{"id":4470,"date":"2023-08-13T19:06:14","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T19:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2023\/08\/13\/glimmers-based-on-psalm-101-14-and-john\/"},"modified":"2023-08-13T19:06:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T19:06:14","slug":"glimmers-based-on-psalm-101-14-and-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2023\/08\/13\/glimmers-based-on-psalm-101-14-and-john\/","title":{"rendered":"Untitled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGlimmers\u201d based on Psalm 10:1-14 and John 10:11-16<\/h1>\n

You may already know this, but sheep are the vulnerable adults of the animal kingdom. They are epically poor at making good decisions. Left to their own devices they will eat themselves to death, because they just don’t know when to stop. Because of their woolly coats, which weigh them down when wet, they’re picky about where they drink. They’re vulnerable to predators, and can get lost easily.<\/p>\n

It is because they are so vulnerable that the role of shepherd is so important. It is probably because they are so vulnerable and in need of help and support that they come to know and rely on their shepherd.<\/p>\n

It is probably because we’re all sometimes vulnerable, and can make bad decisions, and have particular needs we can’t easily meet that the metaphor of God as a Shepherd makes sense. Well, that and the Bible was written when agricultural metaphors were the most easily available and understood ones \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

This passage from John fits easily into the explanations we have of the 23rd Psalm, where God is a shepherd. Here, Jesus is the shepherd, right? And here it is explicit that the care the shepherd gives is being willing to run INTO danger to protect the sheep while others would choose to run away. And the shepherd is the one the sheep know and trust, and no one else is. Lovely.<\/p>\n

Perhaps my favorite part of this passage is the end where Jesus claims there are other flocks who also listen to his voice, and it is his intention to bring them together. That sounds right- that there are others who also know love and also are loved and that Jesus is able to offer care for more individuals than we might have thought possible.<\/p>\n

I adore, too, the intimacy of the passage, the reminder that a shepherd and their sheep KNOW EACH OTHER well, and know each other’s voices, and respond to each other. That fits, because humans and sheep are all mammals and mammals are all about connecting to each other.<\/p>\n

It leads me to wondering about how it is we experience that kind of intimacy with the Divine. God, we say, is everywhere in everything and always around us and always available. Yet, not every moment of our lives feels saturated with the Divine, and quite often we’re too busy doing other things to connect. Or maybe God feels farther away and the connection is harder to come by.<\/p>\n

This week I’ve been thinking about the reminders of God and God’s goodness that glimmer in the world and help us remember to connect. I’ve been thinking about it because I spent a week at camp and the whole week was just one big glimmer of wonderfulness and love, of being wrapped in creation and there being spaciousness to connect with wonderful people, and time to savor it all. But, it turns out, I came home from camp and reality as I usually experience it hit me \u2026 well, pretty fast and pretty hard and I was disoriented.<\/p>\n

Because usually my life involves bearing witness to a lot of pain, and a lot of our society’s brokenness and when I came back to that with my guard down it HURT. (Which is also good, I think, but that’s for another day.)<\/p>\n

And yet, my guard needs to come down sometimes. And sometimes I need to take a walk with dear ones and marvel over the many colors of mushrooms growing in the woods, or watch a beaver swim with a big branch, or just sit and watch a rainstorm come by from a dry porch, or talk about scripture with people who just love it. (Camp. WOW.)<\/p>\n

So I’ve been thinking about joy, and where to access it. And I’ve been thinking about hope and where to access it. Because I don’t think that the injustices of the world or the pain that humans experience are about to stop, but I don’t want those to be the ONLY things that get my attention.<\/p>\n

And that’s where \u201cglimmers\u201d come in. I shared this on the church’s Facebook page:<\/p>\n

Did you know about glimmers?<\/small><\/p>\n

Glimmer is the opposite of a trigger. Like a micro moment that makes you happier, a little moment of awe, something that makes you feel hope. Once you start looking for them and embracing them, your life feels so much sweeter.<\/small><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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I’m actually going to take that a bit further though. I think a glimmer is a glimpse of God, or God’s love, or God’s goodness, or God’s desire for us to live full and abundant lives. And they’re reminders that we can trust in God and God is with us \u2013 like John says.<\/p>\n

So I’ve been watching for glimmers. Baptism is ALWAYS one. This baptism all the more so for me, after having had the chance to confirm Chris in the early years of my ministry here. I have been reminded that we have rainstorms AND porches here in Schenectady, as well as sunrises and sunsets and even sometimes stars and all of that glimmers. Good food glimmers. Shared excitement glimmers. Great ideas glimmer. Quiet moments of understanding glimmer. Debbie’s fingers on a keyboard glimmer. Maybe it is too obvious, but the stained glass in here glimmers \u2013 and it is awfully good to remember to look!!<\/p>\n

Once I started looking again, the glimmers were everywhere. Oh, Andrew, I hope you grow up seeing glimmers everywhere every day. I hope your family does too and they teach you to appreciate it. I hope your churches \u2013 here and at home \u2013 do too and they teach you to appreciate it. And, by the way \u2013 all of the rest of you too.<\/p>\n

I wish you the capacity to see the glimmers all around you, and the ability to remember they are signs of God’s love, and the development of trust in God that can come from it all \u2013 so that we all learn even better how to hear and trust God’s voice.<\/p>\n

Amen<\/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

August 13, 2023<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Thanks to Joan E. Carey for photo.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGlimmers\u201d based on Psalm 10:1-14 and John 10:11-16 You may already know this, but sheep are the vulnerable adults of … 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":[34,38,28,39,33,457,1265,1461,56,57],"class_list":["post-4470","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-baptism","tag-first-umc-schenectady","tag-glimmers","tag-schenectady","tag-sorry-about-the-umc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4470","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=4470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}