{"id":924,"date":"2019-11-03T23:06:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T23:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2019\/11\/03\/those-who-walked-the-walk-based-on-habakkuk\/"},"modified":"2020-02-11T21:44:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T21:44:48","slug":"those-who-walked-the-walk-based-on-habakkuk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2019\/11\/03\/those-who-walked-the-walk-based-on-habakkuk\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThose Who Walked the Walk\u201d based on\u00a0\tHabakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 and Luke 19:1-10"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

(Thanks to Kevin Kempf for the great picture!)<\/i><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/p>\n

\nHave you heard of \u201cthin
\nplaces?\u201d\u201d \u00a0I’ve heard it described as places where the veil
\nbetween this world and the next is thinner \u2013 or where God’s
\npresence can be especially felt. \u00a0Ideologically, thin places don’t
\nmake any sense to me. \u00a0I believe that God is all-present, so God
\nisn’t any more or less present anywhere. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd yet… I have experienced
\nthin places. \u00a0I don’t understand them, but I know them. \u00a0You may be
\nneeding some examples. \u00a0Mountaintops are commonly thin places, which
\nI suspect has less to do with the altitude and more to do with the
\neffort to get to them and the views they offer. \u00a0Things just feel
\ndifferent at the top of a mountain, and many people have experienced
\nthem to be thin places. \u00a0Sanctuaries are another common choice \u2013
\nones in churches or ones at camps. \u00a0I have often wondered if places
\nwhere many people have prayed are changed in some way by the
\npervasiveness of the prayers \u2013 and thus made more holy. \u00a0(Again,
\nthis doesn’t fit my understanding, but it fits my experience.)
\nSometimes, I think, thin places are not places even, they are
\nmoments. \u00a0I once had a chance to ask a church about when they’d most
\nstrongly experienced God and a whole lot of them mentioned the births
\nof their children. \u00a0It is also very common (but not universal) for a
\ndeath to be a thin place. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

I
\nalso suspect thin places might have a lot more to do with us being
\nopen to the presence of God that is always with us than a change in
\nthe amount of presence, but however it is, I think they ARE. \u00a0And,
\nfurther, one of those moments that has often been a thin place for me
\nis All Saints Sunday. \u00a0Over the course of my ministry, more years
\nthan not, this has been the holiest worship service I’ve led.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThis year, like every year, the
\nnames we are about to read lie heavy on my heart. \u00a0Oh friends, the
\nsaints who have gone on ahead of us taught us so much! \u00a0We are who we
\nare because of them! \u00a0It is an honor to read their names and remember
\ntheir lives, but it is also heavy to live without them. \u00a0One of our
\ntraditions, in this church, is to also name the saints whose loss is
\nstill especially heavy on our hearts, even if their departure was
\nmore than a year ago. \u00a0The list of those names is also dear \u2013 and
\nbeautiful and sad and heavy.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nToday conjures in my mind that
\nsimple line \u201cthe great cloud of witnesses\u201d from Hebrews 12, which
\nis an incredibly comforting image. \u00a0Life can feel overwhelming at
\ntimes, and sometimes I have no idea where to turn, but remembering
\nthat those who taught me, and loved me, and guided me \u2013 guide me
\nstill and show us the way \u2013 is very powerful. \u00a0It is even better to
\nnotice how many of there are!<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nSo, indeed, All Saints Sunday
\nis, for me, a thin place, and the names we are about to read and the
\nlives they represent are an honor to remember and name.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Now,
\nthe gospel passage may not seem terribly well connected to all of
\nthat, perhaps because of the terrible Sunday School song that too
\nmany of us learned about Zacchaeus. \u00a0(If you don’t know it, I beg
\nyou, stay ignorant.) \u00a0The story itself, however, is not as trite as
\nthe song. \u00a0There are surprises all over this story, if you pay
\nattention to them. \u00a0One is that a wealthy and powerful man was
\nparticularly interested in Jesus, who aimed his ministry particularly
\nat people who were living in poverty and disempowered. \u00a0The second is
\nthat the wealthy and powerful man was willing to forgo his dignity to
\ntry to see Jesus, which seems to want to remind us just how exciting
\nJesus was in real life and how worthy of seeking out he was (is).
\nThen there is the amazing turn in the story when Jesus decides to
\nfocus his attention on Zaccheaus, this wealthy and powerful man,
\nwhich I think absolutely no one expected. \u00a0Zaccheaus, however, was
\nhappy and gracious. \u00a0Then there is the unsurprising grumbling of the
\ncrowd, who are peeved that Jesus is hanging out with this guy (tax
\ncollectors being about as popular then as border patrol agents are
\ntoday). \u00a0And then there is the turn around where Zaccheaus, having
\nhad this experience with Jesus, commits to a moral and fair life.
\n(I’m going to disregard my assumptions that he probably couldn’t
\nafford to pay back 4 times as much as he’d over taken…. that’s not
\nthe point.) \u00a0It seems that being with Jesus was a thin place for
\nZaccheaus, where he could access love, hope, and wonder, and be
\nchanged by it.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThe beautiful thing about the
\nZaccheaus story is that sometimes we are ALL Zaccheaus, and the story
\nseems to say that’s OK. \u00a0Sometimes we have power, and sometimes we
\nuse it wrong, but we’re still TRYING our hardest to know what’s right
\nand do it, and when we figure what what we’ve done wrong, there is a
\nchance to change it.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Now,
\nthat’s where this fits in with our Saints today. Because none of the
\nSaints we celebrate today were actually perfect in their lives. \u00a0Not
\na single one. \u00a0Our memories may get fuzzy around that, but all the
\npeople we are remembering were fallible. \u00a0All of them, as well,
\nsometimes had power and sometimes used it wrong. \u00a0That’s human life.
\nWhat’s WONDERFUL is when people realize what they’ve done and seek to
\nchange it. \u00a0That’s why they are our saints \u2013 because of their
\nwillingness to grow, learn, and change.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nFriends, this is an interesting
\nreminder for those of us trying to follow in their footsteps. \u00a0And it
\nis a two-fold reminder: \u00a0(1) \u00a0we are not expected to be perfect.
\nReally. \u00a0We can’t be, and trying just makes it all worse. \u00a0(2) And,
\nwhen we discover how we’ve erred, if we are willing and able to
\nchange, it makes all the difference. \u00a0This is, often, a cycle we have
\nto keep on living. \u00a0I see it clearly in myself in working towards
\nanti-racism, a goal I yearn for. \u00a0However, every time I learn
\nsomething new, I have to realize how much I’ve erred in the past, and
\nchange it. \u00a0AND THEN, you know what, the next thing I learn shows
\nthat I’ve still been erring and I still need to change, and I’m not
\nthere yet. \u00a0It feels AWFUL, and yet it would feel way worse to keep
\nmessing up once I know what I’m doing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\nHabbakuk passage feels a little bit too on point for a while, doesn’t
\nit? \u00a0It is bemoaning the injustices of the world, and THEN it totally
\nchanges!! \u00a0The prophet’s concerns are met by GOD’s response, and God
\nsays, \u201cWrite the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner
\nmay read it. \u00a0For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it
\nspeaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for
\nit; it will surely come, it will not delay. \u00a0Look at the proud! Their
\nspirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.\u201d
\n Oh. \u00a0My. \u00a0So our work is to dream, and vision, and make the vision
\nfor God’s goodness clear and visible to others. \u00a0A commentator
\nwrites, \u201cAt at time when the wicked are in control, when the vision
\ndescribing God’s intention to reestablish justice has not yet become
\na reality, Habakkuk is called in the interim to trust God’s
\nassurances and to remain faithful.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a>
\n Not to lose hope, not to give up, not even to keep on bemoaning
\nreality, but to trust and share the vision. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the vision that has been
\nshared with all of us is why we are here. \u00a0We want to be part of
\nbuilding God’s vision in the world into everyone’s reality. \u00a0And the
\nsaints taught us it was possible and showed us the vision. \u00a0And their
\nlives have made this a thin place, where we are able to see, a little
\nmore clearly, the beauty of the vision of God and the hope that is
\nthe world for the present and the future. Thanks be to God. \u00a0Amen <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nSermon Talkback Guiding
\nQuestions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n\tI talked about \u201cthin\u201d
    \n\tplaces in the beginning, does that idea make sense to you and if so,
    \n\twhere have you found some?<\/li>\n
  2. \n\tHow are \u201cSaints\u201d related to
    \n\tlearn, growing, changing \u2013 and admitting erring?<\/li>\n
  3. \n\tWhat else do you see in the
    \n\tstory of Zaccheaus that I didn’t bring out?<\/li>\n
  4. \n\tDid the Habbakkuk reading
    \n\tswitch too fast for you? \u00a0(Or not fast enough)<\/li>\n
  5. \n\tHow do you name God’s vision
    \n\tthat we’re working on?<\/li>\n
  6. \n\tOf the saints we celebrated
    \n\ttoday, or have celebrated previously, how did they teach you of
    \n\tGod’s vision for the kindom?<\/li>\n
  7. \n\tWhat helps you remember that
    \n\tyou don’t have to be perfect?<\/li>\n
  8. \n\tWhat helps you have the courage
    \n\tto change when you’ve erred?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1<\/a>Theodore
    \n\tHiebert, \u201cHabbakkuk\u201d in The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume
    \n\tVII,<\/i> ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abindon Press, 1996), p.
    \n\t638)<\/p>\n

    – <\/p>\n

    Rev. Sara E. Baron
    First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
    603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
    Pronouns: she\/her\/hers
    http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/<\/a>
    \u2028https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n
    \n

    November 3, 2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    (Thanks to Kevin Kempf for the great picture!) Have you heard of \u201cthin places?\u201d\u201d \u00a0I’ve heard it described as places … Continue reading \u201cThose Who Walked the Walk\u201d based on\u00a0\tHabakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 and Luke 19:1-10<\/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":[11],"tags":[34,38,28,39,33,104,108,107,56,64,105,106],"class_list":["post-924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-fumc-schenectady","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-rev-sara-e-baron","tag-thinking-church","tag-umc","tag-for-all-the-saints","tag-great-cloud-of-witnesses","tag-habbakkuk-for-the-win","tag-schenectady","tag-sorry-about-the-umc-world","tag-thin-places","tag-zaccheaus-needs-a-better-song"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","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=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1125,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions\/1125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}