger.  Instead, I
think John was proposing making people family.  When that happens,
the sharing follows naturally.  (This is why anyone who has ever
researched it has said that socio-economically diverse neighborhoods
are best for everyone in a society.)

Joy
comes, at least in large part, by sharing the goodness of life with
each other.  Isn’t that interesting?  So much of what society tells
us is simply wrong.  It isn’t about acquisition or outdoing each
other.  It is about the wonder of experience together.  There is
plenty of sorrow and sadness to go around these days, but there are
ways to pick ourselves up to.  Thanks be to God!  Amen

1David
Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
(Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011), p. 102.

2As
of this week the Washington Post style guide has approved of using
“they/them” in the singular.  This is helpful both for the
transgender community and for speaking without having to name a
gender for a person.  On that basis, despite some old teaching that
rankles, I’m going to follow their lead.  

3
I will note, however, that this is historically complicated.  The
system in Rome as I understand it did not involve having a pay scale
for tax collectors.  Instead, they were permitted to acquire both
the taxes they’d pass on and their own income as they determined
necessary.  Therefore I’m not quite sure how this would work in
practice, but let’s leave it be and hope I’m just missing something.

4Graeber,
99.

December 13, 2015

Sermons

“Promise and Hope” based on Jeremiah 33:14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

  • November 29, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

The holidays are supposed to be the highlight of the year – right? In truth they’re much more complicated than that. Holidays are overlaid with expectations and conflicting needs. Buttons can get pushed and desperately needed healing can fail to appear. Additionally, holidays bring up grief from the past, awareness of who is no longer present at the table, and who didn’t care enough to return. Many are lonely in our world, and loneliness can be strongest when happiness is most expected. Or, perhaps, time with family and friends is quite lovely! But afterward is a bit of a let down. Holidays are supposed to be the highlight, and that’s exactly what makes them so complicated. (Please note the existence of the Longest Night service on December 16th at 7.)

Advent is a strange little occurrence in the midst of the secular “holiday season.” In the Christian liturgical calendar, we are in a season of waiting and hoping. Christmas itself doesn’t show up in the 25th, and lasts all 12 days to January 5th, culminating the next day in Epiphany. I have come to love the contrast between the busyness of the secular holiday season and the quietness of Advent. Together, they’re quite fulfilling.

Advent starts a new liturgical year, and we start in the waiting and yearning for God to act that has pervaded humanity for millenia. In Jeremiah, the yearning has emerged from military defeat and exile. Jeremiah preached before, during, and after the siege of Jerusalem. Most of his words are words of warning, of condemnation, and of despair. (After all, he was warning people about the battle they were able to lose.) But in a few passages, he speaks of hope. His hope is one that he does not expect to see in his lifetime, and yet his hope is BIG and profound and still relevant today.

Initially it seems that the promise is that David’s dynasty will not end, that eventually God will raise it back up, and use it to bring justice and goodness back to God’s people. Our passage ends saying, “In those days, Judah will live in safety, and Jerusalem will be secure. The land will known by the name: ‘God is our Justice.” More broadly though, it is a promise of restoration. Translators offer the last line “God is our…” as “justice” at times and “righteousness” at others. I wonder about this word.

There were many interpretations of the exile, I’m pretty sure trying to explain the exile is the theme of the entire Hebrew Bible. None of them came shame free. Either the siege of Jerusalem was lost because the people were unfaithful, or because God was unfaithful, or because God was weak. The generations who lived through the exile and all the generations since have had to struggle to make meaning of the world where the people chosen to be a light on the hill and a blessing to the nations, LOST like any other people. No matter what way it gets explained, there is shame – either shame in action or shame in belief.

Yet the promise is one of calling God Justice or Righteousness. It isn’t just that the people will come home and be safe, it is that their relationship with God will be restored. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but in my life, my relationship with God and my relationship with myself have flowed into one another so seamlessly as to be hard to differentiate. For a people struggling with loss and then with shame to return to a relationship of trust in the world with a clarity of God as Justice and Righteousness seems to be a particularly enormous transition.

The words of the prophet Jeremiah set out a guidepost of hope in the midst of destruction. The wholeness they offer seems well tuned into the shame they were responding to. This ancient yearning for the world to be turned right-side-up-again is the start of Advent because it is still our yearning.

We are a people WAITING for fulfillment of promises and for the living of hope. We start the liturgical year in a season of waiting and hope. We believe that God is at work to bring goodness into the world. We believe that the purpose of our existence is to participate in God’s work to bring goodness into the world. And the combination of the two: God’s work with ours is the reason for the hope.

And that brings us to the New Testament reading. These words of Paul are so TRUE! I can feel them in my gut. They sound like my life. I hope they sound like yours. He writes, “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you?” I could spend all day making a list of people that make me feel like that! And, most of them I have met through the Church. I’ve met the most amazing people, and been regularly astounded by their love of God and people.

One of my favorite activities for teaching about the wonderfulness of “church” is an exercise on the Fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.)   The exercise is simple. I ask whatever students I’m teaching to think of people in their church and match them to the gift they most embody. It turns out, though, to be a little bit hard because people have multiple gifts. In every case that I’ve done the exercise, we’ve left with wonder at the amazing gifts of God in community.

When we look through the lens of hope and gratitude, we find there is much to be excited about! God’s work is not done, but God is at work in the world. God’s people are not perfect, but God’s people are gifted by God in astounding ways.

And, the work that needs to be done is not always difficult. When have you been most grateful for another person recently? Taking time to reflect on the goodness helps it shine more light into the darkness. And it isn’t really all that difficult. It may also be a way of entering more fully into the season of advent:

One of the most frequently used forms of prayer in the Christian Tradition is the process of examen. It is a very simple form of prayer. Generally examen is a repeated process, done every day, or every week, or at some regular interval. After intentionally opening yourself to God, you and God consider the two questions (asked here in a number of ways):

What has been the best part of today? Or, what has been the most life-giving piece of today? Or, how have I best been able to shine forth God’s love today? Or, when did I feel most connected to the Divine today?

What has been the worst part of today? Or, what has been the least life-giving piece of today? Or, how have struggled most to show God’s love today? Or, when did I feel most distanced from the Divine today?

After reviewing the time since the last examen and answering the questions, prayer is offered to thank God for the good and the bad.  

For those looking for a spiritual practice to guide them this season, that would be my suggestion. I find it is most helpful if the answers to the questions are either recorded in a journal or shared collectively with loved ones. Sometimes patterns emerge that are only visible if the answers are seen together.

In Biblical history, the exiles would come home, but not the same generation as the ones that left, and not all came home. It was 70 years later, and things were never the same again. But they came home, and rebuilt, and it was good again. And then … frankly, it got bad again. Things were pretty awful during the time of Jesus and got even worse afterward.

Life is complicated. I think maybe more so than average when your “promised land” is one of the crossroads of the world that every empire needs to control in order to expand, but really, it is for everyone. Good comes, and its great. Bad comes and it is terrible. Life ebbs and flows, and it is very rarely static.

I think life with God is like floating softly in warm water. There is gentle current nudging us along, but with the ease of a flick of a wrist we can resist the pull of the current. With one good kick we can define our own way. But we can also let the current guide us, and see where it takes us, trusting in what we can’t yet see. This metaphor is not just for the good and easy times. When the water is soft and gentle and warm, it can be a sweet soak, OR we can choose to live in fear of a stronger current, a cold spring, or a thunderstorm. When the clouds turn dark and rainy, when the wind comes with sorrows, we can give up and drown in the sorrow, OR we can swim with all our might for shore, OR we can keep floating, ride out the storm, and see where we are when the sun comes again.

Perhaps this is one of the meanings of the waters of baptism. Of course, at times, we will all fight the current, worry in the warm water, and swim with all our might until we are exhausted. We’re human. We work like that. But the waters of baptism aren’t a white water river, they aren’t an oceans undertow, they aren’t a churning sea. Faith won’t drown us. Sorrow won’t kill us (although it feels like it can). The waters of baptism are trustworthy waters.

Hope is the gentle current. It’s ok to float.

And dear goodness, during this madness of the holiday season, may the lessons of quiet Advent hope be the ones we rest on. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

November 29, 2015

Sermons

“NOT Worthless”based on  1 Samuel 1:4-20 and 1 Samuel 2:1-10

  • November 15, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I spent a lot of time thinking about what to say about the terrorist attacks in Paris, before I realized that there were also terrorist attacks made by the same group in Baghdad and Beirut which the news cycle had not taken quite so seriously. Then I realized that there were also deadly natural disasters in Japan and Mexico on Friday. Then I worried that there were likely other tragedies that I didn’t know about. Then I thought of the 200,000 deaths in Syria that have motivated 4 million refugees to leave their homes. Then I remembered that there are lots of refugees NOT from Syria. On Facebook I kept seeing these words, written by a poet named Warsan Shire from Nairobi, Kenya:

“later that night

i held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered

everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.”1

I asked Drew Vickery, who was here this weekend for the CCCYM (Conference Council on Youth Ministries) event what he thought I should say about the attacks on Paris, and after a few hours he got back to be and said, “Nothing. I think you should focus on hope.” #fromthemouthsofteens. I don’t have words to take away the pain of the world, I don’t have words that will stop or transform extremist militants, and I surely don’t have words that will bring any of the lives tragically lost.

The hours I spent reading up on the terrorist group last night brought one imperative sentence to light, “For certain true believers—the kind who long for epic good-versus-evil battles—visions of apocalyptic bloodbaths fulfill a deep psychological need.”2 This clarified my role for today: to offer a form of faith that is not about defining “good” or “evil” but rather about seeking wholeness for ourselves that can encourage others into wholeness. So, here we go…

Hannah is surprisingly resilient. It isn’t that painful things don’t seem to hurt her – they do – a lot! They don’t overcome her. We see it twice in her story. The first thing that we know about her is that she’s barren. Now, people in the ancient world did not think that barrenness COULD be a male problem, but even if they had, Hannah’s husband’s OTHER wife was distinctly not barren. A woman’s value came in her childbearing capacity, and to be barren was to be worthless. To be barren was to be ashamed. Hannah was barren.

And yet…her husband loved her. This is not particularly normal, nor expected for marital relationships at the time. In fact, it looks like it was true in only one of Elkanah’s marriages. He loved Hannah, and he gave her preferential treatment because of it. His words indicate that he doesn’t even care that she’s barren, which I think supports the case that he really loves her and not just her “value” in his life.

This was not sufficient for Hannah. She wanted to have a child. We are completely incapable of determining if this is about her maternal instincts or if it is about a desire not to be in shame, but let’s assume it is some of both. Her husband’s love did not take away her shame, although it may have helped her have resilience to it.

Every year when she had the chance, she went to the house of God and prayed there. We’re told that she asked God to open her womb, and even tried to strike a deal with God about it. This is imperative to her story, she eventually gave birth to the prophet who would anoint the first kings, and it better be clear how faithful his mother was in order to establish his faith.

This is the first place that I see Hannah’s unusual resilience. By most accounting, if a woman’s womb was barren, it was barren because of divine punishment. Yet, as one scholar put it,

“Hannah at once embodies both the patriarchal constructions of her worth and a deep assumption that God is concerned about her. … When Hannah seeks out God’s presence in this state of anguish, her prayer signals that she is aware of a divine concern for those who are questionable worth. She does not come to God with formal petition. She does not come with traditional sacrifice. She comes in loneliness, isolation, and despair. She lays bare all the emotion and pain.”3

She believes that God cares about her, despite her barrenness, despite her shame. She is resilient to her own shame. It doesn’t stop her from seeking the Holy One AND making requests of God and EVEN bargaining with God (which is a dangerous idea). She doesn’t let it stop her, and that indicates that she thinks God might listen to her.

That’s some GOOD theology for a mostly powerless, shamed woman 3000 years ago.

There is a repetition of her resiliency as well. Eli, the priest, is often presented as not knowing a whole lot about God. He isn’t a bad guy, he just hasn’t had much contact with the Divine. So, when Hannah was praying with all her heart, Eli confused this with a drunken stupor, and decided to come up and shame her about that.

She might have slinked away.

But not Hannah. She, a lowly, barren woman corrected him. She is such a delight! She wasn’t mean about it, she correct his assumption. She has NOT been drinking. She explains that she was PRAYING (we don’t know if she gets this out with or without sarcasm in her voice), and she makes a request of him, “Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” She not only asks favors of God, she asks one of the high priest.

And we should know something is going on by now, because Eli receives her correction and grants her request. Then God does too, and she gives birth to a child and names him Sam-u-el, “God has heard.”

I wish more people were like Hannah, refusing to be put in their place, denying the capacity of anyone else to define their value to the divine. I wish more people took the mantle of shame that other people tried to put on them and simply refused to wear it because they KNOW that they are worthwhile to God.

The Magnificat of Mary which celebrates God’s mighty acts is song that fell from Mary’s lips when she was pregnant with Jesus. It is based strongly on Hannah’s song that she sang to celebrate God’s mighty acts when Hannah was pregnant with Samuel. Hannah’s song, just like Mary’s, focuses on God’s power to care for the poor, the broken, and the vulnerable. It also emphasizes God’s capacity and willingness to bring down the high, the mighty, and the rich. They are songs of celebration of God’s work for the disenfranchised. They are RADICAL claims about God that anyone with a vested interest in the status quo should worry about.

Hannah is the Biblical predecessor to Mary. She’s a big deal, in large part because she knows that God cares about the people that the people don’t care about – including her.

Hannah is a model of shame resilience on the basis of God’s grace, a model we desperately need in modern day Christianity. This week I read Karen McClintock’s book Shame-Less Lives, Grace-Full Congregations, and she had a lot of wisdom to share about shame and grace. Early on in the book she points out that, “We are encouraged by the dominant culture to self-improve rather than self-affirm and to strive for more rather than to be content with what is and satisfied with ourselves. The pervasive and soul-defeating presence of cultural shame leads to perfectionism, addition, and self-hatred.”4 Later, she clarifies that, “Shame is not a course-correcting emotion. While guilt says, “I made a mistake,” shame says, “I am a mistake.‘”5

At two point she offers the words that make SO MUCH sense of the world, “Shame is often the first tool grabbed off the workbench by those entrusted to maintain the status quo,”6 and, “Because shame feels so terrible, we avoid it through the use of blame.”7 But it wasn’t until she said, “You can never be satisfied with yourself if you are constantly striving to be as wise, good, kind, or as generous as God,”8 that I knew she was preaching to me. She continued that point with a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor who said, “I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was, and it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.”9

Finally, since this is a quick run through of an excellent book, I want to offer one of her stories:

“I had the opportunity to mentor a clergyperson I’ll call Sam during his first few years as a parish pastor. … To help him integrate his adult self and his ashamed little boy, I had him spend a few weeks between our conversations thinking of himself as ordinary.  I encouraged him to ask himself, ‘What would an ordinary person feel right now?  What would an ordinary person want, do, say? The exercise provided him with a reflective distance between his idealized self and his ordinary self. Once he accepted his ordinariness, he could balance service with replenishment and encouragement with separation."10

I think Hannah knew how to do that. She was just an ordinary woman, so was Mary, and they knew God to care for ordinary people.

With the possible exception of Jesus, every character in the Bible is visibly and deeply flawed. This clarifies that God works with and through real people, not perfect ones. They called on their actions sometimes, but God doesn’t ask them to “shape up or ship out” when it comes to their flaws. They’re just accepted as they are.

Dear ones, God created you as you are and loves you are as you are. You need not be perfect, you need not be particularly GOOD, you need not be extraordinary. You are enough.

May that knowledge fill the world.

I suspect it will help. Thanks be to God and may God help us ALL. Amen  

____

1 Accessed at http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/812310-later-that-night-i-held-an-atlas-in-my-lapon 11-14-15.

2 Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants” in The Atlantic March 2015 Issue. Accessed athttp://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ on Nov. 14, 2015.

3 Marcia Mount Shoop “Theological Perspective of 1 Samuel 1:4-20” in Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 4 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009) page 292.

4 Karen A. McClintock, Shame-Less Lives, Grace-Full Congregations  (Herndon, VA: The Alban Intitute, 2012) p. 4.

5 McClintock, 22.

6 McClintock, 52.

7 McClintock, 67.

8 McClintock, 95.

9 McClintock, 101, quoting Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith (New York: Harper Collins, 2006), 218-219.

10 McClintock, 107-109.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

November 15, 2015

Sermons

“Jesus Wept” based on Revelation 21:1-6a and John 11:32-44

  • November 1, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

It has been a while since I’ve stood in the pulpit to preach. Over the past three weeks, this space has been filled by profound and interesting men, whose willingness to share of themselves gave me space to focus myself elsewhere. I went on vacation. I soaked up the goodness of people I love, who make me whole, and it was grand.

Over the course of my adulthood I’ve used my vacation time to do two things: to see people I love, and to ski. The skiing has always happened with people I love, which makes winter vacation trips all the sweeter. I’m told that there are people who go vacations to do other things – like sit on a beach, or meet a new city, or hike an amazing part of the world that they’ve never hiked before. Those options have always seemed wonderful to me, but they have never become a priority because I have too many people I love and want to see, and they are always a bigger draw than anything else could be. There are a lot of people I love that I wish I had more time with – and they’re all over!

This week I came across an article that substantiated my vacationing choices. It is entitled, “How Our Housing Choices Make Adult Friendships More Difficult”1 and it was a response piece to an article in the Atlantic entitled, “How Friendships Change in Adulthood.”2 Both pieces were both interesting, discussing the importance of friendship to happiness and the challenges of making and maintaining friendships during adulthood. The Atlantic article discussed the challenges related to work and family – the demands of life that take away the time for friendship.

The housing article added some important perspective on American society, and what we think is normal. It points out that making close friends comes down to “ proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.”3 Or to put it more succinctly, “The key ingredient for the formation of friendships is repeated spontaneous contact.”4 For many of us, the way we life doesn’t make a lot of space for that. Cars don’t help. Walkable neighborhoods do help, but not everyone lives in them. Houses don’t necessarily help! People are more likely to run into each other in apartments or in intentional co-housing. (The articles points out that this explains why so many people make such important friendships in college.) That is, we don’t just run into all that many people!

Interestingly, whenever I am walking around in Schenectady, I do run into people I know. Because of poverty levels in Schenectady, many people are not isolated by cars (they don’t have them) or housing (it is intermingled). It strikes me as strange that as people move up the socio-economic ladder in our society, they end up being more isolated from others. This seems to support the article’s argument that what we think of as normal in the USA isn’t normal and likely isn’t good! Why can’t we build a society where people interact AND have food security? The truth is we can, but we have to dream it.

The article, which was really advocating for thinking about housing life differently, much like my college friends and I always dreamed, with extended community in co-housing, running into each other in shared spaces, had one passing line that I couldn’t let go of. It was arguing about how isolated people are and said, “Say you’re a family with children and you don’t regularly attend church (as is increasingly common). There are basically two ways to have regular, spontaneous encounters with people. Both are rare in America.” (The two ways are “walkshed” neighborhoods and intentional co-housing.)

But did you hear it? If you don’t regularly attend church, then you don’t have the opportunity to meet people, run into them spontaneously, get to to know them slowly over time, and become friends. But, if you do attend church, that’s one of the benefits. I sort of love it when the value of church IS seen in society, and that is in fact one of the greatest values.

Today is All Saints Day. While we use it as a ritual of remembrance for all of our loved ones, and that is beautiful and important, there is a nuance to it that we often ignore. All Saints started as a way to remember the martyrs of church, and is formally a way to remember all Christians both past and present. Most specifically, today is the day to remember the members of our church family who have passed away in the past year and add them to the collective cloud of witnesses who came before us. The great cloud of witnesses dreamed and shaped our community and entrusted it to us, hoping that we will one day pass it on again. In a celebration of life, we thank God for the life of an individual person. On All Saints day we thank God for all the saints, and the collective gifts they’ve given us.

And THAT is why I’m waxing poetic about friendship today. We are formed by each other, in community, and sometimes the lines of connection and intersection are invisible to us. In my time here I’ve heard stories of people I’ve never met, and yet their lives have shaped mine. Friendships are most important to our happiness and our wholeness, they shape our lives. Most church relationships are friendships.

The honored dead whose names we will read today are people who shaped our lives, whether they were part of this church or not. And by shaping us, they’ve guided us not only into who we are but also in how we understand God and Love. In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus weeps. Trivia fans be aware, in the KJV, this was the shortest verse in the Bible. Theologians have argued since this story stated getting told about why he wept, but I think most of them have been wrong. They have messed up theories about him weeping is just a ploy, or annoyance at the crowd.

I think Jesus wept because his friend was dead.

This is not a particularly difficult interpretation for me to come to. Jesus cared about Lazarus. He was sad that he was dead, and he was also sad that Mary and Martha were hurting, and being present to his own grief and theirs led to tears. Over the centuries this interpretation has been avoided like the plague because it implies that Jesus may not have been: all-knowing, stoic, or immune to emotion. I’m cool with all those issues. I’d rather understand Jesus to be a man who cried when terribly sad things happened.

In our Revelation passage, the acts of creation which start the Bible and continue thematically through it, come to their narrative conclusion. God acts in creation again, this time a creation that exists without chaos, without death, without grief, and WITH the fullness of the Divine presence in all places and at all times. It is a vision of comfort and consolation that has held up to the passing of the ages. As one scholar put it, “It is a vision of the church at the end of time, and, because it partakes of the eternal, it is present and available to us now.”5

That is, in our relationships of love – in our families, in our friendships, in our church family- we get a glimpse of what it is to have the fullness of God among us. The vision of Revelation is one where we’d not only be intimately connected to God, but we also wouldn’t lose each other anymore.

Somehow, and we all understand the how differently, God keeps us connected to each other, even beyond the seemingly firm lines of death. God is the connector, we are connected, and connection is what makes life so wonderful. So thanks be to God – for those we love and have lost, for those we love and have not lost, and for God’s own self. Thanks be to God for friendships – past, present and future. May we continue to learn to give them energy so they can give us life. Amen

____

1 http://www.vox.com/2015/10/28/9622920/housing-adult-friendship
2 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/how-friendships-change-over-time-in-adulthood/411466/
3 David Roberts “How Housing Choices Make Adult Friendships More Difficult” published in Vox Policy and Politics accessed athttp://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/how-friendships-change-over-time-in-adulthood/411466/ on Oct. 31, 2015.
4 Ibid.
5 Ginger Grab, “Homiletical Perspective of Revelation 22:1-6a” in Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 4 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009) page 233.
–

Rev. Sara E. BaronFirst United Methodist Church of Schenectady603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

November 1, 2015 – All Saints

Sermons

“Let the Children In” based on Psalm 8 and Mark…

  • October 4, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Artistically, in Europe, babies and small children were painted as small grown ups for many centuries. Their faces don’t look like baby faces or children’s faces. The proportions of their bodies don’t like right either. It was apparently quite a revolution when someone ACTUALLY looked at a child and painted the child to look like they do. While some of this was about artistic development, a lot of it was about how children were seen. The most relevant thing about kids was that they might grow up to be adults, so that’s how people saw them.

The artistic transition happened around 1500 (give or take.) The concept of childhood itself is newer than that historically. The concept of children as valuable is even newer. Child labor laws weren’t consistent in this country until the Great Depression.

Not all children today are treated as if they are precious, but children as a whole are seen as having great value. Some of this is related to the availability of effective birth control. As much as I believe that parents of very large families are able to love all their children because they just DO, human beings are finite. The amount of attention and expressions of affection that can be given to a small number of children is more per child than the amount that can be shared among many. As people were able to control the number of children they had, many people decided to use their resources to give their children the best chance the could at life – and had less children so they had more to give each child.

As children have become less prevalent, they have become more precious. But that was NOT the case in Jesus’ time. Life expectancy was low, very low among the 97% of people who comprised the lower class. Survival to age 10 was about 50%, which led to a lack of investment in a person until it was proven they’d live for a while.1 As an agricultural society, children were of use as workers in the field, and as a society that also valued bodily pleasure between spouses, there were plenty of reasons to have children. There were many children in Jesus’ day, but they were not understood to be fully human. They were JUST children. As it is put in the Jewish Annotated New Testament, in the time of Jesus, “The child did not represent innocence but a secondary status, a lesser human.”2

The pope stopped his caravan to receive a child during his visit to the US, in a nearly perfect living example of Jesus’ words in this passage. It was different primarily in how children are seen. Pope Francis’ actions were consistent with his universal value on human life, and society’s understanding of children as people. Jesus’ words were an expansion of his value on human life. As the Jesus Seminar said in their conversation about this text, some think it is authentic because of“Jesus’ dramatic reversal of the child’s traditional status in ancient societies as a silent non-participant.”3 This fits with his “sympathy for those who were marginal to society or outcasts.”4

People knew Jesus was important, important enough to keep him from being bothered with “pesky” kids. Yet Jesus says, “let the children come to me.” And then he keeps going. He tells them that the kindom of God belongs to the children. Then he says something rather obscure, and it appears to be just as obscure in Greek as it is English: “Whoever does not welcome the kindom of God as a little child will never enter it.” So, what does that mean? Does it mean that you have to welcome the kindom of God as a child would welcome the kindom of God? Or does it mean that you have to welcome the kindom of God the way you would welcome a child?

We don’t know.

I always thought it was the first (the question frankly didn’t occur to me until a colleague pointed it out this week), but I never could quite figure out how a child would receive the kin-dom. Most commentators suggest that a child would welcome the kin-dom without reserve or judgment, but I’m pretty sure they’ve just never met kids. Others say that this reflects the lack of hierarchy among kids, I still think that perspective comes from an innocence about children. More likely, from having known a few children, I’m going to guess that they’d receive the kin-dom with a boatload of curiosity, exploration, and questions. Which, as far as I can tell, is a great way to do it.

On the other hand, if the goal is to welcome the kin-dom like one welcomes a child, it implies that we’re supposed to welcome children. It even implies that this is a moral imperative for following Jesus and seeking God. (Not at all subtle hint at the US government as well as all countries in the world who are limiting the number of Syrian refugees they’ll receive.) It implies that the people seen as irrelevant and replaceable in Jesus’ time are still of value to him, to God, and therefore to us.

This extends to imply that there is a moral imperative to welcoming all people whose humanity is in question. To take it a step further, this implies that we should extend protection and life-saving measures to all of God’s people. That is, we might want to take steps to prevent the ~30,000 gun related deaths in our country every year, about 60% of of which are suicide. This is a significant issue because suicides are often decisions made impulsively, and the presence of a gun makes it easier and A LOT more effective. (Threat of death from suicide goes up by 4.8 times when a gun is in a home.5)

We have a lot of guns in the United States, although the percentage of gun owners has been in decline the number of guns owned per gun owner has been on the rise. According to the Washington Post, gun sales in the United States are $11.7 billion, with $993 million in profits.6 I think it is interesting to note that gun companies make about as much money on ammunition over as they do on guns. More significantly than having a lot of guns, we have a lot of gun related deaths. These are correlated of course, but not perfectly, and it is worth looking at the impact of gun violence directly. According to the New York Times, “Since 1970, more Americans have died from guns than died in all U.S. wars going back to the American Revolution.”7 To be direct about children, “In America, more preschoolers are shot dead each year (82 in 2013) than police officers are in the line of duty (27 in 2013).”8 The majority of these are accidental, related to having firearms within the reach of children.

Yet if we look at our society, there is not political will to change our access to guns. In fact, over the past decade, the most significant increases in gun sales have happened around the election of President Obama and each mass shooting. The mass shootings seem to bifurcate us as a country, with some people thinking more guns would help and others thinking the opposite. Furthermore, many people believe they are safer with a gun than without one. (If you have a gun in your house, you are 2.7 times more likely to be murdered than if you don’t have one, after controlling for potentially confounding variables.9) Given all of these factors, it seems like it is time, as a country, to try a third way. Making guns safer is certainly better than just letting them run rampant, and I am grateful for those engaging the conversation by trying to find a way forward.

Since it doesn’t seem possible to decrease gun access in the United States, as determined by how votes in Congress have been going, other choices are necessary. An op-ed piece in the New York Times made some great suggestions, ones that could actually happen in our politically divisive political system:

Public health experts cite many ways we could live more safely with guns, and many of them have broad popular support.

A poll this year found that majorities even of gun-owners favor universal background checks; tighter regulation of gun dealers; safe storage requirements in homes; and a 10-year prohibition on possessing guns for anyone convicted of domestic violence, assault or similar offenses.

We should also be investing in “smart gun” technology, such as weapons that fire only with a PIN or fingerprint. We should adopt microstamping that allows a bullet casing to be traced back to a particular gun. We can require liability insurance for guns, as we do for cars.

It’s not clear that these steps would have prevented the Oregon shooting. But Professor Webster argues that smarter gun policies could reduce murder rates by up to 50 percent — and that’s thousands of lives a year. Right now, the passivity of politicians is simply enabling shooters.10

I don’t say this all that often, to my own detriment, but if the only way forward is compromise, then lets do it. If we can decrease gun violence by 50%, that’s a lot.

The text of the Psalm offers a perspective that seems to be almost 180 degrees removed from that of the news. It celebrates God, and God’s goodness. It suggests that safety itself comes from the “mouths of babes” and reminds us of the majesty and wonder of creation. Looking up at the night sky, filled with moon and starts, the Psalmist is amazed that God bothers to care for humans. (I had some of those thoughts as I watched the lunar eclipse.) Yet, the Psalms goes on to point out that God not only cares for us, God trusts us and asks us to be representatives of holiness itself in the world.

What a different view than the one we have when we look at violent deaths and the horrid debates that emerge from them. To be reminded of wonder in the midst of horror can put us in tension, but it is a healthy tension. The world is often a violent and unjust. The world is also a place of unparalleled beauty and wonder. As far as I know, it has been this complicated for quite some time. It never really stops being awful, and it never really stops being wonderful. Paying attention to the world can feel like a roller coaster ride.

And this world is what we are passing on to our children. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me” and he gathered them around him, pulled them into his arms, and blessed them. Dr. Seuss said, “Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”11 It isn’t always just about trying, it is about trying together. I hope and pray that we, as a society, care enough to work together to create change, so that world our children grow into has less fear and violence. May we be at work creating a world with more wonder than horror. May God help us. Amen

– – – –

1 Warren Carter, The Roman Empire and the New Testament: An Essential Guide (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2006) page 10.

2 The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation, edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 79-80.

3 Robert W. Funk, Roy W Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (HarperOneUSA, 1993), page 89.

4 Funk et al, 89.

5 Linda L. Dahlberg, Robin M. Ikeda and Marcie-jo Kresnow “Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study” published in the American Journal of Epidemeology (2004) 160(10): 929-936. http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/10/929.full#ref-2 Accessed October 3, 2015.

6 Brad Plumer “How the U.S. gun industry became so lucrative” in the Washington Post December 19, 2012  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/19/seven-facts-about-the-u-s-gun-industry/ Accessed Oct. 3, 2015

7 Nicholas Kristof “A New Way to Tackle Gun Deaths” in the New York TimesOctober 3, 2015. Found at: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-a-new-way-to-tackle-gun-deaths.html?referer= on October 3, 2015.

8 Kristof

9  Dahlberg et al 

10Kristof

11Theodore Geisel writing as Dr. Seuss in The Lorax (Random House: New York, 1971).

–

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

October 4, 2015

Sermons

“Gold and Honey, Meat and Bread” based on Numbers 11:4-6,…

  • September 27, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

We have completed two weeks of the Young Adult study on Genesis, which by our process means we’ve gotten through 4 chapters, and I have learned a lot. We have Study Bibles and we have commentaries, and there is a lot to be gleaned from all of them. Rather excitingly, they rarely agree.

Last week, the Jewish Study Bible made a fantastic contribution to our study. It pointed out that in Jewish culture, salvation is understood to come from the study of the Torah. The Torah is the first five books of the Bible, shared in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. They are the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The study of the Torah is the goodness of life in Judaism. Historically this was what adult men did, if they could, every day. In Judaism the study of the Torah is much more about the questions than the answers, and all the cumulative study has lead to truly great questions.

The Jewish Study Bible suggested that the Jews aren’t looking for a Messiah to save them because they have the study of the Torah to making meaning in life, and they didn’t need saving. I have some reasons to argue with that premise historically, but I’m going to refrain from it because I think it has value and deserves to be heard. Furthermore, if their claim had been “some Jews” or “most Jews” I wouldn’t even have an argument, so let’s go with that. Most Jews are not and have not been looking for Messiah to save them, because they have the study of the Torah and that’s enough!!

It certainly makes sense out of the Psalm, which is praising the Torah. It may be helpful to remember that what is called in Judaism the Torah has usually been called in Christianity “the law.” Hear again the beginning of our reading from Psalm 19:

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. (Psalm 19:7-10)

That text is SERIOUSLY in favor of the Torah, isn’t it? It even sounds like an understanding of the Torah as a source of salvation, if you think of salvation as being about life, wisdom, joy, enlightenment, truth, righteousness and goodness. That would fit most people’s idea of salvation.

I once taught a Bible Study on Deuteronomy, mostly because no one I knew had studied it before. With the guidance of Walter Brueggemann’s commentary, we discovered that we loved the book! It set out a vision for humanity that was attainable and yet remarkable. The vision wanted to keep everyone out of poverty, and did so by preventing the acquisition of wealth. The vision wanted to eliminate harm done to widows, orphans, and foreigners, (cumulatively “the vulnerable”) and set up systems to care for them. The vision wanted to ensure that people were attending to good living, and set up a way to support a priesthood so some people’s job could be working out how life could be lived well. It is an enthralling vision. Fair warning though, if you go to read it, don’t try that without Brueggemann’s commentary, and preferably a group. The Bible can be convoluted at times and horrifying at others, without the right resources to guide the conversation.

Deuteronomy is a part of the Torah, and in some ways it is a summary of the other 4 books. I’m with the Psalmist about the wonder of the Torah, and I love the Jewish idea of salvation via engagement with these profound texts, but there are some rather surprising things that would happen if one took that idea seriously.  For instance, you’d be taking stories like the one we read from Numbers as salvific. And the Numbers reading isn’t exactly about perfect human living.

In fact, the Numbers reading is an example of how awful people can be. The people have been brought out of slavery into freedom and they are being cared for by God’s own self. (Sometimes you have to just go with the story to hear what it has to say on its own terms, before you fight with it.) They’re whining. They’re whining about how great they had it back in the day when they were slaves. They’re whining about how great the food was. “We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” For nothing!?!?! They were slaves. While they likely didn’t pay for food, they also didn’t get paid for their labor, and they were given food in order to keep them alive so they’d keep working.

So, the people who have been brought out of slavery and are being given manna to eat in the desert are whining about the lack of diversity of food. Moses and God find this annoying, which seems rather reasonable.  But before God can get too upset it, Moses takes his anger out to God in prayer, and starts whining about what a heavy burden it is to deal with this annoying people. This puts God in the place of having to be the fixer, instead of getting upset. In this narrative, whining, complaining, and nagging work on God. Just saying. It hasn’t ever worked for me, but it works in this narrative.

Some of the text gets skipped in our reading, but it basically says that God responds “You want meat? I’ll give you meat until it comes out of your noses.” God is very personified, huh? In the meantime the authority of Moses got shared with 70 others (which was really significant as a leadership number in the ancient priesthood), who have a funny one-time prophesy experience. And the prophesying includes the 2 guys who were picked to be part of the 70 but played hooky. Then Joshua gets upset with them because they’re stepping on Moses’ toes by doing his thing among the people. But Moses assures him that he’s happy to share.

If you were going to pick a piece of scripture for the purpose of guiding people toward life, wisdom, joy, enlightenment, truth, righteousness and goodness, would this be it?

I’ve been pondering that all week, and I can’t decide. On the one hand, this text is incredibly honest about humans beings and how we operate. It points out how easy it can be to idealize the past. It gives Biblical precedence for the 21st centuary word “hangry” which is about being cranky/angry when we’re hungry. It examines the challenges of leadership, and it even does a great job with presenting the value of shared leadership and joint responsibility. And it is interesting. There is a lot that can be gleamed from this passage. There are a lot of truths in it. Whether or not it happened, it is really real.

Yet, on the other hand, this is a weird text. God and Moses are in a fight over who has it worse, nagging works on God, the people are simply awful, and the man who is about to take over from Moses is an idiot. There are not suggestions about how to live a good and meaningful life, and the lessons that could be derived from the text would be equally likely to be problematic as to be helpful.

And that, as far as I’ve experienced it, IS the beauty of the Torah. While there are parts of it that are long lists of laws and rules, most of the Torah is made up of stories that tell deep and profound truths about humanity (and our relationship to God) but require a lot of work and mining to get there. The Torah isn’t linear. Even the rules and laws require digging, mining, and contemplation in order to bring meaning out of them. Often there are conflicting versions of the same story, or of the same event, or of the same law! And the conflicts get to just sit there next to each other begging for some examination. Collectively, over millennia, conversations about the stories and nuances have enlightened the generations. They have provided life, wisdom, joy, enlightenment, truth, righteousness and goodness. They have made meaning out of life and therefore made life worth living.

The idea that the study of the Torah might be salvific excites me in two ways. The first is obvious. I’ve spent a lot of my life doing that sort of examination in Bible Study and it has consistently enlightened me and improved my life. The second is a bit more exciting though. It opens up the door to consider other possibilities for salvation.

A few weeks ago I preached about salvation, and I made a very strong claim about how wonderful communal salvation is and how dumb I think the mainstream Christian view of personal salvation is. I ended up, presenting alternative routes to full and abundant living. I was not explicit about these being means to God, and therefore means of individual salvation.

Two of you took the time to present alternative viewpoints to me, which – in the vein of great Bible Study – were great guidance to me. I had claimed that I didn’t know where the idea of personal salvation came from anyway, and one of you said “Um, Jesus?” He was right. The gospels do present the idea of individual salvation.

Secondly, someone offered me another alternative way to think about individual salvation. She said that for her, individual salvation is knowing that God loves her, as she is, and she’s not alone. That was super helpful to me, because I think that’s the starting point for everything in faith. I just forgot that it wasn’t obvious, and I loved using that idea as the concept of what salvation means for individuals. That’s the starting point for both healing and for abundant living within this Jesus-following way of life.

Then, if individual salvation is about knowing God loves you, what gets you there? For some people, it comes rather directly through Jesus, and for many through his willingness to face death in order to share God’s love. For some people, it comes from the utter miracle of a sunset. For some people it comes through the wonder of worship and the beauty of music. For some people it comes from the study of Torah (or the Gospels.) For some people it comes from the wonder of being able to contribute to the lives of others. For some people, it comes from having loved ones gathered in one’s home.  Likely, for must of us, it comes through many factors that intersect and interplay during our lifetimes.

So, what helps you know that God loves you? That is, what fills you up so that you are able to share love in the world? Do you need more filling up? How can you receive it? Do you have enough love to share? How else can you give it away? The door is open for consideration, examination, and further questions. Have fun!

For wonderful questions, we give you thanks O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

–

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

September 27, 2015

Sermons

Untitled

  • September 20, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

At Game Night, there was a description of our Hebrew Bible lesson this morning. Namely, “A virtuous woman as defined by old Jewish men.”1This description is funny because it is true.2 As a woman working on gay rights issues in Myanmar put it this week, “The perspectival bias in biblical hermeneutics is unquestionably patriarchal, and gender discrimination has been traditionally derived from the Bible — written by men, for men, with little consideration given to the lives of women. Likewise, same-sex behavior receives marginal attention in the Bible; when mentioned, the primary concern is to protect the prerogatives of males, for whom any experience of “effeminization” undermines their status.3 Therefore, a description of a “capable wife” found in the Bible is likely to have a gender bias. The woman is a paragon of perfection, and she’s successfully made the rest of us feel guilty ever since they dreamed her up.

Luckily, there is a lot more going on in this text than initially meets the eye. Scholars don’t think that “capable” is a great translation in the opening line “A capable wife who can find?” (Proverbs 31:10a) According to Dr. Kathleen O’Connor, professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, the description of the woman “is more literally a ‘strong woman,’ a ‘woman of worth,’ a ‘warriorlike woman.’”4 And there are some strange things going on with the poem, ones that might lead to some big questions. O’Connor says, “Proverbs 31:10-31 is an acrostic poem, arranged in alphabetical order, each line beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The presence of the acrostic, combined with language repeated from earlier poems about personified wisdom, suggests that this woman is more than the average mortal.”5To be more direct, the poem is at least about a woman who is living out Wisdom. It is more likely about Wisdom as personified as a woman. At most Wisdom is, like Logos, an aspect of the Divine personified. The so-called ‘capable wife,” O’Connor says, “may not be God in this poem – a much debated point – but she works for her followers as if she were.”6

OHHHHH. This much quoted text about the perfect woman might be about the PERFECT woman, the embodiment of God as a woman. I feel less guilty already, and I’m not even a wife. There are some little clues that may support this theory. O’Connor says, “Rather than the woman praising her family, her family praises her, thus reversing gender expectations of the ancient world.”7 Praise is most frequently due to God in Biblical literature. The praise itself also sounds extraordinary, “Many woman have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” (Proverbs 31:29). Not just anyone can be the very best. There is the obvious factor that no human being could do and be all that is suggested, and the fact that the woman described is quite unusually wealthy and powerful, and her care for the poor and vulnerable, and her wisdom. She is described as “more precious than jewels” (Proverbs 31:10b) which is interesting when the Bible tends to think God is the being of highest value – as in God’s decrees are more precious than gold in Psalm 19:10. And, quite curiously, her physicality is given no description. All of those lean us toward one of the interpretations that suggest that this woman is “more than just a woman.”

As she is either Wisdom as woman or God’s Wisdom as woman, she is NOT the standard against which other women are to be judged. Another scholar suggested, “it is not likely that all of these admirable traits, characteristics, and accomplishments will be found in one person…[what] looks like the portrayal of a single wonder woman is actually a composite of some of the ways that women make a difference.”8 I slightly disagree with him though. If we want to take this Wisdom-God-Woman as a composite, then wouldn’t it be of all people? Wouldn’t this be a Hebrew Bible version of what becomes for Christians the Body of Christ? It is a description of what all of us are capable of being when we work together for God and therefore also a description of what God is up to in the world.

How does sound then? God at work in the word is: trustworthy, hardworking, focused on feeding her people, thoughtful, strong, prepared, generous, well-dressed, empowering of others, able to create beautiful things of great value, dignified, full of laughter, kind, joyful, and worthy of praise! Yep. That sounds like God, and what we are able to do together at our best! That suggests that each of us is meant to provide one or a few of the aspects of this Wisdom-God-Woman as our gift to the world, but NONE of us are meant to provide all of them.

If this interpretation is true, however Wisdom and God and the “capable wife” are interrelated, the text is unexpectedly female-positive. There are other places in the Bible where God is compared to a woman, but I don’t know of any texts that are such an extended metaphor of God conceived in the feminine. It is a rather profound upheaval of expectations about how God is understood. Women were not of high value or power in those ancient times, and comparing God to a woman either weakens God or strengthens women. I’d hope it is the latter!

When I bought my house last year I made a joke that as a white, adult, landowner there was only one thing that would have kept me from being able to vote when we became a country (my gender). I’m glad to live today. My humanity is recognized and accepted and I have powers in the world that my sisters from previous generations would not have deemed possible. The idea that only wealthy white men could vote in our country (for a LONG TIME) sometimes hurts my head, but it also makes sense out of the battles we’re still struggling with. When we became a country full humanity was only granted to wealthy white men. Thanks be to God that the definitions have changed, and culture is going to catch up eventually!

Biblically, this went a step further than it did in early US history. A man’s household was his property: his wife, his children, his servants. In the Gospel, Jesus starts playing with the ideas and roles of servants and children. Rev. Dr. Sharon Ringe is a professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary, and a contributor to Feasting on the Word. She says succinctly, ”Competition for power, wealth, and prestige infected all cultures included in the Roman Empire.”9 (Which makes it part of the world as I’ve known it.) According to our text, the disciples were people who existed in a pretty normal culture and all wanted to be the best! After all, following an religious/moral teacher can become a source of pride. It could lead to one thinking one is better than others who don’t follow one’s teacher. And if one’s teacher is Jesus directly, it seems reasonable one might want to feel good about it, and then even feel most justified than then next disciple.

There is a lot to be said for being the best in most cultures! Yet the entire Gospel lesson today suggests that following Jesus is NOT about being the best. This is why it is particularly helpful that we’ve eliminated the need to be the “best” woman/wife with our work with Proverbs. In the text Jesus stakes a claim of having a unique role with God when he says he is the “Son of Man” but he then explains that his unique role is going to get him killed. It may be a good time to remember that the Jews had been awaiting a Messiah for 5 centuries or so, and they expected him to bring them political, social, military, and financial status. He wasn’t supposed to go and get killed. That in and of itself is reversal of the type that might be understood as the first being last.

Jesus’s responses to the disciples fighting of their greatness continues the same theme. Ringe writes, “The words translated in the NRSV of verse 35 as ‘servant’ is diakonas. While that word came to refer to a person in ministry, in the Greek of Jesus’ and Mark’s day it meant someone who served meals. The person who was ‘servant of all’ was the lowest in rank of all the servants – the one who would be allowed to eat only what was left after everyone else had eaten their fill.”10 Isn’t that an interesting take on ministry itself? Soon there after there is a strange transition from the disciples being expected to be servants to them being expected to be like children. This is another case where translation fails us. The word for servant and the one for child are very similar. Ringe continues, “Mark’s audience would have heard the word ‘child’ as referring to someone like the servant who served meals to everyone else in the household, in that both were seen as without ‘honor’ or high social standing.”11Then, “Not only is Jesus himself said to honor and welcome a mere child (v. 36), but the saying in verse 37 equates one’s welcome of such a child with welcoming Jesus himself.”12

That is, according to Dr. Martha L. Moore-Keith of Columbia Theological Seminary, “Jesus first calls the disciples to emulate the child, thus renouncing social status; he then calls them to welcome the child, to make space for those with no social status, since to do so is to welcome Jesus himself- and the One who sent him.”13 It works quite well as a continuation of the idea that they are to be like servants, doesn’t it? The entire Gospel lesson is a set of inversions about what it means to be great. The first shall be last and the last shall be first, indeed. Children, and servants come first. Jesus and the disciples are last.

When we add in Proverbs, we see that the standard of perfection isn’t intended to be met by human beings. The best and perfect wife is an expression of Wisdom and/or God. She isn’t the best, she’s out of the competition. She’s isn’t the goal. She’s the expression of what we can all do together.

God doesn’t seem too interested in our definitions of who or what matters. Isn’t it great? It gives us a lot of freedom: to care about what really matters and not what is “supposed to matter”, to let go of the quest for perfection and leave that for God, to get on with the work of living and helping others live, to do our own parts of the work of the Body of Christ and trust that others will do the same and God will build it up toward good – that is, to let go of trying to be first and just be! With God, we aren’t in a competition. Thanks be to God! Amen

___

1 “A Game for Good Christians.” Expansion Deck: Wisdom Literature.
2 All humor is funnier when it has to be explained, right?
3 Molly T. Marshall “Religios Freedom and Human Rights” published September 25, 2015 by Baptist Global News. Accessed athttps://baptistnews.com/opinion/columns/item/30483-religious-freedom-and-human-rights on September 19, 2015.
4 Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective on Proverbs 31:10-31” in Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 4 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009). page 75.
5 O’Connor, page 75.
6 O’Connor, page 79.
7 O’Connor, page 79.
8 H. James Hopkins, “Homiletical Perspective on Proverbs 31:10-31” inFeasting on the Word Year B Volume 4 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009)., page 77.
9 Sharon H. Ringe, “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 9:30-37”, in Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 4 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009), page 95.
10 Ringe, page 95
11 Ringe, page 97.
12 Ringe, page 97.
13 Martha L. Moor-Keish, Theological Perspective on Mark 9:30-37, in Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 4 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009), page 96.
–
Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

“Powerful, Tempting Words” based on James 3:1-12 and Mark…

  • September 13, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I used to have a game called “True Colors.” It consists of a set of questions, and voting boxes. Questions were something like, “Who is most likely to talk their way out of a speeding ticket?” or “Who makes their bed every day?” Each player is assigned a color, and then the players vote on who among them best fits the description. The scoring of the game required players to assess each question and determine if they would get “all”, “some,” or “none” of the votes on that question. Thus, the game existed to answer the advertised question, “Do you see yourself as others see you?”

Jesus’ questions in the gospel lesson today made me think of that game.  He asks two questions: Who do THEY say that that I am and Who do YOU say that I am, but the gospel writer seems to use them to introduce the questions “Who did Jesus think that he was?” and “Who did God think that Jesus was?”

The game True Colors, doesn’t really do what it says. It CLAIMS to ask “Do you see yourself as others see you?” But it really asks, “Do you know how others see you?” or “Do your self-judgments fit other people’s judgments of you?” The answer is often, “no.”

I once heard a story of a woman who saw herself very differently than others saw her:

“An Asian traveller to Iceland joined a night-long search operation for herself after she failed to recognize her own description in details of a “missing woman”.

The woman was declared missing from a party touring the Eldgja volcanic region in south Iceland after getting off the party’s bus to freshen up, the Daily Mail reported.

She hopped off the bus briefly, but had also changed her clothes — and her fellow travellers did not recognise her when she climbed back on again to continue the party’s journey. Soon the search began for a woman described as Asian, around 160 cm, in dark clothing and speaking English well. When the details of the missing person were issued, the woman reportedly didn’t recognise her own description and unwittingly joined the search party for herself.

After a night-long operation involving around 50 people, the “missing woman” eventually realised she was the source of the search and informed the police. The search began on Saturday, but was called off at around 3 am (local time) on Sunday morning when the woman realised she was the subject of the frantic efforts.”

1

This woman did not know how the others on her tour bus saw her. Quite possibly, the others the on the tour bus didn’t really see her, if a change of clothing was that confusing for them.

For some of us, it is easy to be pulled into spending all our time worrying about how others see us and it is easy connect our self-worth with how others judge us. If we were to ask the questions that Jesus asked, “Who do they say that I am?” and “Who do YOU say that I am?,” life could get really difficult. It happens naturally enough. Positive judgments from others feel good – at least at first. Negative judgments from others feel bad – at least at first. Most human language is laced with judgment, and it has powerful effects on our understandings of ourselves. To make things even more challenging, not all judgments come from the outside. Many of the most powerful ones are self-judgments, and they are often HARSH.

Judgments are so pervasive that they’re sometimes hard to identify. Studies of people texting while driving have established that there is a reason people do it! Namely, there is little, tiny rush of endorphins that comes every time we get a text message or a response on social media, and the rush of endorphins can become addicting. The endorphins (good feeling hormones) indicate, to me, that most of us interpret texts or social media responses as a sort of praise – someone cares enough to respond to us! And we’re so hungry for praise, which is positive judgment, that we seek it out – as a whole culture.

James seems to obsess over judgments. He says he is talking about the power of words, and he is, but it seems a little bit bigger than that. Our tongues are as powerful as the rudder of a ship, or the campfire that starts a forest fire, he claims. But then he gets all flustered that blessings and curses can come out of the same please. He says, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” (James 3:10) but the even better part is when he objects to the whole idea of cursing, saying that with our tongues “we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” (James 3:9) First of all, he has a great point. Much 1 John says, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Since all of creation is created by God, or at perhaps all of creation is IN God, to curse anyone or anything is to curse God.

Now, I proposed a few weeks ago a new definition of blessing, a blessing is anything that is being used for building up the kin-dom. I wonder what that does in this passage, when James talk about speaking a blessing! Would that mean that he’s talking about words that are useful for building up the kin-dom? I suspect so. And then curses word be words that keep the kin-dom from being build up! The reason I suggested that James is more upset about judgments than just about words, is that I think the thoughts we have and the judgments contained in them can do as much damage within us as the words spoken out-loud can do damage to others.

Blessings and curses may not even sound much like we’d expect them to. Some curses may be couched in flowery praise language, but be used to manipulate someone to do something not good for them! Blessings may come out in hesitant, halting language, seeking to name a truth a person has to share without even a mention of good things to come!

In any case, James is on target with the power of language, and how it impacts both the speakers and the hearers. The ways we use language, and the goals we use it for, form us and our communities.

Given all that, the questions Jesus asked strike me as dangerous! He was ASKING for judgment.  Different people judged him differently. The answers the disciples gave were very different. He was told that some people thought he was john the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets, and yet another group said he was the Messiah – the one they’d all been waiting for. That seems to be the answer he was looking for, or at least the answer the Gospel writer wanted placed in people’s minds. We aren’t told how Jesus understood himself, nor why he wanted to know what people were saying. The text seems to suggest that while the Messiah that the people expected was to be the new King of Israel, the Messiah they got was one who would be killed for that very claim.

Rev. Monty Brown, a United Methodist from West Virginia has answered the most important of the questions for all of us, Jesus included I’d say. Who does God think that I am? God thinks that I am a “beloved child of God, precious and beautiful to behold.” Who does God think that you are? God thinks that you are “beloved child of God, precious and beautiful to behold.”2

Unlike the roller coaster of other people’s judgment, this God based identity is steady, sturdy, and consistent. What does it mean to be beloved of God? A friend of mine says that to love someone is to acknowledge that your well-being is intertwined with theirs. To love someone is to acknowledge that your well-being is intertwined with theirs. That is to say that their happiness brings you joy and your sadness brings them sorrow…. that it is hard for you to be fully happy if they are sad. It seems like a very good description of what love looks like.

And not just on the human level. What does it mean to be beloved of God? It means that God’s well-being is intertwined with ours…. when we hurt God hurts with us and when we celebrate, God is filled with joy.

Now, if we ponder that for a moment, and we consider what it means to love God… God intertwines us with everyone else, at least a little bit. When we say we love God, it means that our well-being is intertwined with God’s well being – which is intertwined with everyone else’s well being! God does best when things happen that are a net good for all people, and God is most hurt when deep harm is done. Maybe that’s why it actually feels bad to get revenge, or to hurt another person – because if we listen well, we hear the ways it hurts us too. And maybe that’s why the best feelings in life tend to come when we’re able to help another person – because we get a bit of the joy back.

Now, being a beloved child of God, precious and beautiful to behold is our fundamental identity – all of us. But if you notice, that doesn’t mean everything will go well. Right after the conversation about who Jesus was, he talked with his followers about what kind of trouble that was going to cause in his life. That’s another place that the power of language is visible. Peter offers him advice: be smart, save yourself! And Jesus must be tempted, because he responds, “Get behind me, temptation.” Putting to words something Jesus wanted anyway made it harder for him to turn it down. The words Peter spoke were powerful and tempting. Many words are. There is a lot be said for taking words (even words that aren’t spoken, words that stay thoughts) very seriously. When we are at our best, we can take the judgments of our thoughts, our words, and our world, and examine them for the nuggets of wisdom within.

That’s one of the coolest things I’ve learned this summer studying non-violent communication. Judgments have nuggets of goodness in them, showing us what we need and what we want and thereby helping us get there. Peter’s judgmental rebuke of Jesus contained within it the nugget of joy in his connection to Jesus and wonder at his teaching a desire to have his meaningful life continue. Jesus’ responsive rebuke of Peter revealed his shared desire to continue his life and ministry, and his commitment to being authentic. He knew others were out to get him, but he refused to change the way he acted out love in the world. Listening to the values people have in stories makes the stories much richer.

Listening the needs and values we have in judgments can take the sting out, and leave life enriched. May our powerful words be used to tempt ourselves, each other, and those we meet into enriched lives. Amen

1http://www.deccanherald.com/content/275838/tourist-joins-search-self-missing.html Accessed September 12, 2015.

2 Monty Brown, Free Us For Joyful Obedience: A Primer on Pastoral Caregiving from a Pastor’s Heart (AuthorHouse, Bloomington IN: 2006) Location 680 in Kindle edition.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

September 6, 2015

Sermons

“Gratitude in Action” based on Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23  and…

  • September 6, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Four years ago last week, Hurricane Irene wrecked unprecedented damage in New England as well as in Schoharie and Middleburg and communities in this area. Four years ago this week, Tropical Storm Lee followed and with ground water and rivers already full, dumped another foot of water in 24 hours to the town I was living in. The damage was also unprecedented. Waters went 17 feet above flood level.

It rained on a Thursday. That Sunday was the 10 year anniversary on September 11th, 2001. We’d planned an ecumenical service to be held at a neighborhood church. We canceled because we had no water, no electricity and the church we’d planed to use was instead being used as an emergency Red Cross shelter.

That morning, those of us who could, gathered in the Narthex of the church I was serving because there was more natural light there. We sat in a circle and checked in each other, and on those whose well-being we knew about. There was shock in our midst. There was also a lot of uncertainty. People just didn’t know what to do.

I was among them, horrified and shocked and uncertain how to help. We sang a bit and discussed some scripture, but mostly we talked. Eventually one of the church members who was also a volunteer fireman said, “Can anyone come to the firehouse this afternoon? I have an idea, but I don’t have time to implement it.” It turned out, I was the one who could.

His idea was simple: there were people who needed help and there were people who wanted to help, and someone needed to match them up. The firehouse had a generator, and by Sunday it had dry ice and water (but nothing else yet). It was the place people came to, and so it was the perfect location to match people up.

People desperately wanted to help, it was natural in the face of that much destruction to want to do something, but they didn’t know what to do! By keeping a running list of things they could do, and sending them out in an organized fashion to help their neighbors, they were able to do something that mattered. They were SO grateful to me (and the team that emerged to work with me) for helping them know what to do. People whose homes had been flooded were overwhelmed. They didn’t know what to do, or where to start. When others came to help, it lifted the burden and made things seem possible again. They were so grateful for the help, and they ended up thanking ME. I just sat there and got thanked, for months.

(I would like to make it very clear that I didn’t lift anything heavier than a pen, nor get dirty at any point during the flood recovery. I had the easiest job of all, and I had a church who believed that the work of organizing flood recovery counted as my job.)

The gratitude, both to me and in general, was humbling. It was especially humbling to hear the gratitude of the people whose homes had been flooded. People would say, “Oh, we’re lucky, it was just a few feet in my basement.” (Truthfully, people who had less than a few FEET of water in the basement didn’t even mention it.) Others would say “Oh, I’m lucky, it didn’t reach the first floor.” Then, I heard, “Oh, we’re lucky, the second floor wasn’t even touched.” And, I kid you not, multiple people who had lost everything they owned and their home as well said, “We’re so lucky! We have friends who took us in and people are willing to help us clean up.”

Some of this was perspective, people knew others who had it worse, or had imagined it being worse. But a lot of it was actually just surprise at the generosity of those who helped them. I think many people expected to be on their own in recovering from an utterly overwhelming disaster. (Lest anyone think that gratitude was the only emotion, let me share a tiny story. There was a road that has been flooded at both end points, and two houses on it had burned to the water level because the fire trucks couldn’t get through. The rest of the people on the street were a bit jealous of those whose homes had burned because it was easier.) Any way and all ways that people helped and came together exceeded people’s expectations. They were relieved, they were held up, they were supported, and they were grateful. Things weren’t as bad as they might have been.

It was interesting how differences between people became trivial. Churches that didn’t usually talk to each other, or necessarily recognize each other’s existence worked together. Or, to be more forthright about it, I was sort of shocked that churches that preached against women in ministry still took orders from me 😉

Initially no one had water, nor electricity. The church I served realized that those who had electric stoves couldn’t heat dinner, so they started a free pasta dinner every night for anyone who wanted to come. People working on cleaning out their homes, those working on helping others clean out homes, those who were just lonely, those who were hungry, and those who just wanted a hot meal came together with no distinctions between them. The barriers of society: race and age, wealth and political view points just ceased to matter. People were just people for a bit.

Proverbs says, “Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.” Sharing has its own rewards. It has its challenges too. Simeon Weil was known to say, “It is only by the grace of God that the poor can forgive the rich the bread they give them.” There is not a lot of dignity, usually, in our society, in needing or asking for help. Those who don’t have enough money to make it on their own are told in innumerable ways by society that they’ve failed. This isn’t new. James hits the nail on the head when he calls out communities of faith for treating people differently because of wealth or status. Jesus very clearly aimed his ministry at the people in his society who had the least. Yet throughout the ages Christianity has struggled to follow. James. Marcus Borg dates the book to somewhere in the 70’s or 80’s, that is, after the Gospel of Mark was written but before the Gospel of Matthew was written.1 We’ve been struggling with wealth for a while.

Actually, that’s not even fair. The Bible as a whole is obsessed with justice, by which it means being certain that people who are wealthy don’t get their way over people who are poor just because of money. Proverbs is part of this obsession. Saying, “Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.” (Proverbs 22: 22-23) Remember that the gate is where transactions occurred. That means that there is something OLD in humanity about treating people with wealth (or maybe just power) differently. We have hierarchy in us. Walter Wink thinks this is only a 8000 year old story, and not universal. I hope he’s right. But the roots of our Bible and of my ancestors is in this differentiation and hierarchy, despite the attempts to change it.

But during the flood, those who received help weren’t shamed by needing it, and that made it a lot easier to be grateful for receiving it. Similarly, there wasn’t a differential between the people who needed help and those who gave it. They were neighbors, whether or not they knew each other. Some happened to live in a localized low or closer to normally dry creek bed. The rich and the poor had a lot in common: their homes were flooded, their water wasn’t safe, their food was spoiled, and there no supplies to be found. It made it a lot easier to follow James’ commands and Proverb’s advice. (Until UMCOR showed up. Thanks UMCOR.)

What was so startling about the gratitude was that it felt so very much out of context. Isn’t gratitude for wonderful things and sadness, anger and horror for terrible things like losing everything you have and your home too? Recently I’ve been able to come up with a theory of what was going on. Nonviolent Communication has this fantastic list of universal human needs (https://workcollaboratively.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/wc_needs-feelings-inventory.pdf) and some amazing insights about them. For instance, the theory suggests that everything we do is an attempt to meet one or more need, although not everything we do is effective in doing so. Furthermore, there are actually a whole lot of human needs, and they’re not all going to be met at the same time.

BUT at any given moment, some of them are being met. So, the people I was getting to know during the flood had some really important and serious needs that were inherently not being met by during that time: for shelter, for safety, for order, for stability, for space, and often for rest. Yet, many needs that often go unmet WERE being met (and while these were clearly different for different people, I’m going to make some guesses): for community, for compassion, for interdependence, for support, for understanding, for celebration of life. The overwhelming gratitude wasn’t the only emotion going on (and as time went on, other emotions took more precedence), but it was terribly authentic. There were ways that the days and weeks right after the flood met people’s needs that often went unmet.

One of the harshest realities of our current society is that it isolates people from one another and from being a part of community. (This is one of the greatest needs that church is able to meet.) There is a myth that good people are self-sufficient and that independence is an appropriate life goal. The truth is that none of us are self-sufficient, in large part because we are social animals and we need each other in order to be full – and have our needs met!

I think it is possible to replicate some of the amazingly good things that I saw in the recovery from the Great Flood of 2011 without needing the Great Flood of 2011. While the gratitude I heard then was natural and authentic, I think it is also nurturable. If in any situation some of our needs are going to be met and some of them are not, then we CAN choose to pay attention either way. Sometimes it is really helpful to figure out what needs are wanting to be met, so that we can find a way to get them met! But sometimes we have a choice to change our focus. Instead of fussing, fuming, and building up resentment by telling and retelling ourselves stories of what is wrong (I’m sorry, is that just me? I didn’t THINK it was just me.) we can choose to pay attention to what is right. If people can do it in the flood, we can do it anytime we want.

And gratitude, I think, changes more than just our attitude. It is more like a muscle that can be built up with use. I hear people who are very strong in gratitude, and they’re rather enjoyable to be around!  It is very important to be aware of injustice and brokenness in the world so that we can help change it. But it is just as important to be aware of beauty and wonder in the world so that we can enjoy it! Finally, I think gratitude is the great motivator! It turns out that obligations drain us, but when we act out of gratitude we are able to give without losing any part of ourselves. Gratitude is a game changer.

And there is a lot to be thankful for. Thanks be to God! Amen

1Marcus Borg Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written  (HarperOne, USA: 2012), 193.

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Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
September 6, 2015

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