{"id":4464,"date":"2023-10-22T18:22:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T18:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2023\/10\/22\/seeking-peace-based-on-1-corinthians-61-6-and\/"},"modified":"2023-10-22T18:22:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T18:22:04","slug":"seeking-peace-based-on-1-corinthians-61-6-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2023\/10\/22\/seeking-peace-based-on-1-corinthians-61-6-and\/","title":{"rendered":"Untitled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSeeking Peace\u201d based on 1 Corinthians 6:1-6 and Luke 6:43-45<\/h1>\n

I tend to believe the the quote from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, \u201cWe must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.\u201d This makes me quite skeptical of both-sides-ism. To be fair, the primary justice issue I’ve worked on in my life is justice for LGBTQIA+ people, and the difference between teenagers committing suicide because they’re told they’re not loved and straight cis-people feeling uncomfortable is a great example of things NOT being equal.<\/p>\n

However, today a part of my heart is in my throat, thinking about the conflict in the Middle East, and I can’t make sense out of it. There aren’t easy answers in Palestine and Israel. There is pain and suffering of generations, and worldwide context, and vulnerable people everywhere. And there are clear and abundant violations of human rights and human dignities. This is a case of both\/and, I think.<\/p>\n

I have been reminded this week to hold the history of Israel in context. Of course, I thought I was doing that, and I wasn’t. Modern Israel was created out of the need for a space for Jewish people to have self-determination after Christian neighbors and so-called Christian Countries proved themselves unwilling to hold Jewish life as sacred. This, of course, culminated in the Holocaust, which Elie Wiesel survived, but the Holocaust was an single extreme expression of the constant antisemitism of the world.<\/p>\n

I wonder, from the perspective of 2023, if the choices made to create modern Israel were less supportive of Jewish life than they seemed at the time. A friend told me this week that if Israel’s neighbors laid down their weapons, there would be peace, but if Israel laid down their weapons, there would be no Israel. Because the powers of the world made decisions to create modern Israel, but did so without the cooperation and consent of the other nations in that region, and without an adequate plan for the people who had already been living in Israel. How did they think this would play out? Did they care?<\/p>\n

There isn’t much space in our lives for context, and nuance, and careful conversations. There isn’t space for both\/and. There isn’t a lot of space for acknowledging that Hamas was definitely, completely wrong in their attacks \u2013 it was barbaric terrorism AND that the blockades and attacks on Gaza are excessive and inhumane. We’re told we have to pick: be for one side or the other, either forget the centuries of antisemitism that our own faith tradition created and nurtured and stand for the downtrodden Palestinians OR forget the consistency of inhumane treatment of Muslims and Christians in Palestine, and stand for the Israelite state.<\/p>\n

For those of us who believe they’re ALL God’s people, ALL God’s chosen, ALL God’s beloveds, Israel and Palestine looks like pain and horror right now. In trying to find the balance in this sermon, I sought wisdom from others whose eyes see what I fail. They reminded me that one way to stand for Israelis and for Palestinians is to stand against Hamas, who not only brutally attacked innocents, but also did so knowing the response would kill Palestinians in large numbers. Can we stand for our Jewish siblings here, around the world, and in Israel while standing for our Palestinian siblings? I believe we can, but it takes a willingness to look deeply, to be uncomfortable, and to shy away from fast talking points.<\/p>\n

The Mennonite Church of Canada wrote a prayer lament and intercession for Palestine and Israel and I invite you to join me in the spirit of prayer1<\/a>:<\/p>\n

God of love and justice, our hearts are perplexed, paralyzed and broken at the recent carnage in Palestine and Israel. We lament the loss of life and the suffering of so many people. We are shocked at the inhumanity of violence, terrorism, and war.<\/small><\/p>\n

Our prayers for peace seem to go unanswered. We wish you would intervene. We cling to your promise of a different world, but we see so few signs of its fulfillment. We do not understand.<\/small><\/p>\n

Still, we continue to believe that you desire life and peace for all people.\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n

Holy Spirit, strengthen our resolve to advocate for peace, justice, equality, and compassion for all. \u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t let us turn away.<\/small><\/p>\n

Comfort all who are overwhelmed with loss\u2014loss of life, loss of homes, loss of safety and security.\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n

God of the vulnerable and the oppressed, renew the energy and creativity of those committed to nonviolent resistance and change.\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n

We pray for the communities in the land where our shared faith was born and nurtured. May your love remain bright among your Jewish, Christian, Muslim and people. May they recognize your hand in their lives, even amidst the suffering.\u00a0We pray for your peoples around the world, wishing hope, health, safety, and abundance for all.<\/small><\/p>\n

God of all nations, guide our own government to respond in ways that support the legitimate rights of all, especially those who are most vulnerable, those who continue to suffer after generations of occupation, dispossession, and denial of basic human rights and those who fear for their safety.<\/small><\/p>\n

May your kindom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Yours is the kingdom, the power, the glory, now and forever.\u00a0<\/small><\/p>\n

Amen<\/small><\/p>\n

You may have heard in our Epistle lesson this morning, a call from Paul for good conflict resolution. And you may have heard in our Gospel lesson this morning a reminder that we are not know by our intentions, but by our fruits. Come to church, hear hard things \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

All I can offer the Middle East right now is my heartfelt prayers, and my profound compassion. What I can offer in the here and now is a refusal to participate in violence, even in my language. I can affirm the humanity of our Jewish and Muslim siblings in faith, I can acknowledge how horrifying and terrifying this is for anyone with family or friends in Israel and Palestine. And I can hold multiple truths \u2013 that Christianity has created the conditions by which Jews are dehumanized and live in fear around the world AND \u2013 hey look at us \u2013 Christianity has done the same to Muslims and many Christians do the same to Palestinians. Here, in the US \u2013 and around the world \u2013 I want Jewish people to be SAFE, whole, and assured that we’ll have their back. And I want the same for Palestinians of all faiths and for Muslims everywhere. Right? I’ve been thinking about what God might feel about it all. My best answer is \u201cheartbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) Board did an intense study of anti-racism, we were given a list of values in anti-racism institutions. One of them was \u201cboth\/and thinking\u201d and \u201cmoving toward collective action.\u201d To be more direct, the training claimed that either\/or thinking was a tool of oppression and both\/and thinking was needed to make space for all people to be collaborative.2<\/a><\/p>\n

I think about that a lot. I’ve noticed in my life that when I’m stuck between a THIS and a THAT, and I notice it, and take time to consider it, and even pray about it, that there is always an undiscovered THIRD WAY I wouldn’t have found unless I considered the important parts of THIS and the important parts of THAT together, and realized why I couldn’t let either one go. That God is in the both\/and, and it can take me a while to find it, but it is always worth finding.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard stories of those who have worked for peace though, have you ever heard them? Those who God has called to be peace-makers who have entered spaces with both sides of this conflict and found ways to let each side be actually heard? To even grieve together? The stories are always of small intentional groups, of people willing to participate, usually not of people in leadership who are most profoundly fixed in their positions (although in this conflict few people are easily moved.) But miracles have happened. People have heard each other. People have cried for each other. People have APOLOGIZED.<\/p>\n

This work is being done RIGHT NOW. I learned this week that \u201cone of the crucial movements in the peace space in Israel\/Palestine now is the historic partnership between Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun; the latter organization was founded in the summer of 2021, and is comprised of Palestinian women working for peace in the West Bank and Gaza. Women Wage Peace was founded after the Gaza war of 2014, is comprised of Jewish and Arab women who live inside the State of Israel, and has the two primary objectives of 1) Getting Israeli\/Palestinian peace negotiations going (and to eventually achieve a “bilaterally acceptable political agreement”) and 2) guaranteeing that women are part of the negotiation process.\u201d3<\/a> 4<\/a><\/p>\n

Let’s hear one story about peace, right now, huh? There is a group called the Parents\u2019 Circle Families Forum\u2014formerly the Bereaved Parents\u2019 Circle.\u00a0The organization is comprised of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost a family member in the ongoing violence. Their work is the slow work of trust building and creating connections.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg<\/a> tells, and reflects on this story: <\/small>On October 7th, Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped by Hamas and brought into Gaza. Shortly before the abduction, he lost his arm while protecting his friends from Hamas bullets and grenades; as far as anyone knows, he is badly wounded if he is still alive. He has not been heard from since being taken.<\/small><\/p>\n

Last week, his mother, Rachel, wrote<\/a><\/b>:<\/small><\/p>\n

\n

Time is slowly ticking into the future, with these hostages approaching a week in captivity. If he is still alive, how much longer can he survive? His wounds are grievous. I hope someone somewhere is being kind to him, caring for him, attending to him.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Hersh is my whole world, and this evil is the flood that is destroying it. I really don\u2019t know if anything can save it. If anyone knows, please tell me. To save a life, our sages taught, is to save a world. Please help me save my son; it will save my world.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Every single person in Gaza has a mother, or had a mother at some point.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

And I would say this, then, as mother to other mothers: If you see Hersh, please help him. I think about it a lot. I really think I would help your son, if he was in front of me, injured, near me.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And that\u2019s the whole of it. \u201cI would help your son.\u201d Your daughter. Your child. Your beloved. Yours.<\/small><\/p>\n

I understand that yours matters infinite worlds to you, because mine does, to me, and I hope that you see that, too.<\/small><\/p>\n

I can see the infinity in yours, in fact, if I\u2019m willing to look.1<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

What incredibly holy work is being done in seeing each other as beloveds. The article that shared that story, framed it in the lens of the holy work of mothering\/parenting \u2013 and in seeing all the world’s children as \u201cyours\u201d. Dear ones, I think that’s where the pain comes from when we see brokenness in the world. Because we know all children \u2013 all people \u2013 to be God’s children, in need of good care, and worthy of good and abundant life.<\/p>\n

So we seek peace. We seek peace through love by loving all people. This maybe doesn’t seem radical enough, or new enough. Maybe it isn’t new, but the world has proven to us time and time again, it is radical enough. Let’s work on it until we get it right. Then we can try to pull Christianity along \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Amen<\/p>\n

1<\/a>https:\/\/www.mennonitechurch.ca\/article\/16090-prayer-of-lament-and-intercession-for-palestine-and-israel<\/a>, accessed 10\/19\/2023 Edited.<\/p>\n

2<\/a>Work of Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training. I attended in 2017.<\/p>\n

3<\/a>https:\/\/lifeisasacredtext.substack.com\/p\/a-peacemaking-lens?fbclid=IwAR1y50dbv2q-VxQQ_o1elI_-5UNYuOAEoMIMsEe9Tcg0gGNzHe44TvOKmMA<\/a><\/p>\n

4<\/a>The thoughts and concerns of Alice Gomstyn and Elliot Olshansky are peppered throughout this sermon, and I thank them for not letting me bumble along like an idiot, even when it is my job to be informed and not their job to inform me. I’ll also note that while they helped me, they can’t fix me \ud83d\ude09 so mistakes remain my own.<\/p>\n

1<\/a>https:\/\/lifeisasacredtext.substack.com\/p\/a-peacemaking-lens?fbclid=IwAR1y50dbv2q-VxQQ_o1elI_-5UNYuOAEoMIMsEe9Tcg0gGNzHe44TvOKmMA<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rev. Sara E. Baron\u00a0
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady\u00a0
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305\u00a0
Pronouns: she\/her\/hers\u00a0
http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/\u00a0<\/a>
https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

October 22, 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSeeking Peace\u201d based on 1 Corinthians 6:1-6 and Luke 6:43-45 I tend to believe the the quote from Holocaust survivor … Continue reading Untitled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,38,28,39,33,1265,394,56,57],"class_list":["post-4464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fumc-schenectady","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-rev-sara-e-baron","tag-thinking-church","tag-umc","tag-first-umc-schenectady","tag-peace","tag-schenectady","tag-sorry-about-the-umc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}