“Mother Hen” based on Psalm 118:1-6, 26-29 and Luke…

March 13, 2022
by Sara Baron

There are these contrasts in the Bible, these ways that
what is written is so shocking that we can’t even hear it most of the
time. Human brains are mostly set on autopilot, and we conflate what
we hear with what we already believe to be true. This can make it
hard to hear the Bible as it is, because we end up softening edges
that are actually quite hard!

Specifically, I think it could be easy to hear Jesus
say, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as
a hen gathers her brood under her wings” and think, “aw, that’s
sweet, Jesus loves me and wants to protect me.” Which, I grant
you, is a part of the meaning. But, it overlooks the radicalness of
that meaning.

Debie Thomas starts to explain it this way:

Here’s what I find so startling about the image.
If maternal power, acumen, or success were the characteristics Jesus
wanted to emphasize in his choice of metaphor, he could have used any
number of more appropriate Old Testament images to make his point.
God as enraged she-bear (Hosea 13:8). God as soaring mother
eagle (Deuteronomy 32:11-12). God as laboring woman (Isaiah
42:14). God as mom of a healthy, happy toddler (Psalm 131:2).
God as skilled midwife (Psalm 22:9-10). But those are not the
images he chooses. Instead, on this second Sunday in Lent,
Luke’s gospel invites us to contemplate Jesus as a mother hen whose
chicks don’t want her. Though she stands with her wings wide open,
offering welcome, belonging, and shelter, her children refuse to come
home to her. Her wings — her arms — are empty.
This, in other words, is a mother bereft. A mother in
mourning. A mother struggling with failure and futility.¹

Whoa.

And, I think, since this is about Jerusalem which was
the Jewish center of power and influence (and lack of power and lack
of influence), and because Luke’s gospel was written AFTER the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, I don’t think we’re supposed to
miss the contrast between a mother hen reaching out empty wings and
wishing to protect her chicks with…the golden eagle that the Roman
Empire used as a symbol of its imperial power.

This is where we are dealing with God and Jesus upending
our expectations. In a contrast between an eagle and a chicken, we’d
expect God to be the eagle, RIGHT? (We do have that imagery in
Deuteronomy, as Debie mentioned.) But, no. Here we have a contrast
between a strong predator and a vulnerable prey, and we’re told that
Jesus is like the prey- and WORSE, like the prey trying with all her
might to protect her even more vulnerable young and failing to do so.

This sort of turns my stomach.

I see in my head Ukrainian and Ethiopian mothers holding
their babies while bombs drop around them.

But, that also clarifies the image for me. If bombs are
dropping on mothers hovering over their babies to try to keep them
alive, and the choice is to see God in the bombs or in the mothers,
then the choice is easy – God is the one hovering trying to
protect, even when God can’t protect.

It still turns my stomach though.

And I can see why people might prefer to think of God in
the power of the bomb rather than the powerlessness of the mother. I
think we’d expect the eagle, not the mother hen. But, that’s not the
God we worship.

I don’t think it can be ignored that Luke is using this
passage to foreshadow Jesus’s death and resurrection. The Jesus
seminar believes this whole passage to be a creation of Luke, a way
he was trying to make sense of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

The Pharisees are warning Jesus that if he doesn’t
change his ministry, he’ll get killed. This is true. But Jesus
responds that he isn’t done doing the work he needs to do. They want
him to be afraid, and have that fear change his path. Jesus seems to
understand, but he holds strong in the face of the fear. He knows
his own vulnerability, he understands it, but he doesn’t let it
change his path. A mother hen is vulnerable, but she still stretches
out her wings for the MORE vulnerable chicks.

The mother hen metaphor fits terrifyingly well with the
reality of Jesus’s impending death. Debie Thomas writes, “Yes,
Jesus mocks Herod by calling him a fox. But he never argues
that the fox isn’t dangerous. He never promises his children
immunity from harm. I mean, let’s face it — if a determined
fox wants to kill a brood of downy chicks, he will find a way to do
so. What Jesus the mother hen offers is not the absence of
danger, but the fullness of his unguarded, open-hearted, wholly
vulnerable self in the face of all that threatens and scares us.”²

This, of course, suggests that the sort of strength God
offers, the sort of strength God asks for from us, isn’t the golden
eagle or bomb kind. It is the vulnerable kind.

That’s the world-turned-upside-down-by-faith bit. What
on earth is vulnerable strength? (Except maybe everything?) Isn’t
that just strength in weakness? Yeah. It probably is. That’s the
God being unexpected thing. Vulnerable strength is a mother hen,
with wings open, ready to protect any chick willing to huddle under
them, when even she herself may be swept away, but if she is, the
chicks may be able to live.

To get good at vulnerability as strength though,
probably doesn’t require having to practice at the threat of life
level. To be ready to do that sort of vulnerability requires
practice with the so-called easy stuff, to build up our vulnerability
muscles. Vulnerability is saying, “I’m scared,” or “I’m sad,”
rather than putting on a mask of impenetrability and pushing through.
Vulnerability is saying, “I don’t know,” and taking the risk
someone might think we’re ill-informed, or “I can’t” when someone
might find you weak (or not trying hard enough.) Vulnerability is
allowing ourselves to see other people’s pain without looking away or
running to a quick fix. (This. Is. Hard.)

Vulnerability is staying with our own pain, rather than
pushing it away, or pushing it down, running to a quick fix, or
trying to push it off on someone else. (#blame).

For many Christians, the “incarnation” is the
ultimate example of vulnerability. The idea is that God who is GOD,
the creator of all that is, takes on human vulnerability, pain, and
mortality in the form of Jesus, and in doing so moves from
invulnerable to vulnerable to be with us.

Truth be told, I have never resonated with that even
when theologians I otherwise adore say so. A friend of mine, for
whom incarnation is one of the most important parts of his faith,
laughed at me once about that and said, “but aren’t you a
panentheist?” (Translation: don’t you believe that God is
EVERYWHERE, in EVERYTHING, and all that is exists within the Divine?)
Well, yes, I am. He said, so doesn’t that make the incarnation sort
of… redundant for you?

That was a helpful ah ha moment, because, for me it is.
(If you are a person who derives great meaning from incarnation,
please know that you are in the majority, and I’m the odd one out,
but I’m going to keep talking because sometimes others are also “odd
ones out” and like to know they aren’t alone.)

I believe God already has all the vulnerability in the
world – literally. God is with ALL those who are struggling, in
EVERY way. I believe in a vulnerable God.

Which is to say that I believe vulnerability is sacred.

And, because I try to practice it regularly, I believe
vulnerability is really, really hard work. Especially when one is
trying to practice vulnerability for the sake of honesty and
connection, and modeling that none of us are impenetrable – but
trying to do that without causing undo harm to others. The balance
is not easy to find, and I am quite capable of having “vulnerability
hangovers” (a term I believe was coined by Brene Brown). That is,
while I’m pushing vulnerability today, but I’m acknowledging that
it can also be wielded as a tool in some cases, and that’s not what
we’re going for here. We’re dealing with weakness and vulnerability,
not to use them as tools to manipulate others, or gain power over
others.

Rather, if God is vulnerable, then we are not excused
from our own vulnerability, nor asked to pretend it away. I think
this is why Ash Wednesday starts Lent by asking us to remember that
we are mortal, so that we can remember to live our lives with
intention. When we are vulnerable, we remember how tender we are,
how easily hurt, how close things that could harm us are, and we open
ourselves to those who are hurt, or harmed, or displaced, or
attacked. And when our hearts break open to allow others in, we are
moved – once again – to create a world that is more just and
equitable so that the MOST vulnerable are no longer forced take the
pain the most powerful avoid.

That, I think, is the power of vulnerability: the power
to break our hearts open which moves us to create a better world.

May God help us, all.

Amen

1Debie
Thomas, “I Have Longed” Lectionary Essay for March 13, 2022,
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3341-i-have-longed

2Ibid.

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

March 13, 2022

Uncategorized

“Testing Kinship Loyalty” based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Luke…

March 6, 2022
by Sara Baron

I’ve got to admit it. I’m not
tempted by the things Jesus was “tempted” by in the dessert. I
have never once wanted to change a rock into bread (perhaps because I
lack that skill???), I’m well aware that running kingdoms or even
democracies is incredibly difficult work that I don’t wish to partake
in, and I do not wish to test God by jumping off high places for no
reason.

Nope. I do not resonate with
these.

There are not my temptations.

You want to know what my
temptations are? These days I have serious temptations to stop
fighting – to just give up on the pandemic and stop trying to be
safe and stop trying to create safe places. I want to do CRAZY
things like bring my kid to worship, or have dinner at a friend’s
house, or get a plane and meet one of my dear friend’s new babies. I
want to just stop worrying. I want to make people happy. I want to
encourage people, “sure, do whatever you want in worship. Take of
masks! Stop distancing! Sing! Don’t worry about it!” I’m
tempted to just give up.

AND

(and this is the really annoying
part)

I’m also tempted in exactly the
opposite way. I live in constant fear that a choice I make will
result in my unvaccinated, too young to wear a mask kid getting COVID
and living with long covid for the rest of their life. And so, I
want to create a bubble and never leave it. I want to stay home,
stop day care, have groceries delivered, and function on zoom until
…. forever I guess.

Actually, if I’m honest, more
than really being tempted by either extreme, I’m tempted by the idea
of not having to decide anymore. “Is this safe?” “Is this
safe ENOUGH?” “Is this worth it?” “If this results in my
kid having long covid, in 20 years will I think this was the right
choice?” “Do I need to do this because someone else’s needs
outrank my own (or outrank my needs related to my kid)?” “Is
this the right balance of caution and courage?”

I’m so tired. It is so tempting
to move to one extreme or the other and just stop deciding. It is so
tempting to move to one extreme or the other and only have one group
of people frustrated with me and my decisions.

The temptation is to just…
give up. To pick an extreme and live with the consequences and at
the very least not have to decide OVER and OVER and OVER again.

This likely isn’t even relevant
to most of you anymore. Maybe you remember it, but those who are
vaccinated and immunocompetent, those of you who don’t live with
people who are either unvaccinated or immunocompromised, are possibly
just feeling free now. Numbers are down, and lots of very reasonable
people are ready to go on with life, for good reason. And for you,
it may even be that my temptations are a sort of unpleasant reminder
of your past, one that you’d rather forget.

I also know that I’m not alone.
There are plenty of families with kids under 5, or with
immunocompromised people, or even just people who work with kids or
immunocompromised people who still adjust their lives to protect
others – or just people who adjust their lives to protect others.
People make these choices because, in the end, they think it is
right.

Of course, there are ALSO people
who have decided that the needs of connection, or the life-giving
work they do, or the risk they’ve assessed mean that letting go of
fear and seeking out other people is the right choice for them.

Hmmm.

I guess what I’m saying is that
I’m tempted by simple answers, by choices I can make once and not go
back to, by CLARITY, but CERTAINTY. I don’t need to be able to make
the choices for everyone or have them be the same, but my goodness
gracious I’d like some simple answers for ME. I’d likely settle for
a single simple answer, if I could get one.

If you’ve been listening to me
preach for some time, you may be scratching your head at how I, one
of the people you know who is most comfortable thinking in shades of
gray could get to such a desire for certainty, for black and white
answers. The answer is unfortunately simple: the higher anxiety
goes, the more humans search for certainty and wish to back it up at
all costs. So, what you are hearing is that I’m a human impacted by
anxiety. Just to put it out there, so are you. Welcome to the
2020s.

Bruce Malina and Richard
Rohrbaugh in “Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels”
point out that what Jesus is being tested on in the desert is his
loyalty to God. Does he show faithfulness to God, as kin? Does he
show faithfulness to God as his leader? Does he show faithfulness to
God in understanding God’s wishes? The answers, of course, are yes.

But I rather liked that they
referred to the question about commanding a stone to become bread as
a test of kinship loyalty to God. They explain it this way:

Note carefully how the devil
frames the first challenge, “If you are the Son of God…”
Precisely that has been the claim and precisely that is what is being
tested.

Note also how carefully Jesus
answers when his lineage is questioned. He does not
answer in his own words, as if his honor derives from what he is in
himself. To do that would be to grasp honor above that of his own
Father and turn honor into dishonor. So he answers as a loyal Middle
Eastern son would always answer – with something from his family
tradition. He offers the words of his true Father in Deuteronomy and
by such laudable behavior he gains honor as virtue.¹

A test of kinship loyalty to
God. That does resonate.

Probably because all the angles
of what I’m tested by are variations on the theme of “a test of
kinship loyalty.” What is my loyalty to my immediate family – my
child and others who are vulnerable? How do I balance that with my
loyalty to my church family – which includes people who are
vulnerable in all sorts of ways including in needs to be together and
in needs to lower COVID risks. How do I balance THAT with my
“kinship loyalty” to God?

And suddenly, with that framing,
at the very least, I can understand why I feel pulled in so many ways
and exhausted by the pressure of every decision. Kinship loyalty
itself pulls me in a multitude of directions, and each direction has
its own set of reasons why it is right good, and most of the time
each direction has something pulling in exactly the opposite
direction that ALSO has reasons for being right and good.

But, at least I have a frame to
make sense of it!

And, if I want to simplify
things, I can admit to myself that for me, kinship loyalty to God is
not actually distinct from kinship loyalty to those I already care
for. (With the possible exception that God would likely include ME
in my calculations, which I notably did not.)

So, the long and short of it is
that I FEEL the testing, I feel the wandering in the desert, I feel
the yearning for clarity, but, at least I know it all comes from
love?

And THAT gets me to the
absolutely fabulous Deuteronomy reading. It is a favorite of mine.
Deuteronomy is set in the wilderness, but at the edge of it. The
whole book presents itself as a series of speeches given to prepare
the people before they enter the Promised Land, so that when they get
there, they’ll do it right.

One of the themes of Deuteronomy
is that it is in the adversity and challenge of the desert that the
people learned to depend on God, and it is going to be more
challenging to remember their dependence on God when things are going
well. As a person who feels like I’m wandering in the desert, I
think I respond along with those who listened the first time, “Yeah,
that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

The reading says that when they
get there, and they grow things, there is going to be an ABUNDANCE,
as that is what God wants for the people. As they grow that
abundance, as they settle into a sense of food security, they’re to
remember their wanderings and give thanks for their abundance. And
as that happens, they are to REMEMBER their story, they are to
REMEMBER their scarcity, they are to REMEMBER what it took to get
there.

Isn’t that interesting? I think
in our culture we tend toward wanting to remember the glory days, not
the days of struggle. We think about when we were strong and
capable, not when we were … struggling to find our way in the
desert.

But, the idea of this
commandment to tithe is to do so while recounting struggles, and to
give thanks for abundance by noticing what it took to get there. AND
THEN taking of that abundance to share with those who don’t have it
(the landless priests and Levites and the foreigners without land
allotments.)

This whole thing just moves me.
That idea that we recognize our weak times, the idea that abundance
is God’s will for us (the culmination of the story), the reality that
the first thing to do with abundance is to share it, the creation of
a system whereby an abundance for some makes life possible for
others, and within all this that this is where our tradition of
offering comes from which is just so cool.

The culmination of the story is
abundance. The people are being taught how to distribute God’s
abundance fairly. They may be standing on the edge of the Promised
Land, but the goal is to get there and live there and have it be just
for everyone.

(And they did! For centuries!
And it was equitable! It is possible! That matters too.)

So for me, right now, in my
place of being tested in the desert, I’m going to take hope from the
story about abundance, and the reminder that it is God’s long term
plan for me, for us, for all of us.

That doesn’t actually solve
anything in the present, but it is unsolvable. However, having some
hope helps me get through. Abundance is God’s plan for all of us.
God teaches us how to be generous with our abundance. Kinship
loyalty to everyone is how we get there, and I guess… learning how
to balance a multiplicity of needs within the kinship network is.. a
useful skill?

Well, in any case, hear the
words the people were to say as they brought forward their offerings:

“A wandering Aramean was my
ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in
number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When
the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard
labor on us,
we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the
LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our
oppression.
The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with
signs and wonders;
and God brought us into this place and gave us
this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the
first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.”

or perhaps:

“I have emerged from a
confused and lost people. In the midst of existent struggles with
justice and equity, came a pandemic that threatened everything and
everyone in many ways. The challenges that might have united people
overcame them and separated them. We became harsh to each other. I
did not know what to do. I was never certain of anything.

I cried to the Lord, as did
everyone else, and God heard our voices,

and offered us rest.

God guided us when we didn’t
know where to go.

God gifted us when we couldn’t
figure out which way to turn.

God was with us, when we were
numb.

God did that, and brought us to
a new world, and helped us form it into something better.

So now, I bring the first fruit
of hope, that you, O God have given me.”

May the day come when we can say
THAT as we bring forward our offerings. Amen

1 p. 240-41
(Textual Notes: Luke 4:3)

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

March 6, 2022

Uncategorized

“Shiny… or Maybe Just Shimmering” based on Exodus 34:29-35…

February 27, 2022
by Sara Baron

If I got only one word to
summarize today’s stories, I’d go with “shiny.” Moses gets all
shiny after connecting with the Divine, and the disciples see Jesus
go all shiny on a mountaintop while being blessed by God.

If I got only one word to
describe life right now, it would absolutely, positively NOT be
shiny. War is not shiny. It is camouflage, rubble, blood and tears.
Attacking trans kids in Texas isn’t shiny. In some cases, this is
an ACTUAL desire to prevent some kids from wearing shiny and glittery
things. Attacking trans kids is a formula that increases suicides,
it is a deadly attack with many years of repercussions. And, just in
case you missed this memo, pandemics aren’t shiny either. Used
surgical masks on the sides of sidewalks might be a good image of
this pandemic, and that’s just … shine-less. Exhaustion and
languishing aren’t shiny.

Nope, right now isn’t shiny.

And yet, I can remember shiny.
Very little in the world shines like a Pride parade, with glitter and
sequins in the brightest of colors, and outfits that reflect the sun
itself. I can remember Easter mornings with people dressed up in
bright shiny outfits, singing loud with along with shiny a brass
quintet and wishing to be able to just extend the moment of wonder as
long as possible. I can remember Sunday morning breakfasts with a
full Fellowship hall when someone got triggered and upset, and others
had the patience and grace to help the person calm down and even feel
safe. Shiny.

I can remember shiny.

And now isn’t shiny.

Except, every once in a while,
when something breaks through despite it all. I’m not sure if
anything is shining exactly. Maybe I could say that some moments
shimmer. When my kid snuggles in close, while my cat purrs, and my
partner reads, and the sky lights up with sunrise. There it is. A
tiny, shimmering moment. When the banjo is played during the
Contemplative Prayer service and people close their eyes to let
themselves sway along. Shimmers. When, during Family Faith
Formation, a kid asks a grown up other than their own to watch them
go down a slide, and trusts they’ll be affirmed. Shimmers. When
someone reaches out to the church and asks, “would I, a trans
person, REALLY be welcome?” and I can say “Yes, you REALLY are
welcome, just as you are,” because I know it is true in this church
and that MATTERS. Shimmers.

I don’t want to pretend
everything is OK. It isn’t. Sometimes it feels like NOTHING is OK,
but that isn’t true either. Life is a complicated both/and. Things
aren’t OK, and yet God shines through in expected moments anyway.
Things aren’t OK, and love is still here. Things aren’t OK, and most
of the time most people are doing their best. Things aren’t OK, and
yet some things ARE OK. Both/and.

Which is why I’m landing on,
“this moment in time isn’t shiny, but there are shimmers, and I’m
trying to notice them.”

But, before we talk about that
anymore, let’s look at our stories again. They’re interesting, and
they raise a lot of questions. The gospel story is clearly forming
itself as a new telling of the Exodus story, which suggests we may
learn a lot by noticing the differences.

It has been suggested that the
10 commandments were groundbreaking in that they understood YHWH to
be one who cared about how people treated people, and not just about
sacrifice or worship directed at a divine being. Even more so than
monotheism, presenting God as one who cares about a just society and
moral treatment of others, did NOT reflect the religions of that
period of the Ancient Near East.

The story of Moses coming down
the mountain with the 10 commandments in hand reflects how central
this moment was to the people. This was a story of WHO they were,
why they lived as they did, who they wanted to be, and how they
decided to be that people.

Stories that matter that much
are often superimposed with extra meaning, to help people pay
attention. Perhaps, even, they’re superimposed with extra light.

The story says that Moses was
SHINING when he came down the mountain, and it scared people. In
fact, it seems he stayed shiny for quite a while, and in order to
keep the people more comfortable, he wore a veil to cover the shiny.
(This is terribly interesting in that veils are much more commonly
associated with women in that part of the world.)

The shiny is definitely meant to
communicate that some of God’s holiness has rubbed off on Moses,
which clarifies that he was a sacred messenger, and the 10
commandments were God’s own idea. The shiny imbues the commandments
with sacred authority. The shiny tells the people that their God
REALLY cares about their treatment of each other, and creating a
society of justice and equity.

This story is then a part of
what Luke uses to establish Jesus’s authority, his connection with
the Divine, to clarify that his message is also blessed with sacred
authority. Jesus, also up on a mountain, also connecting to God,
also gets shiny. Jesus is seen “with” Moses and Elijah,
sometimes called “the law and the prophet,” the one who shared
God’s vision (the law) and the one who called people to account for
it (the great prophet). In the midst of the shiny and the law and
the prophet comes an EXPLICIT communication from God “This is my
Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

OK, so clearly this is also
about the authority of God’s chosen to communicate God’s vision. It
also seems to pass some of the authority onto the disciples who are
the ones who have to tell others about this authority Jesus now has,
which fits the whole Gospel narrative pretty well. I mean, the
Gospels are presented as being by people who were with Jesus telling
others why his life mattered and how it was infused with the presence
of God. So establishing that the disciples were the ones who knew
how important Jesus was ends up establishing both his authority and
their authority to tell the story.

Sigh. I know. You give me
beautiful, metaphorical, literally shiny texts and I can take most of
the fun out of it in no time flat.

So, let’s see if I can put some
of the fun back in! We could wonder why people found the best way to
communicate the presence of God was in shininess. It is sort of a
delightful question. I think it may happen because there is a little
bit of truth in it. Every once in a while, it seems to me that
scales are lifted from my eyes and I can see a glimpse of the world
and its people as God sees them, and let me tell you, they really do
shine with divine love. Perhaps the ubiquitous halos in Christian
art are actually a reflection of how holy and sacred everyone and
everything is to God. Perhaps the whole world, the whole universe,
are supersaturated with love that pours out of their atoms, but most
of the time we don’t see it, but in moments of Divine grace, we can?

That may actually bring us full
circle, right back to “this moment isn’t shiny, but it might still
shimmer.” While I believe that God is with us, love is with us,
grace and mercy are with us, compassion is with us ALL THE TIME, I
also know from personal experience that we are not always able to
feel it. Stress can make it harder to connect with God. Constant
demands make it harder. Emotional turmoil makes it harder.
Lonesomeness makes it harder (hence the yearning to be able to safely
gather together for worship.) Trauma makes it harder. Fear makes it
harder. Honestly, sometimes the weather makes it harder.

God is with us all the time,
but when things are particularly hard, we aren’t necessarily well
tuned into God’s presence. I do encourage the practice of
intentional silence to make space to notice God’s presence – even a
minute can help – but that isn’t a fix-all either.

This week my encouragement is to
see if you can notice some moments that shimmer. Maybe only one a
day. Maybe it only shimmers 1% more than the rest of the day. But,
in times that feels so profoundly unshiny, I think it helps to notice
whatever we can of God breaking through. Because, God IS with us,
and God is helping, and when we notice, we make it easier to notice
the next time. And, I think the moments that shimmer and shine are
ones we’re supposed to listen to. Like Moses, or Jesus, they shine
to help us pay attention, to say “God is here,” to remind us of
the holiness and sacredness of even the mundane parts of life. Those
moments are part of how we get through these days.

OR, to say this another way
entirely, a poem by Mary Oliver

Don’t Hesitate

BY Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly
feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of
lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise,
and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still,
life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of
fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all
the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but
very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway,
that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be
afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

In the midst of hard things and
hard times, counter the hard by paying attention to where God is
still shining through, however bright, for however long. That’s how
we build the kindom, even now. We pay attention, and we appreciate,
we don’t hesitate. Thanks be to God. Amen

February 27, 2022

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

Uncategorized

“Like a Tree” based on Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Luke…

February 20, 2022
by Sara Baron

In this time of disruption
and destabilization, I am fed by even the metaphor of constancy and
stability.

“They shall be like a
tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.”
(Jeremiah 17:8a)

I want to spend a moment
with those trees, and think about what it might be like to be like
one of those trees. To have constant, easy access to water. To be
able to grow strong. To know the world as dependable place. To be
able to BE dependable because of having constant access to needs
being met.

Jeremiah speaks to people
who know and live in a desert. Sun is abundant. Air is abundant.
Water is not. To be a tree planted by streams of water in a desert
is to be: safe.

To have deep roots. To be
able with withstand whatever comes.

The tree, “shall not
fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of
drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”
(Jeremiah 17:8b)

Oh my! “It is not
anxious!” What a delight to think about!

Jeremiah presents these
trees as being like those who trust in and depend on God, in contrast
to those who put their trust in their own powers or in the ways of
the world. Jeremiah urges us to seek God, to trust God, to be lifted
up and fed by the Holy, and to seek the WAYS of God rather than the
WAYS of the world. (To make that difference overly simple, the ways
of the world are competitive, hierarchical, violent, and value some
lives and not others. The ways of God are cooperative, un-ranked,
nonviolent, and values all.)

Now, I’m going to say
something pastors don’t say much: this metaphor shouldn’t be
extended TOO far. If God is like water that keeps a tree alive and
enables it go strong and bear fruit, great. But, water is not the
need of a tree. And, with a few possible exceptions, God is not the
ONLY need of humans.

I mention this because
even before the pandemic we were living in a society with a crisis of
loneliness, and the pandemic has deepened the crisis. A tree needs
water. Yes. We need God. YES! AND, a tree needs air and sunlight.
And we need each other, and we need REST. Jeremiah warns people not
to depend on our own strength or on “mere mortals” but I’m going
to remind you that as a human being you need God, and people, and
rest.

If you are lonely, that
doesn’t mean you are unfaithful.

If you are tired, that
doesn’t mean you are unfaithful.

In fact, those warnings
Jeremiah offered about what NOT to trust may apply here. We cannot
depend on our own strength in a system that demands more of us than a
human can give without getting tired. Tired comes because human
systems are set up WRONG. Likewise with lonely. Our society is set
up to keep us distanced and displeased so we’ll BUY more things, and
the forces that keep us distanced are POWERFUL. Being lonely

is a part of living in our
world today, which is set up wrong.

Part of what we dream
together as a Body of Christ seeking to build the kindom of God is
what a world would look like where people are able to SURVIVE and
THRIVE. We are seeking to use our lives to build a world where
people have dependable access to God, to live-giving relationships,
and to sustainable patterns of rest.

We dream of a time when
people are like trees planted by streams of water, with plenty of
fresh air, and sunlight, so that they can grow up strong and bold,
courageous and loving, whole and able to provide healing for others.

(As was recently mentioned
after I went off on another ramble about trees, you see very clearly
how passionate I am about trees when I am given the chance to talk
about them.)

Now, perhaps you thought
that if I was given one of the most famous texts in all of
Christianity to preach on, I might focus on that, and you aren’t
WRONG. I’m getting there. Except, that interestingly enough, Luke’s
version of this particular story is NOT the famous one. Matthew’s
is, because Matthew’s is a lot easier to stomach. Matthew gives only
blessings. Luke includes woes. Matthew talks about the “poor in
spirit” and “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
Luke talks about the “poor” and the “hungry.”

Right from the get-go,
Luke’s story isn’t Matthew’s. Matthew tells of the “Sermon on the
Mount” – a pragmatic choice as a mountain would help with
acoustics. Luke tells of the “Sermon on the Plain,” making
emphatically clear that Luke is telling a story of God’s interest in
LEVELING.

Debie Thomas, an
incredible theologian, on the incredible blog “Journey with Jesus”
summarizes well:

Then,
standing “on a level place” with the crowd, he tells his would-be
followers what life in God’s upside-down kingdom looks like.
Those who are destitute, unfed, grieving, and marginalized can “leap
for joy,” because they have God’s ear and God’s blessing.
But those who are wealthy, full-bellied, carefree, and well-liked
should watch out, because their condition is precarious, not
enviable. The material “blessings” they cherish most, the
very possessions and attributes they consider signs of God’s favor,
are in fact liabilities that might do them spiritual harm.¹

Ms. Thomas reflects deeply
about the material blessings she has, and how they may in fact get in
the way of her awareness of her dependence on God. She points out
though, that this text isn’t about celebrating misery or hardship,
because immediately before this teaching, Jesus heals and eliminates
suffering. We aren’t told to seek hardship. Rather, we’re invited
to see the world as it is.

Ms. Thomas reflects:

Notice also that Jesus
doesn’t offer four blessings to one audience, and four woes to
another. His sermon is not a sorting exercise between the good
folks and the bad folks; he addresses every
blessing and every
woe to every
person. As if to say: this is the human pattern. This is
where all of us live. We move from blessing to woe over and
over again in the course of our lives. We
invite blessing every time we find ourselves empty and yearning for
God, and we invite woe every time we retreat into smug and
thoughtless self-satisfaction. …I think what Jesus is saying in
this Gospel is that I have something to learn about discipleship that
my life circumstances will not teach me.

She
uses this as an invitation to humility for learning from those who
have learned discipleship from a different place.

I’ll
admit, that when I think about those metaphorical trees planted by
streams of water, with their healthy fruit, their strong trunks, and
their sense of dependability in the world, – a place I’d like
everyone to get to,I currently worry a little bit that they may look
at the trees whose access to water is less dependable and think them
unproductive. Or, the trees planted near air polluting factories,
and think them weak. Or, the “full light” trees planted in the
shade, and think them not trying hard enough.

(Our
yard doesn’t ever have “full sun” and we keep trying to plant
veggies anyway, and they always seem less productive and less healthy
than, say, those planted where they get what they actually need. And
the perfect amount of water doesn’t actually overcome the lack of
sun.)

Worse,
yet, I fear that the trees planted far from the streams of water may
judge THEMSELVES in the ways that the trees near the stream do,
without taking into account the differences in access.

I
think, as well, about tree line. About the point on the mountain
when it is too high, too cold, too oxygen deprived, too windy for
trees to keep growing. And I think about the trees JUST BELOW “tree
line” that look short, sickly, and quite often bent by the wind.

Jeremiah
is encouraging us to be dependent on God and focused on God’s will.
I agree, AND I think what Debie Thomas is saying is that the trees
just before tree line, and the shrubs in the desert, as well as the
ones influenced by pollution have a whole lot to teach the trees by
streams of water about scrappy survival, resilience, trust, and
faith.

So,
dear ones, where ever you feel planted, may you thrive as much as it
is possible. AND may you take note of where you are planted, and
where others are planted, and make sure to learn from those whose
location is different from yours. After all, God is with us
everywhere, and each of us are therefore able to glean the wisdom of
the Divine from exactly where we are. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Debie
Thomas, Journey with Jesus (webzine), Lectionary Essay for 2/13/2022
entitled “Leveled”
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3319-leveled.

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

February 20, 2022

Uncategorized

“Stay” based on Isaiah 6:1-8 and Luke 5:1-11

February 13, 2022
by Sara Baron

Once
upon a time, in an era that feels very long ago, I spent a lot of
time trying to listen to what I was supposed to be doing with my life
and the answer I discerned was “Clergy, United Methodist Church,
Elder, Wyoming Conference.”

That’s
not the point today.

Years
after that, I found that I wanted to check to see what I was supposed
to be doing with my life. I was, by that point, a clergy member of
the United Methodist Church, an elder in the Upper New York Annual
Conference that followed the existence of the Wyoming Conference.
So, in a similar time of prayer, discernment, and listening, I sought
to determine what I was supposed to be aimed at next.

The
answer I found was, “Stay.”

(I
suspect God is short-winded with me so I can’t wiggle new
interpretations. Or, perhaps I stop listening too fast? Who knows.)

The
stories for today reflect big changes. Isaiah moves from being “not
a prophet” to “a prophet” and Simon Peter, James, and John
moved from being fishermen to Jesus’s disciples. Those are some
significant changes in role, identity, and life! They’re BIG answers
to the BIG questions of what each of them was “supposed to do with
their lives.”

Now,
I’ll admit, most of the time these stories aren’t seen as being about
change. Even I have often preached these as invitations to consider
the possibility that God is calling you to do something radical and
new, and asking if you are willing to listen to the call. I’ve made
it about CALL, and I think that was because I’m always aware of the
injustice of the world as it is, and the compassion of God, and I’m
all for people listening to God’s calls to make the world more just.
(I still am).

But…
to be a part of healing the world ALSO requires that we allow God’s
healing love to transform US. And that also means paying attention
to when we are at or near breaking points, and then saying “NO
MORE” for now. Or, perhaps, listening when God says “stay”
(however it is that God might say that to you.)

It
may be that God is saying “stay” and we are able to tell that
“stay” is what we need when we notice that we are grasping for
control …. and we then take seriously the idea that when we are
grasping for control it is because we are experiencing a lack of
stability and predictably. (This assumes God wants good things for
us, which I am ok assuming.)

That’s
the most important thing I’m going to say today, so I’m going to say
it again. One way of listening for God’s guidance in our lives IS
taking seriously the fact that when we are grasping for control it is
because we are experiencing a lack of stability and predictably.

Then,
we start noticing when we’re grasping for control, AND start figuring
out what we CAN do to create stability for ourselves (and others
around us.) Another BIG clue is when we find ourselves wanting or
demanding COMPLIANCE. (From kids, from partners, from employees,
from parents, from church committees….) When we start demanding
compliance, it is probably a good clue that we don’t feel SAFE, and
we’re trying to re-create a sense of safety by establishing that we
have power in the world. Even if we are doing it by trying to have
power over other people.

These
are coping mechanisms. I’m actually all for coping mechanisms,
because we all need to COPE. BUT, they can also do serious damage,
and we are at our best when we increase the number of coping
mechanisms we have on hand, and picking which one to use when.

(Just
as an aside, because I find it terribly interesting, sometimes in
faith people project onto God the desire for compliance. And I’m
interested in the idea that this may be a way of projecting the lack
of our sense of safety onto God.)

So,
I’m taking these as two “call stories” as stories of change, and
noticing the impact of the calls on their lives. It probably makes
sense, right now that these stories resonate as CHANGE. After all,
we are 2 years into this pandemic, but also … maybe… at “the
end” of the pandemic, or at least a significant transition point in
it. So we’re dealing with the changes of the past 2 years, and the
inconsistencies of the past 2 years, and NEW changes now, and changes
to come, and then on top of that the reality that the new stability
that may emerge is going to look different from the old one…

And
that’s JUST the pandemic. Most of us have also experienced other
changes in the past two years. And perhaps because of these past two
years, I think at this point “big changes” leaves a sour taste in
our mouths.

But,
this is not always how we see changes culturally. Often we think of
changes as exciting, wonderful, things. My go to fiction genre is
romance, and falling in love is actually a BIG life change.
Actually, the stories we tell, watch, and read are about change. It
has been said (by a writer named John Gardner) that there are only
two plots in all of literature: You
go on a journey, or the stranger comes to town. There isn’t much
plot in the status quo.

However,
because we tend to tell stories of change, and celebrate
accomplishments that bring change (graduations, etc), we aren’t
always good at attending to the STRESS created by changes. The is a
measurement of the stress of changes: The Holmes – Rahe
Stress inventory.¹
It is a method for evaluating how people are doing, and what
likelihood there is for an impending HEALTH BREAKDOWN. Functionally,
it is a list of changes, ranked by level of impact, and people add up
the values of all the changes they’re living to see how BIG they are,
together.

I’m
familiar with this from some clergy-transition work, because things
like moving and getting a new job are on the list, and the impact of
itineracy is… well, a lot of stress. But, to get back to my point
about the CHANGE that is romance, according to this list the “social
readjustment” of getting married is the 7^th most
stressful thing that could happen to you. (If you wanted to know,
and you probably do: Death of spouse, divorce, separation from
spouse” are top 3, although pastorally I think I disagree and death
of a child should be in that top 3. In any case, if you’ve lived any
of these, please note that it wouldn’t take many other factors to
have you on the high side of this inventory.)

Other
serious factors in stress that feel relevant to right now (and to our
stories) include:

Retirement

Major
change in health of a family member

Changing
to a different line of work

Change
in work responsibilities

“Spouse
beginning or ceasing work outside the home”

Revision
of personal habits (things like, say leaving the home or not)

Major
changes in work hours or conditions (NO, I’m NOT making this up)

34
Major change in usual type / amount of recreation

35
Major change in church activity (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.. its)

36
Major change in social activity

major
change in number of family get togethers

So,
perhaps we might note that the pandemic combined with life itself has
put ALL of us in much higher stress position than we’re used to, and
that means we are much more likely to feel unsafe and out of control
– and to be doing things (consciously or not) to try to gain
control, stability, and predictably in life.

And,
being me, I’d suggest you will be more like to be SUCCESSFUL and to
make HEALTHY choices about how to gain control, stability, and
predictably if you do it consciously.

But,
I am bringing all of this up in the context of the changes in our
stories from the Bible, and I think our lives right now may help us
be in a place to have some empathy for Isaiah and the disciples as
they went through major life changes and experienced the stress of
that. We are likely able to see that even as they were being
faithful to God, it was hard. We are able to see that even if the
disciples were moved by Jesus, connected to hope for the future,
prayerfully connected to the Divine, and finally finding their place
in the world …. IT WAS STILL HARD.

Maybe
we are ready, at this point, to let go of the myth that “if we’re
doing things right, it will all come together and be easy.” I
think that’s likely a myth of capitalism, one that has been used to
keep compliance, and one that has bled into faith. Following God
doesn’t make it all easy – even if it does make it all meaningful
and valuable and even good. Doing the right thing is often HARD.
Dealing with the changes around us remains incredibly difficult EVEN
if they are the ones we choose. Dealing with changes around us
remains incredibly difficult EVEN if they’re the right changes.

We’re
human.

We
live in bodies, given to us by God, that tune into stress, and
respond with concern to changes.

AND,
we’re also capable of surviving and thriving after major changes.

Which
is really good news. Because Isaiah became a prophet, and a good
one. The disciples floundered for quite a while, but eventually
became the trusted leaders of the Jesus movement.

Perhaps
right now it feels unfortunate that we don’t get to skip the
experiences of change and just move on to the “good parts”
(DARN). But life is a series of changes, big and small, and we
don’t get to skip them. Here we are. And God is with us. And we
have difficult things to face – inside ourselves and outside of
ourselves, and God is with us.

For
now, I hope you might just hear this: sometimes God isn’t calling us
to anything new. Sometimes God is calling us to stay the
course, and get settled where we are, and get some more stability.

And
that is holy work too.

Thanks
be to God. Amen

1 https://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory-pdf

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

February 13, 2022

Uncategorized

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

February 6, 2022
by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So.
Violence is a lot.

Which
means that non-violence is a lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 6, 2022

Uncategorized

“A Vision, for Us Together” based on Isaiah 61:1-4…

January 30, 2022
by Sara Baron

Do you have a Bible verse you claim as your own, one that reminds you of who you are, who God is, and how you want to live. (Possibly three versions of the same question). I’m going to try to guess:

Maybe Micah 6:8:

[God] has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Maybe Amos 5:24,

“But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

The Golden Rule from Matthew 7:12?

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

The Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4-5?

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

The great theology of 1 John 4:7-8?

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Maybe the simple repeated theme from Genesis 1:

“And God said it was good”

Or the Hebrew Bible theme of who God is

“God’s steadfast love endures forever"

Or the great equalizing in Christ from Galatians 3:28?

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Or maybe a more particular call from Isaiah 40:1?

“Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God.”

Or the wise challenge given Esther (4:14) that helps with courage?

“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

Or, perhaps, the deceptively simple instructions from Paul in Romans 12:7-8 (The Message)?

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

Or, just maybe, the Jesus theme from Mark (1:5)?

The time is fulfilled, and the kindom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Did I get it? Let me know in comments or an email! If you didn’t have one before, there are some good options, and if you wanted to know more about how I see the Bible, you just learned a lot. I don’t have ONE passage, but all of the above are incorporated into how I try to live, how I understand God, how I understand the vision of the Divine and the work of being a follower of Jesus.

Given the depth and breadth of the Hebrew Bible, there are a LOT of options to choose from to pick a passage to define one’s life and/or ministry. And that’s why I think it is so interesting and notable to hear the one Luke uses to define Jesus. It is a Jubilee passage from third Isaiah, and – perhaps I don’t have quite enough hope, it wasn’t on the list I just shared. This one is BIGGER, broader, more radical, more extreme than any I’d claim for myself. For Jesus, though, it fits.

61The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

Walter Brueggemann makes a number of great points that help me make sense of this passage, and I’m going to share them with you, largely in my own words.1 It helps to remember that Isaiah 56-66 is considered “Third Isaiah”, distinct from what came before it in both themes and in timing. Isaiah 60 predicts a change for ancient Israel, a reversal of fortunes. It speaks to a people RETURNED from Exile, but struggling in the rebuilding stage. Brueggemann says these chapters are “primally concerned with the future of Jerusalem. It is urgent to determine if the new Jerusalem, which epitomizes new heaven and new earth, will or will not be a place of inclusion, will or will not be a place of neighbor ethic, will or will not manifest a passion for justice.”2

Isaiah 60 predicts that things are going to get better in Jerusalem, that God is going to make things better, and glory and prosperity are on the horizon. Isaiah 61 has a pretty big switch in that there is a HUMAN speaking, as God’s agent, one who is anointed with God’s spirit to MAKE IT HAPPEN.

This human is “authorized and energized to do Yahweh’s deeply transformative work in the community of Yahweh’s people.”3 And what the human-actor is going to do is create a NEW thing.

And the “new thing” is a creating justice for those who are weakened, disempowered, and marginalized. The verbs of what will happen to them speak volumes. The human acting on behalf of God will bring, bind up, proclaim, release, comfort, provide,

give. That is, a whole lot of action aimed at restoring “them to full function in a community of well-being and joy.”4

I know I’m going pretty deep into this passage, but when Luke claims this as Jesus’s vision for his ministry, and when it gives me the shivers like this to see how claiming this historical vision for Jesus fits both in his time and in ours, I think it is worth digging pretty deep.

Because, there are A LOT OF PEOPLE who are weakened, disempowered, and marginalized. And there is a lot of need for restoration, particularly restoring people to a good relationship within a healthy community of mutuality and JOY. Right? This speaks to the return of the exiles, and it speaks to the largely disempowered masses of Jesus’s day, and it speaks right into our day too. Our day, where corporate greed and epic income inequality along with racism and other forms of de-humanizing others prevent the fullness of God’s vision from being lived in people’s lives. A restoration to full function in a community of well-being and joy is another way of talking about God’s kindom, the one we’ve committed our lives to building, and it requires a lot of CHANGES.

Another important theme in this Isaiah passage is the concept of Jubilee. Jubilee is a Torah vision and commandment aimed at preventing generational poverty, and creating an equitable society. I’m currently reading David Graeber’s new book (with David Wendrow) “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” in which the professors examine many ways that human societies have organized themselves in order to consider why some societies carefully maintain equality and care for all, and why some create and maintain inequality and hierarchies of privilege.

It helped me see that the careful Torah provisions aimed at creating a just and equitable society were one of many ways of doing so, many of which have been successful for centuries. (Some archeologists see evidence that the lands of ancient Israel maintained a lack of hierarchy and care for all during the period of the Judges, some 300-400 years- which I think is a notable period of time!)

Pragmatically, practicing Jubilee is laid out in Leviticus 25 and relates to regular forgiveness of debts and restoration of land to original owners. Brueggemann says, “There is no doubt that a vision of jubilee -that is, a profound hope for the disadvantaged – is shockingly devastating to those who value and benefit from the status quo.”5 So, add in another element to what it means to have Jesus claiming this passage in his ministry. It names that he is upending the status quo for the sake of the disadvantaged. AND, it puts the advantaged on notice. There is a VERY good reason the Poor People’s Campaign is also claiming Jubilee as a platform, this Biblical concept still has power today.6 It is still NEEDED today.

I cannot resist the recommendation to reflect on Brueggemann’s quote “is shockingly devastating to those who value and benefit from the status quo.” We are, all of us, a complicated mix of powerful and powerless, we are those who benefit from the status quo and those who are held back by it. And it is of great value to our capacity to build the kindom if we are able to become clearer on where we benefit from the status quo, so we can change how we respond to those who are harmed by it. I suspect that this reflection is easiest accessed by attending to when our bodies “tighten up” at some suggestion for justice or another. What do we instinctually respond to as “that’s too far” OR “but, that would be scary (for me!)”? The work of building God’s kindom often requires us to pay attention to the clues from our bodies of what scares us, and then use that as a source of wisdom to listen to and empathize with people who lack whatever power we’re afraid of losing.

OK, a final point on Isaiah 61 (for now), The passage moves the community from sorrow and grief to gladness and praise. As the disempowered and marginalized are restored to full community, the community itself is healed.

So, when Luke tells us about Jesus reading a passage from Isaiah and claiming it as his own, there is A LOT going on there, a lot about God, a lot about the history of a people devoted to God, a lot about who Jesus is, and a lot about what God is asking of us.

Because, the gospels make it clear, the work that Jesus did during his life time is the work that the followers are Jesus are asked to continue in ours.

Which, rather uncomfortably suggests that I should have put Isaiah 61:1-4 on my list of verses to live by. Isn’t THAT a challenge?

Thank goodness we have each other and God: none of us are asked to be the single-human-actor. Instead, we TOGETHER have gifts sufficient for the tasks, and we TOGETHER have vision of justice, and we TOGETHER have power to build the kindom. We, TOGETHER, along with many other workers in the kindom, are given this time of upheaval in the world as a time to re-vision and to seek justice anew. May God help and encourage us along the way – there is a pretty long journey from where we are to where God dreams we will be. Amen

1 Walter Brueggeman, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 212-215.

2 Ibid, 167.

3 Ibid, 213.

4 Ibid 213.

5 Ibid, 214.

6 https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/about/jubilee-platform/

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 30, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

January 23, 2022
by Sara Baron

“To a People Called Hope” based on Isaiah 62:1-5 and John 2:1-11

To a generation that calls themselves Forsaken, to those who have lived years they call Desolate, to those who would name themselves Abandoned, to those living in a place they call Forlorn, to those who think of themselves as Discarded… (to a people in a pandemic?)…

It is to you that God speaks.

It is to you that God has been speaking.

You are not how you have known yourself. Your past is going to be behind you, and no one will call you by those names again (least of all yourself.)

You will be known for your inner radiance, for your joy and laughter, for the inspiration of your loving relationships, for the delight you bring, and the fullness of your lives.

God is taking care of you, and there is joy to come.

Take heart.

Take hope.

(Thus ends my interpretation of the Isaiah reading for us today.)

In the Hebrew Bible, one of the signs of the Messiah who was to come was an abundance of food and drink. That is, if the scriptures tell us there was A WHOLE LOT OF WINE, we would be wise to be thinking, “that’s a sign of God’s work among us.”

A CAVEAT: In The United Methodist Church, we use grape juice at communion as a means of care for those who live with an addiction to alcohol. This “first sign” of John’s seems to be a similar possible trigger. For those who are especially tender, let this serve as a content warning, and invite you to find another sermon to hear. For those who are feeling OK, but might need some space, I’d invite you to translate “wine” to “bread” as needed. GOOOOOD bread is a wonderful thing and the same connotations can be attached as to “good wine.”

Back to the main story: the Gospel of John, which tends to super-infuse meaning into the stories it tells, suggests that Jesus creates about 120 GALLONS of GOOD wine. That’s a lot of wine. It seems that this is being used as a fulfillment of those prophecies that with the messiah comes an abundance of good food and drink, and this abundance is being used to draw people in to notice who Jesus is.

I keep thinking that making wine was a good way to care for people’s practical needs (I’m told water usually wasn’t safe to drink), but making GOOD wine was a way to share in the joy and hope of God. The things that bring pleasure matter. Jesus wasn’t against enjoying life, and part of the Gospel narrative is telling us that we too, are allowed to enjoy our lives. This, too, I think is part of the messianic promise. What is the point of a messiah if the people don’t get to live GOOD lives?

On that basis, the good wine is a sign of God’s work among us, a sign of God’s care for the people, a sign that God is WITH the people, and they have reasons to have hope. Of course, the Jewish people in Galilee at the time of Jesus had been through about 8 centuries of difficult times and were pretty used to both hopelessness of circumstances and hope in God anyway.

Where do we put our hope, is, I think, a theological question. It tells us what we think is holy. We often put hope in institutions, which will dismay us because they care about themselves, not people. Other times we put our hope in each other, which can be quite lovely, as long as we keep people off pedestals, and allow each other the space to be human. But, of course, sometimes we put all of our hope in ONE person and that tends to be unstable. We’re encouraged to put our hope in the economy, or in the next great thing we will purchase, but those are clearly unstable. Often we’re taught to put our hope in education (I’ve been tempted to do this many times), and maybe there is SOME truth to that, but I think the student loan crisis provides enough reasons to have concerns there.

My hope is in God. Really and truly. I believe that God is with us, on our side, patient, able, and going to stick with us no matter what. I believe God is working towards the kindom in many people and in many places, and that God’s vision for the world is the most likely outcome over the long run.

And, I am aware that hope feels like a limited resource right now.

But, I think God plays a long game, so I’ll keep my hope there.

Where is hope right now? It isn’t in “going back” because that era has ended. But it also isn’t in staying the course, because this isn’t sustainable. (Note: the great resignation). But, perhaps there is hope in the fact that having been shaken up and taken off course, we have a chance to decide what course we want to take next.

The Isaiah passage uses the metaphor of marriage to indicate how significant the change of fate for the ancient Israelites will be. God is claiming the people, and their lives won’t be the same afterwards.

That, too, I think is true of our lives since the pandemic began. While there has been an obscene amount of death and destruction, and I don’t mean to minimize that, the upheaval has also made space for some hope. We have a chance to let go of the things that were holding us back from a fuller life. We have a chance to grab on to the things that move us towards a fuller life.

Or to say it another way, the wedding ran out of wine (boo) but somehow there is an abundance of Good Wine anyway, because God is with us. What do we want to do now?

I don’t have many answers, but I do have some medium term dreams for this church community. I hope that we will be able to gather, eventually without distance or masks, and we will be healed by being in each other’s presences. This week I was reminded of the power of “co-regulation” – when the physical and emotional processes of mammals join together to ease the struggles of both. Co-regulation means we can breath easier, keep our temperatures in the right range, AND let go of panic when we are near someone else we trust, who responds to us with warmth. Being a community that is trustworthy and warm, and that in doing so is able to help people in their human journeys sounds VERY hopeful to me. So, I hope we able to be together and co-regulate again, and I hope when do it is SLOW and SWEET and we notice how good it is.

I have a hope that someday we are going to have coffee hour again, with real coffee, and maybe some snacks, and mostly with people milling about chatting with each other and crying in relief to be together.

I have a hope that we might eventually create a regular practice of “listening groups” to do the holy work of hearing each other, and allow God’s healing to enter each other’s lives by being known and loved.

I have a hope that we might look for signs that we are growing as a faith community by seeing how compassion and empathy are growing within us.

I have a hope that we might judge ourselves, in part, by how much FUN we are having together, by how much delight is in our midst, by our contagious our joy is – that we may be signs of the goodness of God.

AND I have hope that some of things we’ve developed over the past almost two years will form us in the future: that we might keep intergenerational faith formation because it is GOOD, that we will always have an online presence because it connects us whenever we are apart, that we may always take seriously the needs of those who can’t be physically present.

So, dear ones, in your lives, in your work, in your play, and in your church I invite you to consider: what is the mediocre wine? What isn’t worth drinking, or doing, or fighting for? And, what’s the GOOD stuff? What makes life worth living, what brings wholeness and healing, what brings compassion or joy? Feel free to answer in the comments, or bring some answers to the Sunday Check in ;).

God is a God who can be trusted, and there is hope through God, and we might as well take stock of where hope is flowing through us. Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 23, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

January 16, 2022
by Sara Baron

“Two Big Questions” based on Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

I’ve been told that human beings have two big questions in life, ones that are in tension with each other, ones that motivate much of what we do. They are: “Do I fit in?” “Am I special?” I think that together they add up to “Do I matter?” because both fitting in and being special are about mattering. We matter when we have a group who claims us, a place we can be real, an identity formed with others. We ALSO matter when we know we are making a contribution, that we are doing what WE in particular can do, when we are seen for being ourselves and not just another face in the crowd.

Or maybe when I was told this it was just about kids, as it came from a theory in my Children’s Literature class 😉 So, it seems, I’m the one who has expanded this to all humans. Mostly because it seems true to me.

We are always looking for clues about if we fit in, and adapting our behaviors to what we see around us. Think about masking at different kinds of gatherings and how uncomfortable it is to be in the minority in whatever decision you make.

We are also always looking for clues that we are special, and often we seek to show it by what we do, or say, or wear. This is part of why it can feel good to be thanked for sharing a musical gift, or visual display, or sharing a helpful thought. We want to stand out, in some ways, even as we want to fit in, in others.

So, they’re in tension, they motivate A LOT of what we do, and they add up to “do I matter?” Or maybe, “do I matter RIGHT?” Sometimes we even get stuck in old ways of fitting in or old ways of being special and struggle to adapt to new places or expectations. This stuff is deeply and profoundly correlated with IDENTITY, and for human-being-meaning-makers, our identity MATTERS.

I have been told that “Your community is the place that accepts your gifts.” Talk about intersecting the two questions! The place you fit in is the place that accepts you in your specialness. Hmmm.

Similarly, there are studies that say that we get a little burst of happiness hormones when we get a text message or a response on social media. These are ALSO related to our core questions: they tell us “I’m special enough someone is wanting to connect with me” AND “I fit in.” I find it interesting to pay attention to when I am doing things to get those little floods of positive hormones, and when I’m able to let go of them and be more present where I am.

For me, the story of Jesus’s baptism, and the ways it resonates in our lives today, correlate with all of this: being accepted and fitting in, being special and unique, and being affirmed as mattering. God saying, “You are my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased,” is the crux of what most of us need to hear most of the time, and a statement we struggle to believe and thus push back against.

We worry we aren’t worthy. That something we said, or did, or didn’t say, or didn’t do makes us unlovable. We worry that we aren’t sufficiently pleasing God, that we aren’t good enough, or we aren’t doing enough. This may be why we constantly seek affirmation that we are special and we do fit in. We need it, but we don’t trust it from the Source.

In the United Methodist Church we rather firmly hold that baptism is a one-time deal. Our reasons are sound: because baptism is a gift from God, humans can’t mess it up, so it doesn’t ever NEED to be redone. That “can’t be messed up” applies both to the person who does the baptizing – it doesn’t matter if they’re imperfect because God is the actor, not the pastor AND it applies to the baptized – it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you can’t shake off God’s love. (It seems worth admitting that I believe in ONE exception to the “baptized once” rule, which is that if someone is baptized with a name and gender that do not match who the person has come to know themselves to be, then I am willing to make sure that they receive the blessing of inclusion with their actual name and actual gender. God still hasn’t messed up, but any ritual of inclusion should include the ACTUAL person.)

Of the many explanations for what baptism is, the one I most resonate with is that it is a ritual of inclusion. When someone is baptized we welcome them into the Family of Faith. Now, OF COURSE, we believe that God’s love is for all people and God works for the good of all people. So, the difference is that we, as the Family of Faith, acknowledge that love and spend our lives seeking to expand its impact in the world. We commit to work together to expand that love, to be loving to each other, to encourage each other in the work, and to recognize the sacredness of each person both within the Family of Faith and beyond it. To be baptized as a baby is to have promises made to teach you these things, to be confirmed or to be baptized as an adult is to claim this God of Love for yourself and the aim of expanding love in the world as your shared goal. (We often call this “the kindom”, MLK talked of the Family of Faith as being the “beloved community.”)

When Jesus was baptized by John, he was committing himself to John as his teacher, and becoming a “disciple” of John’s. He, too, was joining a movement committed to a Godly way of life and a vision for how the future should be. Later on, after John died, he claimed his own vision (similar to but similar to John’s) and started doing his own baptisms, claiming his own disciples. As disciples are learners, one of the phrases still used for people of faith in the Christian (Jesus following) tradition is “disciples.” In this church we seek to learn so we can understand both the world as it is and God’s vision for a just future for all of creation.

Baptism incorporated Jesus into his chosen community, and then incorporated his disciples into theirs, and incorporates us into ours. We are, at least we seek to be, that place that receives the gifts that people are willing and able to offer. This is a place where we “fit in” and try our hardest to make it possible for others to do so well. AND, that means it is also a place where we get to be special – to offer particular skills and gifts for the wellbeing of the whole.

There are so many loud and constant narratives in the world at large telling us that we aren’t enough, that some people matter more than others, that injustice is unavoidable, that fear should motivate us (to buy things), and that we should work harder to protect ourselves – no matter the cost to others.

And then there are the narratives of God. God says to the people (Isaiah 43):

Dear Ones, I created you, I formed you, and I like you.

You can let go of fear, you are already enough,

You can let go of worry, you are mine and that is identity enough.

You are beloved children of God. And it is good.

When you face floods, I am with you.

When you face droughts, I am with you.

You are precious to me.

I love you.

Do not be afraid, I am with you.

Come home to me.

I created you for goodness,

and I call you by your name.

NOW, integrity requires me to point out that this song of Isaiah is COMMUNAL, it was written to the nation of ancient Israel, promising that the Exile wouldn’t have the last word. The you is the whole, not the individual. And, I would say, that sometimes we need to hear it as it was written and be reminded of the power and sacredness of the whole. AND sometime we need to hear it as individuals and be reminded that we too are special to God.

The Spirit guides our reading and hearing of holy texts.

Dear ones, in God’s house, you fit in. AND, in God’s eyes you are special. When humans create God-centered spaces, they’re able to offer a genuine welcome God’s uniquely wonderful beings. And we try to do that, together.

May you rest assured, beloved child of God, you are already enough, and you need not struggle to matter. You already do – you are God’s beloved, and that IS enough. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 16, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

January 9, 2022
by Sara Baron

“Another Road Home” based on Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12

I really like the idea that the Christmas stories in the gospels are “Gospels in Miniature” that highlight the major points of each gospel writer, foreshadow what is to come, and even tell the whole story in a nutshell.1

Given the Gospel in Miniature idea, it is really easy to see why Luke tells us about shepherds in the field at night watching their sheep: he wanted us to know that the birth of Jesus was good news for the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely and he made his point early and often. Luke is spiffy though, and you should never underestimate him. With the shepherds he ALSO manages to tied Jesus to David one more time, in case we’d missed the point previously.

But, why does Matthew tell us about Magi from the East, with the power to access King Herod, impractical baby gifts, and only a fleeting encounter with Jesus?

Ironically, I believe that this was because Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, and he was making the point he’d make again at the end of the gospel, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” namely that the good news of Jesus expanded past even the community of the faithful Jews.

The Magi from the east are outsiders, others, non-Jews. They have access to other wisdom, other traditions, other power. By having them perceive the spiritual earthquake of Jesus’s birth tells Matthew’s audience just how BIG this story is, and how profound it’s impact will be.

I think “the east” is particularly significant as well. To the east is the land Abraham left when God called him. Also, to the east is Babylonia, where the exiles had once been taken, and lived in captivity. That means to the east is where their release came, and like Abraham, the exiles returned home “from the east.”

By the time Jesus was born “to the west” was the power center of Rome, and the local power center of the Judea was also to the west. The powers to the west are the ones that Jesus will be organizing against in his life, and they are the ones with the power to end his life. So, it is from the east that Jesus is recognized for who he is, and that makes sense. This feels like a foreshadowing of Palm Sunday and Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem from the EASTERN gate too.

So these EASTERN foreigners discern that there is something new and amazing happening and they come to see it for themselves. When they stop to ask for directions at the palace, the paranoid and power-hungry King Herod (who historically really was known for being incredibly bloodthirsty and insecure) decides to use them for his own purposes, to take out any threat to his kingship with haste.

The Magi are being used as the King’s spies.

But when they arrive and discover the humanity and vulnerability of Jesus, and of Mary, and (maybe) of Joseph, something shifts in them.

That may sound minor, “something shifts in them” but it is the best explanation I have for Easter too. Somehow, the very frightened disciples who were hidden away trying to save their lives had “something shift in them” and they weren’t afraid anymore, and they lived as Jesus lived, and were even willing to die as Jesus died.

A little shift inside can have HUGE consequences.

Something shifts in the Magi, maybe at meeting Jesus, maybe in a dream, maybe both, “and they left for their own country by another road.” This suggests that even meeting Jesus as a baby/toddler was significant enough to help people refuse the power of the Empire 😉

They refuse the power of King Herod, and they change their plans and find another way.

That does sound like an epiphany. Epiphany means a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being OR a moment of sudden revelation or insight.2 This sounds like both. They saw the divine in Jesus, or they experienced the Divine in a dream (or both) AND it was for them a moment of sudden insight leading to a shift within.

They went to their own country by another road. They went home, but they went home changed.

One of the fun parts of the Christian tradition is that we assume that the Magi showed up more than a year after Jesus’s birth. That is, this Epiphany celebrates the Magi showing up for last year’s Christmas. (Hmmm, given pandemic time warps, that sounds right, doesn’t it?) Given that, it is always a little bit the Christmas season, because the Magi are always journeying to Jesus – AND I think always journeying home by another route. The travel, and the change, are constant.

It could be tempting, right about now, to give up hope. It is 2022, and COVID 19, named for 2019 is STILL sending shock-waves through our lives, despite vaccines, despite prior infections, despite all we’ve given up for nearly two years. We’re back at trying to protect the capacity to keep schools open and trying to keep hospitals from being overrun (and neither are going terribly well.) In my house this week, we heard about more people testing positive for COVID than any other week of this pandemic.

It is scary.

AND we have to make decisions all over again about what is safe and what isn’t and where to spend our risk tolerance and what impact it will have if we get it wrong.

And it exhausting.

And people are SICK, some of them really sick, some of them dying.

And it is horrible.

And I wonder where God is inviting us to take another road home. I wonder about epiphany, and God showing up and surprising us, and shifting things within us, and making new things possible. Because I believe that God is with us, and God shows us a new way when it seems there is no way, and God is able to bring life even out of death, and God is with those who are alone, and God is ultimately creative.

There are “other roads home.”

They’re new to us, we haven’t chosen them before (maybe for good reason), they come without good maps, and there are unknown dangers along the way. That said, the roads we came by are now impassable to us, and the way home is by another way. (Fair warning, home will be changed when we get there too, but you already knew that.)

May God help us to travel the roads we are now on, no matter how we got here, and may we find enough promise them to make it through another day, and another day, and another day. Amen

1Borg and Crossan “The First Christmas”, major theme.

2Apple Dictionary 1/6/2022.