Untitled

April 14, 2024
by Sara Baron

“The Tower” based on Psalm 148 and John 20:1-28

You know that saying about how people need to hear things seven times before it sinks in? This is a sermon that I’ve preached before – kinda. I’ve preached the main idea of it, but it is a BIG HUGE IDEA, and it turns out that one time through it didn’t manage to get it to sink in – not even for the nerdiest among you. Truthfully, I’m still working on letting it sink in for ME. So, I’m going to go over the idea of “Mary the Tower” again. It fits: our scripture, the We Cry Justice Reading today, our values as a church, the needs we have to see hope in the world, and the need for changes within the church at large.

Recent scholarship reveals that there is an textual error in John 11 and 12. John 11 is the story of the rising of Lazarus, which we have known in in our Bibles as the story of the sisters Mary and Martha and their grief over their brother Lazarus. The scholarship shows that there is not, in fact, a Martha. Someone changed the text.1

The relevant parts are now known to read:

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and HIS sister MARY. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved MARY and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

… then Jesus debates with his disciples and finally shows up…

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to MARY console HER about HER brother. When MARY heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. MARY said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ MARY said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

… Jesus raises Lazarus, and the plot to kill Jesus strengthens…

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. MARY served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’

Great, now you’ve heard the story as it is believed to have been written. All Mary. One sister of Lazarus, who is the one who claims Jesus as Messiah. She is the first one to say so in John. And then she prepares him for his burial.

Now, it is NOT clear for sure if Mary of John 11 and 12 is Mary Magdalene of John 20, but it has long been assumed to be, especially now that scholarship has figured out something about the name Mary Magdalene. Namely, it isn’t that Mary is from Magdala, because such a place doesn’t exist. Instead, Magdalene is a title. Magdala means “tower” in Araemic. So, kinda like Peter becomes “the rock” after he says Jesus is the Messiah in the other gospels, Mary gets a title change after she says he is the Messiah in John. She becomes Mary the Tower. Mary Magdalene. Mary the Tower.

So then, Mary the TOWER is back again in John 20. Now you may remember that the Gospel of John is associated with the disciple John, who is throughout the book of John called “the beloved disciple.” And in John there is some tension between John and Peter that sounds a whole lot like later communities of faith arguing over who was better. This culminates in the Easter morning footrace between them, the one John wins but shows that Peter is braver? Yes, that ridiculous footrace.

But, the funny thing is, that given the rest of this information it seems like John and Peter were racing for second. Mary already say that Jesus was the Messiah. She saw him as he was. Mary already saw the stone had been removed. She saw. And the first appearance of the post-resurrection Christ was to Mary. She saw. She who came to know his resurrection because she heard her name on his lips. She who then was the first to tell the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” She saw.

ONE person. The one who saw him raise Lazarus and saw him raised. The witness to the power of God over even death itself.

And, friends, a WOMAN.

We are not simply the recipients of tradition built on the power of men, even if this information has been obscured since 200 CE. Peter and Mary. Mary and Peter. The tower and the rock.

The stories of women, which are the stories of Easter, are certainly worth hearing. They are the stories we struggle to make sense of because there is too much hope and goodness in them. We’re tempted to turn away.

But, Mary the Tower keeps us both grounded and able to see beyond the walls that hold us in. The church founded by Jesus is a radical one where the least, the last, and the lost – the orphans, the widows, and the children have always been center stage. We know because it was the women who are rarely believed – the women who are often DENIGRATED AND DISMISSED (Mary Magdalene prostitution rumors anyone?) who are the ones to tell us the key stories.

Mary the Tower sent us, and she said there is hope, there is life, there is a God who cares. We, too, can see. Thanks be to God. Amen

1The story of how this was found is AMAZING, came to my attention via Diana Bulter Bass’s Wilde Goose Festival Sermon which can be downloaded by clicking here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://dianabutlerbass.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Mary-the-Tower.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjGjMXKv7qFAxU6EFkFHcQdDb8QFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2qAIrS7kX87OxdrYJ1EDJB or watched here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/all-the-marys&ved=2ahUKEwjGjMXKv7qFAxU6EFkFHcQdDb8QFnoECAcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw24F4hwzT5F53i7I96ru9gi

April 14, 2024

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

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Untitled

May 16, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Like Trees Planted by Streams of Water” based on Psalm 1 and John 17:6-19

According to the Psalm, we are supposed to be like trees planted by streams of water.

We are supposed to drink in the goodness of God, be fed by God’s living water, rest in God’s goodness, and maintain the life of faith at all times.

I’m….I’m not sure how you hear that right now. Here in May of 2021, I fear that some eyes have rolled so far into the back of their heads that they may not make it back, and others are laughing so hard at this premise that they can’t hear me yet. Those responses seem fair. Truthfully though, I worry that the majority of those listening/reading simply tuned out because it felt so absolutely irrelevant.

For me, at least, it isn’t though. It is absolutely relevant. I actually needed the reminder, because I’ve let the busy demands of life take precedence over making sure I’m soaking in God’s goodness. I’ve let the fears, anxieties, and pressures all around me IN, and forgot that the best way I have to deal with them is make sure that I’m “planted by streams of water” that let me have the strength to respond with love, compassion, and clarity.

I need these reminders rather a lot, because the pressures of the world to “preform” and “produce” and “matter” weigh rather heavily on me. I far too easily forget my own needs to be grounded and supported so I can offer grounding and support when it is needed most.

In the Gospel, Jesus is praying with awareness that he is about to leave his disciples, and he worries over them when he isn’t there to guide them. The prayer seems meant to be overheard, meant to serve as a reminder to them that they are still cared for by God.

The best way I know to remember I am cared for by God, like the best way I know to “be like trees planted by streams of water” is to engage in “Spiritual Disciplines.” Most people of profound faith have Spiritual Discipline – whether they call it that or not. Many people struggle to find their own form of Spiritual Discipline. Those people who have a Spiritual Discipline that they practice regularly believe it to be life changing and transformational. The only issue is, if you are a person who doesn’t have a practice of your own listening to those people who do – you start to feel like all your time should be spent in all their forms of Discipline.

The truth is that Spiritual Disciplines are as personal as our gifts and graces. We can’t just take on someone else’s way of connecting to God. Our tradition may give us forms to use, but even the forms need to be adapted to OUR relationships with God.

Sometimes in clergy circles, Spiritual Disciplines come up in an unhelpful way. This happens when every person is fully convinced that their life was better because of the way they reached to God (good), and that everyone else should try their way (not so good.)

The closest practice I know to one that “should” be universal is: bliss. That is, finding those things that bring us pure joy and spending as much time with them as we can.

Another helpful perspective on Spiritual Disciplines comes from the book “Dark Nights of the Soul” by Thomas Moore. Moore was a Roman Catholic Monk for the beginning of his life, but left the monastery when he was near 40 and now lives in NH with his wife and children. He has a whole bunch of degrees and functions as a psychologist. In this book he proposes that the darkness of life is an important part of life -even when it looks like depression. He has a model for respecting meaninglessness and accepting that God may be transforming people as if in a cocoon when they are drawn away from normal life. I’m finding it to be most helpful in preparing me for conversations with people (including myself) in struggle.

At one point in the book, Moore talks about catharsis, as a letting go of the crowdedness within so that the soul can sort through to what is important. I was startled as I read, because I finally understood that the Goal is NOT to take on all spiritual disciplines and become the perfectly disciplined spiritual person. Rather, the point is to use the tradition and our own creative energy to connect with God in exactly those ways that are life-giving.

This is a terribly obvious point. Hopefully you already knew it. But I probably would have claimed that I did too, at least until I felt freed by reading this. Here is an extended quote from his conversation on catharsis:

“My favorite kinds of contemplation include playing the piano, walking in a forest, sitting quietly in a church or house of worship, and even window shopping. I understand that the highest forms of mediation are pure and still and aim at an awareness free of distraction. But I also value the spirituality to be found in the concrete, every day world. Walking through a store, my attention is caught by beautiful things, and I can easily fall into deep reverie just looking at them. I find this a good way to be spiritual without criticizing ordinary life or the physical world. …

The general aim of catharsis is creative tranquility, an condition in which you are free from the pressing practical concerns to consider the bigger questions. The actual practice of contemplation may vary from one person to another, but some physical quieting helps start the process. Nature can help by providing an environment that stills a hyperactive mind. ….

Other spiritual practices may also clear out a crowded life. Religions teach fasting, retreat, vegetarianism, a spirit of poverty, neatness, cleanliness, moderation, and solitude – these familiar practices can be part of the busiest person’s life and give that life a spiritual dimension. In this sense, making your bed every morning can be a spiritual practice. This natural spirituality I am describing deepens the place from which you live and allows you to open your heart both to receive more from life and to give to others.” (Thomas Moore, “Dark Nights of the Soul” pages 52-54)

I want all of you to have ways of connecting to the Divine – which is also to say ways of making good decisions for your well-being and the well-being of those around you. I want you to know how to sort through to what is truly important and what is just superficial. I want your lives to be meaningful and your prayers to bring you inner strength.

I don’t care how you do that. But I care that you do.

Hopefully some of the ideas that Moore talked about may work for you, or some of the prayer practiced we’ve talked about in the past, or just things you’ve found along the way – by yourself or from someone who knew the Divine well. If not, I’m happy to talk it over more one on one.

This is a difficult time, in the world, in the church, and even in our own church. Stressors, anxieties, and fears abound. It can be difficult to hold on to our core self as the struggles press in on us. With God, though, we can increase our capacities. We can be like trees planted by streams of water – strong yet flexible, healthy, responsive, and able to withstand what comes at us.

We can’t control the world, other people, or even our own bodies. We can, however, connect with the Divine and regain the capacity to respond well to whatever comes at us. May we make the time for God, to receive hope, rest, and renewal.

Amen

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“Three Days? Can You Count?” based on Hosea 5:15-6:6…

April 18, 2021
by Sara Baron

According
to the Gospels, Jesus was killed on Friday night. Easter was on
Sunday, and the first experiences of resurrection happened before
sunrise. That is a difference of about 36 hours. Which, if I’m
honest, is a VERY WEAK definition of “three days.” It is a
stretch to say, well, there was part of Friday, and all of Saturday,
part of Sunday, which is three different days.

Normally,
three days is 24 hours times 3= 72 hours. So Friday night to Monday
night. Or, you might say, Friday – then the next day is Saturday,
the second day is Sunday, the third day is Monday.

Am
I the only one who has been quietly annoyed by this for years? Yeah,
I am? I can live with that.

This
has made me curious though, as to why Friday night to Sunday morning
was defined as 3 days, because doing so was DEFINITELY an intentional
choice meant to fit Jesus’s story into an existent framework.
Otherwise it wouldn’t feel so forced.

(If
you are already bored, I invite you to stick with me anyway, it isn’t
going to take that long and it is more worth it than you might
expect.) It seems Luke was basing the 3 days off of the Hosea
passage

‘Come, let us return to the
Lord;
   for it is he who has torn, and he will
heal us;
   he has struck down, and he will bind us
up.
After two days he will revive us;
   on
the third day he will raise us up,
   that we
may live before him. (6:1-2)

This
clearly lists 3 days, but the meaning of the passage seems a little
bit ambiguous. However, if you either read all of Hosea to figure
out what this means, or trust the work of scholars who have done so
(I’ve done both), then it starts to make sense that what they’re
talking about is the renewal of God’s covenant with ancient
Israel. This is the theme of the whole book of Hosea. The
questions of Hosea center around what God is going to do since the
people have been unfaithful to the covenant. The passage we read
today is about God choosing to renew the covenant, despite the
people’s unfaithfulness.

And,
a reasonable person might ask, what does THAT have to do with 2 days
and 3 days? And really, what does it have to do with Jesus, or say,
us?

I’m
so glad you asked.¹

The
reference to 2 days and 3 days is based on the story of Moses sharing
the covenant in Exodus 19. Three months after the people had left
Eygpt, they got to Sinai, and Moses went up the mountain to be with
God. God told Moses to say, “You have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to
myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you
shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the
whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a
holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the
Israelites.’” (Exodus 19:4-6) Aka – you are going to be a
sign of my love to the world. That WAS the covenant, and as it
got expanded and explained more it becomes clear that living out the
covenant is about how they treated each other, and the vulnerable in
their midst, and eventually even their neighboring nations.

Exodus
19 goes on:

Then Moses had told the words of
the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses: ‘Go to the people
and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their
clothes and prepare for the third day, because on the third
day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all
the people. You shall set limits for the people all around, saying,
“Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it.
Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch
them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or
human being, they shall not live.” When the trumpet sounds a long
blast, they may go up on the mountain.’ So Moses went down from the
mountain to the people. He consecrated the people, and they washed
their clothes. And he said to the people, ‘Prepare for the third
day; do not go near a woman.’ (9-15)

And,
at the end of those 3 days the people “met” God. The story says
the experience was like the mountain being wrapped in smoke, and
fire, and earthquake, and thunder. It appears it was quite awe
inspiring. Then Moses gets called back up the mountain and that is
when Moses was given the 10 commandments and the rest of the
expectations of God for how the people were to behave to each other
and in worship.

So
why did the early Christians chose to tell the story of the
resurrection of Jesus as happening on the third day? Probably
because it was awe inspiring like that experience of the people of
“meeting” God. Likely also because it fit into this framework of
restoration from Hosea, and Jesus’s teaching had been about restoring
the relationships between God and the people and the people and each
other. Likely, also, this relates to the early Christian
understanding that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was a
NEW covenant between God and the people, one the people couldn’t mess
up. As such, it made sense to tell it in the form of the most
important covenant story of the Scriptures as they knew them.

Thus
the choice to force Friday night to Sunday morning into a 3 day
framework.

In
Luke we’re told that A LOT OF THINGS happened on that “third day”
Sunday. The women found the empty tomb, they told the disciples,
Peter also saw the tomb, two other disciples walked to Emmaus –
experienced the risen Christ – and walked back, and our passage
today starts with “while they were still talking about this,”
meaning the story of those who’d walked to Emmaus. Today’s passage
is still set on that “third day.”

The
story wants to emphasize that Jesus wasn’t a ghost or an angel, but
rather than he’d been physically resurrected. The idea is that
ghosts and angels don’t EAT, but living beings do. Having eaten, the
story says, he explained, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is
to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that
repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to
all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24-46b-47) As this
is a story of the early Christian community, we can use it to help
ourselves understand how they saw this new covenant. They did a nice
job putting the “three day” thing there to help make sense of the
covenant, right?

This
new covenant, at least in this passage, seems to be centered on
“repentance” and forgiveness of sins, right? Repentance makes
easy sense to me, it fits with the teaching that Jesus was sharing in
his lifetime of ministry, “Repent and believe, the kin(g)dom of God
is at hand.” That is, turn from the fear-filled ways of the world,
get centered in God, and participate in the kindom of relationship,
sharing, compassion, and abundance, and as you do so, the kindom will
gain strength until it comes in completion.

However,
in the Jewish Annotated Bible it is mentioned that in Jewish thought,
God is always ready to forgive the sins of the repentant.²
So, what is this about? Why did the early Christian community think
that forgiveness of sins was so central? This feels REALLY
important, because I still hear many Christians who think the entire
Christian story is one of forgiveness, and I’ve always struggled to
understand why, especially when God’s forgiveness was already
available before Jesus.³

In
the commentary on the Hosea passage, Dr. Gail Yee wrote, “The
period of chastisement when God rends the people is intended to
motivate their repentance/return. This doctrine of correction is
particularly characteristic of deuteronomistic and wisdom literature,
in which the period of the Babylonian exile was regarded as a
traumatic time when the people recognized their guilt and returned to
God.”⁴
When I read that, a light went off. The Jewish people in the time of
Jesus lived a life of oppression under the realm of the Roman Empire.
This likely felt like a new form of Exile, an exile at home. So, as
their ancestors in faith had done before them, they told themselves
the story that their oppression was God’s chastisement, and that if
they returned to God’s ways they’d be freed again. Return and
restoration in this story are dependent on both the people’s
repentance and God’s forgiveness.

And
suddenly the Christian story itself makes sense. They’re thinking
about communal sin, and global politics, and trying to please God
into making their lives better. Which MAKES SENSE for faithful human
meaning makers to do. But knowing
that frees me to tell my own faith story, which is that God was with
them in oppression, and working towards freedom (including through
Jesus) but hadn’t been punishing them to begin with. God’s
desires for repentance were about wanting to gift the people with
full and abundant lives and building the kindom, … not about proof
of worthiness.

And
that, dear ones, brings us to today. We have been in our own “exile
at home” for more than a year now, and consciously or unconsciously
there have been a lot of questions of “why did this happen to us?”
Those are normal, healthy, human questions. I suspect there has
been some creeping fear that the answer is “because we messed up”
and challengingly, that seems true. But that doesn’t mean anything
about God punishing us. We messed up by not trusting scientists, and
not taking the long view, and not caring for the vulnerable, and not
putting lives before profits. This pandemic isn’t God’s punishment,
but it is reflective of our collective “sins” so to speak.

I
hope and pray that we, our communities, our country, and our world,
will repent (especially the “first world). I hope we will learn.
I hope we will remember how interconnected we all are and that if
anyone is vulnerable to illness, we are ALL vulnerable to illness. I
hope we will decide to transform the ways societies work, to care for
all and bring life abundant to all. I hope we will remember all of
God’s covenants, and work with God in building the kindom, the
beloved community, peace on earth.

The
good news, is that the resurrection story tells us that what seems
impossible (like global change into care and compassion) is possible!
May God help us, and may we help God! Amen

1 Can
anyone tell the Pastor misses preaching in person?

2 Amy
Jill Levine “Footnote on Luke 24:47” in 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), 151.

3 Truthfully
I have a lot of critique of the idea, but not enough time to share
it. I’m happy to talk it over if you’d like.

4 Gail
Yee, “Commentary on Hosea 5:15-6:3” in The New Interpreter’s
Bible Volume VII ed. by Leander
E. Keck et al, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 249.

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

April 18, 2021

Sermons

Untitled

May 20, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

In
the Gospel of John, we hear, “I
give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” Of course,
it is not a new commandment. At all. Rather, this is as old of
commandments as commandments come. Love commandments are
fundamental. There are two parts, the love your neighbor part
(Leviticus 19:18) “You shall not take vengeance or
bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” and the love God part. (Deut
6:4) “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You
shall Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your might.” Jesus’ commandment to love each other is
grounded in the already there tradition as an abiding commandment.
Further, that’s a tenet of every major religion in some form or
another.

It
isn’t new, but it is still challenging. You know that passage from 1
Corinthians 13 that people love to have in their wedding ceremonies?
The one that says
“Love
is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
or
rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or
resentful; ⁶it
does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. Love never ends.” The one that is actually Paul writing to
the church in Corinth who are fighting amongst themselves, and he is
telling them what Christian love toward one another looks like?
Well, if Paul had to write that letter to do that, then we can assume
the people weren’t following the commandment too well.

And,
of course, we have the history of Christianity showing us more
examples of how badly we follow this commandment. If our love for
one another is meant to be way we show that we are Christ’s, OYE.
There was the split between the Eastern and Western Church. The
Protestant Reformation was a wreck – I can’t even go into the
horrors it other than to say that at least 100,000 people were
killed. And then, in our tradition, our Methodist Church split all
over the place over the issue of slavery, and power, and money, and
we’re facing a new split now because the church doesn’t know how to
love. We have NOT loved each other well. We have not shown
ourselves to be disciples of Christ, at least not on the big scale,
not if it means showing the world how well we love.

Instead,
on the large scale, I think we look like most other human
institutions, obsessed with power, money, and control. It isn’t
pretty.

While
there are great things that do happen on the larger scale (UMCOR,
Africa University, supporting seminaries, Imagine No Malaria), I
don’t think the larger scale is the one that CAN be reflective of
love. The blessed ties that bind us together are just not big enough
for the size of organizations that exist.

Have
you heard of Dunbar’s number? The New Yorker explains it well:

The
Dunbar number is actually a series of them. The best known, a hundred
and fifty, is the number of people we call casual friends—the
people, say, you’d invite to a large party. (In reality, it’s a
range: a hundred at the low end and two hundred for the more social
of us.) From there, through qualitative interviews coupled with
analysis of experimental and survey data, Dunbar
discovered
that the number grows and decreases according to a precise
formula,
roughly a “rule of three.” The next step down, fifty, is the
number of people we call close friends—perhaps the people you’d
invite to a group dinner. You see them often, but not so much that
you consider them to be true intimates. Then there’s the circle of
fifteen: the friends that you can turn to for sympathy when you need
it, the ones you can confide in about most things. The most intimate
Dunbar number, five, is your close support group. These are your best
friends (and often family members). On the flipside, groups can
extend to five hundred, the acquaintance level, and to fifteen
hundred, the absolute limit—the people for whom you can put a name
to a face. While the group sizes are relatively stable, their
composition can be fluid. Your five today may not be your five next
week; people drift among layers and sometimes fall out of them
altogether.¹

Dunbar’s
numbers are about the limits of how many people you can feel
connected to at certain levels. They’re also about how many people
can feel connected to each other as a group, and how much structure
is required to connect people at different levels. The gist is, the
larger the group, the less people feel connected, the more work is
required to create a sense of community.

This
may explain a bit about church size and function, as well as a lot of
human behavior. It also explains why we’ve struggled so much as an
Annual Conference to feel bonded to each other – we get together
only once a year and we’re STILL bigger than the largest group that
can have actual cohesion. The disconnect between levels of the
church makes sense in this model, although so does the fact that our
church is built in layers, so that relationships can be built.

The
key seems to be, that human beings, human institutions, and human
societies run on relationships, and none of them can be successful if
they outgrow relationships. Institutions that are larger than
relationship capacity EITHER have to have ways to subdivide to allow
relationships to stabilize OR they will lose their focus and
identity, because they lose their basis in relationship.

I
don’t think Jesus was talking about institutions, I think he was
talking about PEOPLE, and the way they treat each other. The part of
the command that IS new is that is it no longer love “your
neighbor” but now “love one another.” It takes the community
from physical proximity to one that is defined by shared work.
(Which may be more similar than it sounds to begin with.)

Only
relatively small groups can have enough cohesion to be defined by how
well they love each other, it just can’t happen on a massive scale.
But let’s be really honest – it doesn’t always happen on a smaller
scale either. Humans can be REALLY hard to work with. #shock
Groups can really struggle.

I’ve
really been thinking a lot about group dynamics, OK, I ALWAYS think a
lot about group dynamics, it seems like they’re super duper important
to every part of following Jesus. One of the harder things about
functioning in a group is that the group is usually looking out for
the group’s best interest, and that doesn’t always line up with each
individuals best interest. This isn’t that fun if you are one of
the individuals whose needs aren’t aligned. You’d almost think
groups aren’t worth it, if it weren’t for the great benefits they do
offer: companionship, connection, shared reality, wisdom, growth,
hope, a place to make a contribution, support, acceptance, belonging,
being known, laughter, inspiration, purpose, stimulation,
interdependence – stuff like that. (I think groups are TOTALLY
worth it, can you tell?)

Perhaps
because of the constant need in a group to balance between the needs
of the whole and the needs of individuals, it is common in groups for
individuals to attempt to gain control over one another. Sometimes
one, or some, or all of the people, just WANT THINGS DONE THEIR WAY.
I expect that sounds obvious, and I expect that you have experienced
it. Vying for control is one of the basic dynamics of most groups,
and it can unravel them, and the degree to which people are vying for
control can relate tightly to how functional the group is.

Now,
thinking about a person trying to control groups, and trying to
control other people in groups is ALSO interesting, and it leads me
to some self-reflection. After all, sometimes I’m that person and
sometimes I’m not, and I’ve been wondering about what makes the
difference. Two pieces of it have occurred to me: I don’t tend to
seek control when I don’t really care what choices are made (so when
something doesn’t much matter to me), and I don’t tend to seek
control when I trust the group process to come up with a good answer.
That suggests that I’m more likely to seek control when I think
something really matters (duh), and when I’m scared. This has been a
bit of a relief for me as an insight, because I’m guessing I’m not
the only one who gets controlling when I get scared, and that means
that when I feel like people are trying to control me, it gives me an
option of being compassionate towards them because 1. they care a lot
and 2. they’re scared instead of … well all the other narratives
I’ve otherwise created in my head about other people trying to
control me. If people are feeling scared, that elicits compassion
from me, whereas if I just respond to my experience of someone trying
to control me, I’m far more likely respond with annoyance,
frustration, and … let’s be honest, defiance. Now, I dislike that
this has to be said, but it does: Having compassion for someone’s
fear does not require us to give them their way. This is inherently
true. Also, as people of God, we are seeking to be motivated by
love, not fear, so we don’t let fear rule.

Now,
let’s jump over to Peter in Acts. This is a hard story to preach
on, because I want to be very respectful of the Jewish tradition of
keeping kosher, which I find beautiful and meaningful. Keeping
kosher is a form of being faithful by paying attention to eating in
just ways, and it forms an identity of faithfulness, patterned into
one’s life. All that means that the formative story of why
Christians abandoned our Jewish roots, that were formed in keeping
kosher, is a tender sort of thing. Giving up keeping kosher was
giving up a primary Jewish identity, and Jesus’ early followers were
good Jews. Keeping kosher was good practice.

That
said, the history of Christianity is also found in this story. What
was once a sect of Judaism became a major world religion, in part
because of these decisions – the ones to include Gentiles as equal
partners in the Way of following Jesus, and not to require Gentiles
to become Jewish in order to become Christian. A GOOD THING had to
be let go in order to make it possible to do ANOTHER GOOD THING. To
welcome in new people required letting go of what had been very
important. To make space for what God was up to next in that
community required letting go of something that was already sacred.
Peter is horrified in this story about what is being asked of him.
But we wouldn’t be here if he hasn’t adapted.

That’s
a lesson that we all have to learn time and time again, particularly
if we want to live well in community. The “love one another” bit
requires adapting to each other, and it requires constant attention
to the living tradition, to see what needs to bend, or adapt, or be
let go. This loving each other thing – its really hard work.

But,
it is worth it. We know a God of love BECAUSE we know love through
each other. Thanks be to God, and may we continue to love one
another. Amen

1Maria
Konnikova ”The Limits of Friendship“ October 7, 2014
https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-media-affect-math-dunbar-number-friendships

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

 https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

May 19, 2019

Sermons

“Odd Commandments” based on Acts 9:1-20 and John 21:1-19

May 6, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Today
we’re dealing with stories of 3 men who undergo changes. The change
in Ananias is probably the least significant, and may be the most
fun. Ananias is briefly described as “a disciple in Damascus,”
where disciple means student and implies student of Jesus or the
early church. Damascus was then, as it is today, a city in Syria
which is north east of Galilee, about as far northeast of Galilee as
Jerusalem is south of it.

Ananias
is my kind of disciple. He is in the midst of a visionary experience
with Jesus himself, and is told to go find Saul to fulfill a
concurrent vision that Saul is having. His response is EXCELLENT.
He says, “I’ve heard of that guy. He has done a lot of evil, and
he has the authority to do a lot more.” Which I take to mean, “Um,
Jesus, you sure you have the right guy? Cause what you are telling
me makes no sense. This is the guy killing us off, and thus not one
who is likely to be invested in helping you out. Also, I’d rather
not.” I appreciate anyone who talks back, asks for clarity, and
double checks instructions that sound wrong.

In
this case, as the story goes, Jesus was quite sure that Saul actually
was the right guy, and Ananias was open to doing as he was asked, and
it worked out. Thus, I don’t think that there was a huge change in
Ananias. He was already a student of Jesus, he was wise enough to
ask for clarity, and courageous enough to do what was asked. When he
was told to do something new, and convinced it was really on purpose,
he was game. However, he didn’t follow blindly. Phew.

Saul
and Peter experience bigger changes. I was reminded recently that
most people have a lot of things to do and learn in the world that
don’t have to do with the Bible and Christianity, and thus it is
particularly helpful to say directly: Saul is also Paul. Saul is a
Hebrew name, Paul is a Roman name, the same guy was called both,
depending on where he was. So Peter and Paul, two relatively huge
figures in early Christianity, undergo major changes in today’s
stories. I’m not sure which one is bigger – if you need extra
entertainment in this sermon, feel free to try to decide for
yourself.

That
story in Acts about Saul (Paul) and Ananias starts off saying,
“Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the
disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for
letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who
belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to
Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:-1-2) in the previous chapter of Acts, Saul
was introduced as standing in approval when Stephen was stoned, and
dragging disciples in Jerusalem to prison. (Ananias had not been
exaggerating.)

Saul
had gone to all the trouble of getting special permission to
persecute early Christians outside of Jerusalem. He was deeply and
profoundly committed to eliminating the scourge of Jesus-following
from faithful Judaism. Saul was from a committed Pharisee family,
Pharisees at the time of Jesus were a sect of Judaism who were
particularly careful in their observance of laws and traditions of
Judaism. They were often the experts in Jewish law, and many were
scribes and sages. At the time of Jesus, and of Saul, Pharisees were
not the most common sect of Judaism, rather they were the ….
populous nerds, if that makes any sense, and around here it SHOULD
;). After the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisees were the
strongest sect left, and modern Rabbinic Judaism is largely based on
the Pharisee perspective.

I’m
explaining all that because I’ve often wondered why Saul was SO angry
about the early Jesus-movement. He seems to have taken it
personally, in that he made it his personal mission to root it out
and kill it. The Pharisees, from my perspective, didn’t have a
particular reason to be threatened by the early Jesus-movement. The
ruling sect, the Saducees, did, because they were responsible for
keeping things quiet and under control and the Jesus followers didn’t
help with that. But the Pharisees existed quite peaceably with other
sects of Judaism, and I really think early Jesus-following could have
been understood as just another sect before Paul started his
missionary work.

It
could be that Saul/Paul was really upset about the ways that Jesus
threatened the value of the Law, particularly about strict Sabbath
observance, but I don’t quite believe that. There were far more
important violations of Jewish law happening, and Paul wasn’t stupid.
From all accounts he was incredibly faithful and very intelligent.
Perhaps one of Jesus disciples had really annoyed Paul. Perhaps one
of the stories or teachings he heard drove him particularly nuts.
Perhaps he noticed the power of the fearlessness of the early
followers, and noticed that the nascent movement was a bigger threat
than others noticed. Perhaps he was just doing his job, and his job
happened to be to root out THIS threat, and he thought it needed to
be done in Damascus too. Try as I might, I can’t quite get my head
into his thought pattern to figure out why he was rushing to arrest
people and approving even of murder.

But,
he was.

And
then this … something happened. He became blind. He heard a voice
he attributed to Jesus. He prayed and fasted for three days, then
Ananias came and healed him, he could see, and he became a part of
the very movement he’d been trying to kill.

That
Paul guy. He didn’t do things in half-measures. He was 100% against
you and then 100% for you, and he did both with complete devotion and
passion. It is a bit scary. I guess it also makes sense. A
capacity for passion can be harnessed in a lot of different ways.
Also, when someone who has stood VEHMENTLY in one position manages to
change their mind, they are sometimes just as VEHEMENT on the other
side afterwards.

I
wish I could see the bridge though. I suspect it would be very
interesting. Something about how Paul valued his faith and
understood God had led him to think that the Jesus-followers were a
threat to what mattered, and Paul was willing to do anything to
protect God and God’s people. After the change, Paul was still
willing to do anything to protect God and God’s people, it is just
that his conception of God’s people had expanded. I suspect the same
motivation was there all along, but his interpretation changed.

It
seems to me that this may be a helpful tool to remember when we are
face to face with people with whom we are on ENTIRELY OPPOSITE SIDES
of things. There are a few such examples in our society (and
denomination) today, and I know you are aware of some. The irony is
that there is often a shared value in our positions, but a difference
in interpretation. If you’ll allow me to admit it, I suspect that
the VAST majority of people in the United States care about our
country, care about the people in our country, want people to have a
chance to thrive, and want our country to be a leader and positive
example in the world. There are some incredible differences in how
we think those things can be accomplished, but if you look at it that
way, we’re seeking the same thing. One of the ways we can meet
people with whom we disagree, if they are willing and we want to keep
being in connection, is to keep digging deeper and deeper until we
find shared values underneath what appear to be radically different
positions. A game can be made of how deep two people have to dig to
find shared values.

Paul
is an example of an extremist, but one who shows with his life that
the same passion can be expressed in polar opposite ways, and that
gives us a chance to remember that those with whom we most
passionately disagree may be people with whom we … well, share
fundamental values. )

OK,
onto our final changer – Peter. I’ve always thought Peter was set
in up the Gospels to be a bit of an idiot so we’d feel better about
ourselves when we are being idiots, but John Dominic Crossan thinks
that the Gospels are rough on Peter because they reflect some
ambivalence about his role as church leader. In any case, Peter
usually looks like an idiot.

This
is no exception. After Easter, Peter is sitting around, aimless and
decides to go fishing. Now, fishing for Peter is not like fishing
for any of us. (I’m unaware of any commercial fisher-people in this
church. If I am misinformed, please let me know.) Peter, at least
according to the Synoptic Gospels, had been a fisherman before Jesus
called him. (John doesn’t share this information, in fact this story
sounds shockingly like the call of Peter in the Synoptics.) A
fisherman was a commercial position. Peter had likely fished the sea
of Galilee, as his means of making a living. Scholars seem to argue
a bit about fishing – they agree that a large profit was being made
at this time from fish, as demand for it was high in the Empire at
that time. Scholars don’t seem to have clarity about whether or not
the fisherman were able to actually keep any meaningful portion of
the wealth they produced. Based on how the world works, I’m leaning
towards, “nope.”

In
any case, if Peter had been a fisherman, and then left fishing to go
follow Jesus, then going back to fishing after Jesus’s death was
going backward. This was AFTER Easter, so after the disciples were
supposed to have GOTTEN IT, that they could keep on sharing Jesus’s
message, that they could empower others as he had empowered them,
that the work wasn’t done but it was now theirs to do.

But
in this passage, they DEFINITELY don’t get it, and so they go fishing.
They revert. They pretend away the past year, INCLUDING Easter, and
just go back to what they knew.

I’ve
gone fishing. I’ve found wonderful new ways of life, new
possibilities, transformations, and then let them slip away. I’ve
gone to anti-racism trainings, and committed to attending to my own
privilege, and then come home to be immediately distracted by all
that is normal in my life. I’ve gone away on retreat, found my
center, remembered how much I NEED to spend time in connection with
the Divine to be my whole-self, and then allowed myself to be
immediately pulled into things that aren’t whole-self inducing. Or,
on a SUPER practical level… on a regular enough basis that it is
embarrassing, I notice that I get a little bit overwhelmed, and am
not sure which way to turn in the midst of too many options, and I
turn to my phone to do something ENTIRELY meaningless rather than
exist in the uncomfortableness of not knowing.

I
go fishing.

I
go back to what I know, what I have been, what comforts me, EVEN when
I know better.

I
think, maybe, we all go fishing. But Jesus called the disciples away
from the fishing, in this story he does it AGAIN. He didn’t let them
revert, he kept on prodding them into the fuller life they needed and
the ways they could gift the world around them. He commands Peter to
feed and tend his sheep and lambs… which is NOT fishing. The story
says that when Peter first saw Jesus he leapt into the water to swim
to where Jesus was. That is, he KNEW that where he was supposed to
be wasn’t fishing, it was in the new life Jesus had called him to.

I
think that’s true for us too. Rather than breath threats and murder,
we’re called to work with those who God loves (ahem, all.) Rather
than be afraid, we’re called to speak love to those who scare us.
Rather than revert to what is comfortable, we’re called to new life
and new possibilities. They can feel like odd commandments, but
we’re called away from fishing and into taking care of vulnerable
sheep – including ourselves and each other. Thanks be to God that
God doesn’t make peace with the status quo, or leave us in our
comfortable places. Amen

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

May 5. 2019