#Rev Sara E Baron

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“Hosanna” based on Psalm 118:1-4, 19-24 and Matthew 21:1-11

Within Christianity, we use “Hosanna” to express joy, and praise, and adoration. Just one little issue with that – the actual meaning of the word. Hosanna is a Hebrew word meaning “Save us, we pray!” The people around Jesus weren't shouting “Great is God” or “Jesus is good!” or “YAY, Jesus, YAY God!” Instead, they were shouting, “God, save us from our oppressor” which was clearly the Roman Empire, who – let's be honest – didn't appreciate that. “God, help us, the enemy is bigger than we can take on ourselves.” “God, we're in over our heads, help us out here!”

And, of course, they were shouting, “Save us, we pray” during a PASSOVER celebration, when Passover celebrates God's actions in saving the people from oppression in Egypt, which made the Roman Empire's representatives a “little bit” antsy.

The Roman Empire's representative Pontius Pilate was already coming to the city, like he did every year at Passover, with soldiers and fanfare meant to keep the Jewish people in check. The Roman Empire saw QUITE CLEARLY that getting a whole bunch of people together in the city to celebrate God's acts of freeing them from oppression was a tinderbox for revolt, and they sought to tamp it down with displays of power and reminders of their violent capacity. In fact, they came in from Pilate's normal abode on the Mediterranean – so from the West. With gleaming horses, and banners with the golden Eagle of Rome, with drums and the crowds shouting “Hail Caesar, son of God; Praise be to the Savior who brought the Roman Peace; Caesar is Lord….” the Empire sought to intimidate people out of revolt.

But.

Then there was Jesus. Jesus who seems to have let the crowd claim kingship of Ancient Israel on his behalf, which sometimes feels a little bit strange but is in the story nonetheless. The Palm branches were a flag of Israel- the opposite of the Golden Eagle. The donkey was expected to be ridden by the Messiah entering the city – but also is rather opposite a gleaming horse. The soldiers accompanied Pilate – while a large crowd of people impoverished by the Empire accompanied Jesus. And Instead of “Hail Caesar” the people shouted “God Save Us (from the empire).”

The Roman Empire took this Jesus parade as a significant threat.

I believe they were meant to. The protest made the violence of the Empire stand out. They crucified Jesus with the accusation “King of the Jews” above his head, as if this was the charge against him. And, after all, they shouldn't have killed the leader of a PEACEFUL revolt, only a violent one. But sometimes the authorities have a hard time telling the difference between violence and what scares them. (Still true today.)

Then, of course, Jesus did another PEACEFUL demonstration – this time managing to make visible the ways the Empire had put in place Temple leaders who were aligned with Empire and not God's people. That one many of us learned as the “Cleansing of the Temple.” John Dominic Crossan reflects on the “den of robbers” the Temple is said to be saying, “Notice, by the way, that a 'den' is not where robbers do their robbing but where they flee for safety with the spoils they have robbed elsewhere.” (God and Empire, 133.)

Jesus made clear the city of Jerusalem was where “conservative religion and imperial oppression – had become serenely complicit.” (131) And, he dies for it. Crossan says, “He did not go to get himself killed or to get himself martyred. Mark insists that Jesus knew in very specific detail what was going to happen to him – read Mark 10:33-34, for example – but that is simply Marks' way of insisting that all was accepted by both God and Jesus. Accepted, be it noted, but not willed, wanted, needed or demanded.” (131)

Beloveds, this Palm Sunday parade is one of the most brilliant acts of non-violent direct action I've ever heard of, but it is part of the story of why the Empire responded with violence. I can't hear the Palm Sunday story without knowing that it walks us to the Good Friday Crucifixion and the Holy Saturday grief and disillusion. They're all a part of this one story – that when you make clear the ways people are oppressing others, there is a fierce lash-back and the power of violence is immense. Thank God, that isn't the whole story – we get to Easter next week – but it is a real story, one that we can't dismiss.

This year, the Palm Sunday parade that walks Jesus into Jerusalem sounds terrifyingly like Nex Benedict walking into school on their last day. I can't separate out Jesus being faithful to God despite the consequences from gender-queer and non-binary people claiming their space in the world – despite the consequences. But, friends, it is sickening.

There is a story out there, one that says people are supposed to stay in tight little conformist boxes that help others make sense of the world and, heavens, the VIOLENCE that comes out when people speak up and say, “this box doesn't fit me.” And it can be such small stuff:

I'm a woman, but the box “quiet and gentle” doesn't fit me

or

I'm a man, but the box “stoic” doesn't' fit me

or

I'm a woman, but the box “looking for a man” doesn't' fit me

or

I'm a man, but the box “looking for a woman” doesn't' fit me

or

… the box “wants to have kids” doesn't fit me

or

… the box “monogamy” doesn't fit me

or

… the box “woman” doesn't fit me

or

… the box “man” doesn't fit me

or

… the box “gendered” doesn't fit me.

And, I mean, you all know this but... WHO CARES? They're all just silly little made up boxes that no one should be forced into and everyone should have the space to occupy, or adapt or not occupy as they see fit? Sure, some people want the world to be black and white without shades of gray – that everyone is cis-gendered, straight, sexual, and single raced ;) But, too bad because that's just not true.

And yet, the violence that comes when people try to force others back into the boxes they think they should live in – it reminds me of the violence of empire. There seem to be gleaming horses, loud drums, and shiny swords all over the place. And, worse, it isn't just the external violence that attacks people – the very people who are brave enough to leave their ill-fitting boxes behind end up internalizing the violence. They're courageous, they're clear, they know who they are and they won't go back to pretending to be otherwise – but that violence is so darn insidious, and it gets inside them. Those silly stories about how we're supposed to be are so poisonous. That human need for connection gets twisted around and turned against people. And the beautiful ones who are brave and unique and wonderful end up dead.

Jesus could have stayed out of Jerusalem, except he couldn't.

Nex could have pretend to have their gender assigned at birth, except they couldn't.

They couldn't. It would have been safer, easier, …. some would say wiser. But they couldn't.

Friends, as you know, the trans and queer communities around the country and world are aching for Nex and Nex's family and friends. Their death has reminded people of prior losses, of other brave and beautiful souls who also internalized the violence against them. The heartbreaks are everywhere.

This holy week, we will worship through the blessings of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the heartbreak of the disciples, and land on the wondrous reality that God's work can't be stopped by violence or death.

But how do we make sense of Nex? And the ones before them? And the ones after them? How do face the violence of the Empire today, and the ways it gets internalized?

There aren't easy asnwers.

We grieve.

And we share the aches with God.

And we name the problems with each other.

And we keep on learning how to undercut the broken narrative, and break open little boxes, and keep people safe when they leave them.

We aren't going to do it fast enough – we already haven't, but just because we can't do it immediately doesn't mean we can stop. Jesus showed us the power of violence to stop people, and the ways religion can become complicit with violence. And he paid for it, paid to teach us those lessons. But we have them! So, we know that God and love are more powerful than violence, and love is the way we respond. And we know that religion that oppresses isn't religion at all, and we shout it from the rooftops.

Hosanna.

God save us.

We pray.

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

March 24, 2024

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #lent #Hosanna!

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Batog; Richard J. Maue đến Jill M. Anderson; James Piazza, $ 183,000. • 7093 Đường Boston State, Lois A. Rybarchot; Robert A. Rybarchot đến Robert F. Turchiarelli, 165.000 đô la. BUFFALO • 450 Ashland, Nhà được khôi phục của WNY Inc cho Annmarie Cellino, 400.000 đô la. • 1786 Main St., Leonard Silver đến Monroe Building LLC, 375.000 đô la. • 120 Johnson Park, Michael Morga đến Meredith Scott Kearns, $ 370.000. • 816 Tacoma N. Mcdonnell; Robert J. Mcdonnell cho Amanda Birner; Douglas Petti, $ 310.000. • 58 Claremont, Jane C. Cameron đến Jason Kilonsky; Jennifer Scibetta, 302.500 đô la. • 85 Lưỡi liềm, Dorothy L. Potts; Martha A. Potts để Evan R. Bilsback; Veronica E. Raymond, 300.000 đô la. • 62 đường Henley, Douglas Petti đến Karl Anderson, 285.000 đô la. • 54 Cunard, Kathleen D. Krauza đến Kristen Mcmahan; Sean Mcmahan, $ 273.000. • 118 Stratford Road, Grayce Marie Ortiz đến Conrad Pearson, $ 265,851. • 15 Grooween St., Brian D. Cappellino cho Jennifer L. Sickels, $ 265.000. • 308 Taunton, Christine Marie Alterio đến Kristen R. Glieco; Melissa Glieco, $ 260.000. • 97 Sixteenth St., Christopher C. Galley; Joanne R. Galley cho Brian là; Julie là, 242.500 đô la. • 210 Norwalk Ave., Frank M. Zimmer; Jean Zimmer đến Thomas Victor Modicaamore, $ 241,971. • 57 Delham, Rider Christopher J Ruh đến Jennifer Ruh, 240.000 đô la. • 136 Como Ave., Alexandra Burke; William Burke đến John J. Nikiel, $ 219.999. • 240 Cumberland, Matthew C. Ford; Courtney R. Krieger đến Tập đoàn chặt chẽ LLC, $ 195.000. • 1875 Niagara St., Paul Buczynski đến Niagara St. Ventures Inc, $ 192,597. • 4505 Clark St., Nancy M. Snyder; Quận Erie đến John G. Pap; Cecilia N. Pardo-Pap, 177.000 đô la. • Triển vọng 303, Cruz Rodriguez đến Rene Rodriguez, 175.000 đô la. • 80 Strathmore Ave., Janice L. Filipowicz; Stanley Filipowicz đến Jillian Moritz, 175.000 đô la. • 472 Connecticut, West Buffalo Apartment Group LLC đến Bodkin Group LLC, 170.000 đô la. • 37 Henley Road, Melissa M. Fratello đến Anthony Sammarco; Erika Sammarco, 164.900 đô la. • 205 Ridgewood Road, Molly E. Moran đến Jane C. Cameron, 163.250 đô la. • 101 Cheltenham Drive, Eileen P. Balduf tới Tracy L. Lingenfelter, 155.000 đô la. • 37 Tuscarora Road, Alice D. Rubright A. Sennett, 150.000 đô la. • Đường 607 Eggert, Floyd E. Zimpfer; Marlene P. Zimpfer với David E. Collins, $ 144,097. • 191 Kay St., Karen A. Reeves với Edward B. Abrams, $ 142.000. • 25 Cecil St., Liam T. Doud; Julie R. Mazur đến Richard F. Benthien; Patrick H. Kelly, 140.000 đô la. • 170 Brinton St., Flora Mergel cho Karen M. Filippone; Randall M. Filippone, 133.000 đô la. • 64 Mayer Ave., Ruqaya Jasim đến Po Kyoo, 130.900 đô la. • 186 Melrose, Homedog LLC đến Scott M. Dargavel, 130.000 đô la. • 52 đường Standish, Gerald R. Noller đến Michael D. 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CHEEKTOWAGA • 3660 Harlem Road, Khu trường học miễn phí của Liên minh Hill Hill đến Rhr Properties LLC, $ 250.000. • 1375 Đường Pháp, John M. Mugas đến Keenaco Inc; Lnc Properties LLC, $ 249.000. • 53 Cherrywood Drive, 6831 Seneca St. LLC đến Kristin E. Sexstone; Michael J. Sexstone, $ 235,000. • 55 Parktrail Lane, Franklin A. Fowler đến Donald White II, $ 222,000. • 35 Honorine Drive, Maria Anne Bernal đến Abdulhafed M. Abdulla, $ 214.900. • Tòa án 39 St Paul, Edward Wilson đến Robert C Darby II, $ 197,160. • 36 Tòa án Eileen, Peter M. Wyhotowski đến Melissa Kaufman, 175.000 đô la. • 1 Schlenker Ave., Emily M. Brady đến Hardeep Kaur; Jaimeet Singh, 168.000 đô la. • 86 Joseph, Sarah Grey đến Courtney Nordin, 162.500 đô la. • 96 West Rouen Drive, Amy Barchotowski đến Jennifer E. Coric; Jonathan A. Coric, 161.000 đô la. • 40 Beale Ave., Deborah Jean Chadsey đến Bobbie L. Woods, 151.000 đô la. • 35 West Rouen Drive, Christie Jablonski đến John M. Gilley; Eva E. Kubiak, 149.900 đô la. • 1131 Maryvale Drive, Colleen Deluca đến Joshua J. Carbone, 145.000 đô la. • 7 Edmund St., Ashley M. Zych tới Joanne M. Skopek, 136.000 đô la. đến Annas Cleaning & giặt LLC, $ 135.000. • 149 Medina St., Kelly P. Makowski; Paul J. Makowski đến Steven Branka, $ 131,800. • Đại lộ 192 Greenway, John Michienzi; Patricia Michienzi cho Benjamin R. Wrobel, 130.000 đô la. • 1080 Walden Ave., Juan Carlos Rivera đến Mussa Issa Ali Ahmed, 127.500 đô la. • 81 Woodridge, Ryan C. Nellis; Miranda J. Shelansky đến Zachary Schrantz, $ 124.900. • 75 Địa điểm Arlington, Anthony Colello; Anthony C. Colello đến Daniel Hall, 122.500 đô la. • 10 ngõ Lorraine, Brandon Hr Bryman; Diane Dec Bryman; Bryman Jolene M Hr; Cutrona Nicole D Hr; Valerie NgànhRonaldo; Marion Szlachetka; Mike Szlachetka; Ronald Szlachetka đến Mary Madelline Hodge, 120.000 đô la. • 85 Hedwig Ave., Ammad Ahmed Siddique cho Elizabeth Margaret Mahmood; Safdar Mahmood, $ 103,000. • 170 Nokomis Parkway, James R. Luce II; Daniel Tronolone đến Rymato Inc, 97.000 đô la. • 64 Wallace Ave., Martin Ruminski đến Timothy Russell Nichols, 94.900 đô la. • 263 Evane Drive, Robert P. Johnson; Deborah Est Ke Rich to Drym Management LLC, 93.800 đô la. • 20 Boll St., Kimberly A. Solly to Christopher Jank, 89.500 đô la. • 295 Lackawanna, Judith A. Hume cho Luis A. Fidel, 72.500 đô la. Các vấn đề; Hợp chủng quốc Hoa Kỳ đến Misbah Bhatti, 58.000 đô la. • 0 Broadway St., Danelski Family Lp to Msd Development LLC, 45.000 đô la. • 22 Abele Ave., Vincent E. Jagodzinski tới Andrew Owczarczak, 30.000 đô la. Cửu Long; Sally Kowalewski đến Msd Development LLC, $ 11,500. • Đất trống Broadway St., Joan Weiss đến Msd Development LLC, $ 11,500. • Đất trống ở Broadway, Florence Lewandowski đến Sally Kowalewski; Gia đình Danelski Lp, $ 7.880. CÂU HỎI • 8325 Manchester Park Drive, Penny Brown; Timothy Cutler đến Kumar Shah; Melanie A. Shah, $ 575.000. • Vòng tròn 6620 Yorktown, Andre J. Sinatra II đến Craig A. Smith; Jennifer P. Trillizio-Smith, 515.000 đô la. • 8250 Oakway Lane, Joanne L. Coolidge đến Sakth Xoay Rajendran; Hemamalini Sakth khóa, 495.000 đô la. • 8980 Marcos Hideaway, Forbes Homes Inc cho Meghan Rose Revocable Living Trust 091219 Tr, $ 458,361. • 8080 Old Post Road, Venkataraman Balu Living Trust 052692 Tr cho Andrew Louis Russo; Carolyn Elizabeth Russo, $ 345.000. • 6152 Clarence Lane N, Ellen M. Pritchard; Robert C. Pritchard đến Samantha C. Meyer; Timothy J. Szalkowski, $ 325.000. • 4460 Darcy Lane, David J. Rudolph đến Benjamin M. Bixby, $ 273.000. • 9330 Lapp Road, Arlene K. Roberts đến Aaron Daniel Annas; Jenny N. Annas, $ 258,450. • 9565 Martin Road, Mary Beth Glian đến Kyle J. Zimmermann, $ 257.500. • 8375 Đường Wolcott, Robert W. Bitterman đến Ann Deering, $ 25.000. LẠNH • 9010 Caroline Lane, Ann Marie Tara; Neal Tara cho Carol A. Kilanowski; Lisa A. Kilanowski, $ 590.000. THU THẬP • Đường 3124 West Becker, Eric M. Granica đến Ryan M. Naples, $ 147.500. CONCORD • Đường mòn 23 dốc, Bruce Snowden; Donna Jayne Snowden cho Eric Sentz, 135.000 đô la. EDEN • 3448 Đường Bắc Boston, Kathryn M. Benzinger đến Joan M. Burger; Eric M. Grancia; Eric M. Granica, $ 235.000. ELMA • 801 Đường chủ tịch, Ian Fasking cho Christopher C. Galley; Joanne R. Galley, $ 275,000. • Đường Vl Jamison, Richard W. Campbell; Rosemary M. Campbell đến Ann Marie Pickard; James N. Pickard, 60.000 đô la. • 559 Pound Road, Willson Family Trust 080195 Tr đến 555 Pound Road LLC, 50.000 đô la. MỌI NGƯỜI • 9400 Lake Shore Road, Judith D. Boreman; Sally J. Dibble; Virginia D. Gaskell cho Diane Morgante; Michael Morgante, $ 417.500. • 1303 Peppertree Drive, Paula L. Ketterer đến Allen Ann Marie V; James Allen Sr.; Mary Ann Allen, 165.900 đô la. • 6606 Lake Shore Road, Stacey A. Curry đến Pamela Graves, 67.800 đô la. ĐẢO GRAND • Đường 1762 Huth, Tòa nhà David M Bruno & tu sửa Inc; Tòa nhà David Michael Bruno & tu sửa Inc cho Jennifer L. Amato; Michael J. Amato, $ 292.500. • 951 Sông Tây, Mili N. Clark đến Andrew J. Spiesz; Joy E. Spiesz, $ 235,000. • 21 Sturbridge Lane, Elizabeth A. Rachunas đến James E. Breier III; Jovana T. Breier, 170.000 đô la. • 2027 Đường cơ sở, Pruitt Enterprises LLC đến Alexis A. Stasio, 147.000 đô la. HAMBURG • 2340 Burbank Drive, Marrano / marc Equity Corporation cho James M. Kiblin; Patricia A. Kiblin, $ 357,104. • 385 Hobblebush Lane, Marrano / marc Equity Corporation đến Kelyn M. Goodrich; Steven S. Goodrich, 340.093 đô la. • 3363 Drive Drive, James M. Kiblin Sr.; Patricia A. Kiblin đến St Onge Rebecca L, $ 270.000. • 2358 Agassiz Drive, Michele L. Brown đến Carl C. Schultz; Valerie E. Schultz, 255.000 đô la. • 2250 Hobblebush Lane, Daniel G. Carriero Jr. đến Lauren N. Lazarevski; Tony Lazarevski, $ 249,900. • 61 Allie Lane, Ryan ngôi nhà; Ryan ngôi nhà của New York cho David M. Goodness Jr., 238.550 đô la. • 3725 Sowles Road, Sara G. Langer; William Emerson Langer đến Aimee L. Cambio; Anthony M. Cambio, 202.000 đô la. • 3082 Seaford Terrace, Linda Dubois cho Lauren Carly Freyburger, 190.000 đô la. • 5406 Sycamore Lane, Pleasant Development LLC đến Forbes Homes Inc, 115.000 đô la. • 5484 Cooper Ridge, Natale Building Corp cho Christine R. Oddo; Vincent J. Oddo, 65.000 đô la. • Đất trống thứ ba St., Robert D. Suszek đến Linda Walters, 8.500 đô la. LACKAWANNA • 1692 Electric Ave., Kristine Kowalski đến Jamal Al-Soufi; Mushtaq M. Kaid, 80.000 đô la. LANCASTER • 73 Middlebury Lane, Dmitriy Tumash; Yelena Tumash cho Michael D. Hirsch; Jill D. Tarapacki, $ 470.000. • 490 Hồ Ave., Teresa M. Pacanowski; Ronald G. Schrader cho Cheryl A. Morrisey; John Morrisey, $ 373.800. • 9 Ngõ nhìn Stream, Karen A. Shaw; Timothy S. Shaw đến American International Relocation Solutions LLC, $ 365,000. • 9 Stream View Lane, American International Relocation Solutions LLC đến Inderjit Makhija; Vishal Makhija, 365.000 đô la. • 5259 Broadway St., Barbara S. Hoddick; Charles J. Hoddick đến Kamar Holdings Inc, 335.000 đô la. • 13 Winding Way, Kelsey Leon-Wedmore; Brian Wedmore cho các bản vá J. Scheer, $ 299.500. • 5427-5429 Broadway St., Robert J. Rudewicz đến Reilley Holdings LLC, $ 281.000. • Đất trống Lancaster Parkway, Liên doanh Trung tâm thương mại công nghiệp Lancaster cho Diesel Gustav LLC, $ 245.000. • 4 Tòa án Clermont, Monuar Fahim; Brittany L. Steimle đến Alicia M. Giám mục, 230.000 đô la. • 107 Tây Nam Parkway, Marlene M. Miller đến Marlene V. Larson; Roger A. Larson, 164.000 đô la. • 6412 Broadway St., Jean Buczak Ủy thác không thể thu hồi 060415 Tr cho Kevin Buczak, 163.800 đô la. • 30 Parkdale Drive, John D. Neidrauer cho Craig Rozewski; Rachel Rozewski, 155.000 đô la. • 250 Erie St., Kenneth J. Fial to Russell Licata; Thomas A. Piciulo, 38.000 đô la. MARILLA • 11381 Đường Bullis, Michael Serwacki; Michael J. Serwacki đến Leyna Lydell; Nicholas Lydell, 200.000 đô la. • 3699 Đường hai Rod, Kathryn M. Bleyle; Robert J. Bleyle Jr. cho Michael C. Groves, 186.000 đô la. NEWSTEAD • 12320 Đường đẹp, Leyna E. Lydell; Nicholas J. Lydell cho Cynthia Keys; Jason Keys, $ 212.000. • 11054 Miland Road, Jls Real Real LLC đến Daniel Ryan; Claryssa L. Swiezy, $ 185,000. • 6992 Đường Sandhill, Larry Merkle; Wendy Merkle đến Christopher W. Merkle, $ 163,344. • 11303 Đường chính, Joan Anastasi đến Mona Anastasi Bachman; Paul Bachman, $ 48,744. • 12451 Mcneeley Road, Michael Young; Michelle Young đến Caitlin Vandegenachte; Shawn Vandegenachte, 42.222 đô la. • 5595 Đường Barnum, Nancy A. Andrycha; Robert J. Andrycha đến Bettina C. Oneill; Richard S. Oneill, 37.000 đô la. PHÍA BẮC • 10407 High St., Nancy Collins; Nancy F. Collins đến Clayton Maynard; Karen L. Maynard, 115.000 đô la. ORCHARD PARK • 15 Sonnet Drive, John Lunn; Lynda Lunn đến Mercedes B. Dowdall; William P. Dowdall, 430.000 đô la. • 22 Đường Middlebury, Clifford Jones; Clifford Jones Jr.; Edith N. Jones đến James E. Schueler; Jerilyn E. Schueler, 367.168 đô la. • 7081 Michael Road, Anthony J. Rinella; Linda R. Rinella đến Alexanderr Borisovich Kogan; Chang Ping Tsai, $ 331.000. • 85 đường Old Orchard, James S. Culligan; Patricia M. Culligan đến John T. Lunn; Lynda L. Lunn, 270.000 đô la. • 6616 Đường Powers, Janice A. Duffy đến Courtney R. Ford; Matthew C. Ford, 198.000 đô la. • 6841 Đường Scherff, Dawn L. Beitz; Kyle Beitz đến Lauria R. Martin; Michael J. Volansky, 160.000 đô la. • Đường 188 Bielak, Kathleen M. Barrett; William J. Barrett đến Rhiannon Curto; Joshua Elliott, $ 145.000. • 299 Hillside Ave., Karen D. Logan; Madonna E. Rigby; Robert J. Rigby đến Kevin Thompson; Krystine Thompson, $ 142,900. • Lái xe 10-6, Edward J. Hamm Sr.; Jeanmarie Hamm đến Nichole A. Geiger; Mitchell A. Kerner, 120.000 đô la. SARDINIA • 10980 Đường Allen, Bettina M. Stavredes; James C. Stavredes đến Amy Marie Barkley; Zachary Robert Barkley, $ 470.000. • Đường 12770 Lạch, Cheryl A. Bursee; Timothy W. Bursee cho Joseph R. Owens Jr.; Melissa A. Owens, $ 174.500. • 12060 Đường man rợ, Donna M. Ellis; Louis P. Ellis đến Alicia J. Ventura, 148.000 đô la. • 13529 Grove St., Joseph R. Owens Jr.; Melissa A. Owens đến Ceresa Kozlowski; Ryan M. Kozlowski, 140.000 đô la. THÀNH PHỐ TONAWANDA • 40 sân thượng Murray, Beverly J. Shaffer cho Anna J. Sitler; Douglas R. Sitler, 155.000 đô la. • 214 Wadsworth Ave., Becky J. Fike; Suzanne R. Landers; Thomas R. Peasland cho Bradly A. Mcfarren, 135.000 đô la. • 57 Glenwood Ave., Eric D. Sentz đến Fernandez Brenda Z Rivera, 132.500 đô la. • 31 Maldives, Evelyn D. Consminger cho John Beiter, 127.000 đô la. Joan M. Normandin cho Robert E. Smith Jr., 123.600 đô la. • 7 Morgan St., Broe LLC đến Turn-Key Properties LLC, 92.000 đô la. • 52 Delwar St., Skj Properties Inc đến Hertel LLC, 90.000 đô la. ., Scott A. Henderson; Yvonne Henderson đến Ashley M. Tarasek; Christopher Tarasek, 73.000 đô la. TONAWANDA • 730 Creekside Drive, Christine E. Milosich; Joseph M. Milosich cho Joseph S. Gioele, 280.000 đô la. • 258 knowlton Ave., Daniel Mansfield; Emily Theil đến John R. Fellows, 220.000 đô la. • 95 Wardman Road, Craig A. Smith; Jennifer P. Trillizio cho Jaime D. Rutkowski; Zachary D. Rutkowski, 195.000 đô la. • 171 Forbes Ave., Joseph S. Gioele đến Karen M. Cabana; Sarah Gioele, $ 185,000. • 202 Northwood Drive, Nancy L. Fisher; Michael M. Grandits cho Karin L. Plavetzki, 175.000 đô la. • 321 Orchard Drive, Pamela J. Cacheiro cho Sarah Grace Jarvis; Lucas Morrow, 169.000 đô la. • 17 Washington Ave., Kelynn E. Kreuter đến Ryan Boniface, 165.000 đô la. • 948 Woodstock Ave., Jaclyn Karnuth; Justin H. Karnuth đến Lộc Nguyễn; Thị Thúy Nguyễn, 165.000 đô la. • 99 Đại lộ Columbia, Marisa Gallo đến Michael V. Drewitt, 165.000 đô la. • 641 Evergreen Drive, Cynthia M. Frost đến William Grunzweig, 164.000 đô la. • 28 East Hazeltine Ave., Joseph F. Prendergast; Rebecca Prendergast-Sahr đến Tasnia Noureen Tonima, $ 156,880. • 1149 Đại lộ Parker, Patricia A. Walter đến Stacy L. Bognar, 155.000 đô la. • 831 Starin Ave., Michelle L. Monte; Jonathan D. Schechter; Sanford P. Schechter cho Daniel P. Schaus, 150.000 đô la. • 147 Tremont Ave., Wright House Inc đến Pamela Diaz, 142.000 đô la. • 142 Fowler Ave., Paul J. Clough; Rosa Maria Clough to Mark A. Oconnor, $ 142.000. • Đường 50 tháng 6, Matthew A. Bettendorf đến Steven Rosselli, $ 138.000. • 71 Eden Ave., Patricia A. Schneggenburger cho Christopher J. Dennahower, $ 136.900. • 147 Henderson Ave., Amy E. Davidson đến Jose A. Manzanilla, 135.700 đô la. • 30 Claremont Ave., Staci Shick đến Erica Chwalinski, 135.500 đô la. • 652 Moore Ave., Kacy Mogavero; Thomas Mogavero đến Natanaeel Morales-Colon, 117.000 đô la. • 12 Marian Drive, Bernard Sadowski; Marian Sadowski đến Pm Property Solutions LLC, $ 110.000. • 1553 Đại lộ Colvin, Allan H. Starr; Gloria T. Starr đến John Drossos, 105.000 đô la. • 249 Woodland Drive, Jason M. Czajka đến Edwin Mercado; Stephanie Mercado, 102.000 đô la. • 235 Đại lộ Waverly, Linda L. Giles; Richard L. Giles đến Kelsey P. Urban, 95.000 đô la. • 83 Paige Ave., Meira Food LLC đến Suzanne L. Martin-Werder; Karl P. Werder, 87.625 đô la. • 102 Irene St., James L. Kocot đến Buffalo Star Management LLC, 48.000 đô la. • 1185 Tonawanda St., Buffalo Erie Niagara Land Corporation Corporation đến Kenneth Keller, 33.700 đô la. • 256 Liston St., Barbara Ann Cowles to William R. Seaman Jr., 8.000 đô la. • 256 Liston St., Robert W. Seaman cho William R. Seaman Jr., 8.000 đô la. WALES • 6825 Đường Olean, Joan M. Delogg; Robert O. Delogg đến Kathryn M. Bleyle; Robert J. Bleyle Jr., 169.000 đô la. TÂY SENECA • 62 Willow Drive, Barbara A. Meucci; Anita L. Schaub cho Brian J. Stacy; Kimberly E. Stacy, $ 211,150. • 27 Tòa án Ansley, Kim M. Tytka; Raymond W. Tytka đến Dustin G. Perry; Sara A. Perry, 206.000 đô la. • 885 Đường Đông & Tây, Edwin Irzarry; Nicole L. Irzarry cho Kristen Maloney, 205.000 đô la. • 168 Tòa án Pacecrest, Lindsay M. Bergman cho Andrew J. Matheis, 167.000 đô la. • 922 Đường Center, Kyle P. Byrns cho Nicholas William Silvestri, 159.000 đô la. • 60 Maplewood Ave., Sheryl L. Jaje đến Kristen Lee Hortman, 150.000 đô la. • 83 Carla Lane, Pamela A. Murray; Thomas V. Murray đến Edoa Thierry Joel Effa; Carole Pepa, 140.000 đô la. • 122 Collins Ave., Daniel B. Flynn; Michael J. Flynn; Mary E. Flynn-Riedy; Suzanne M. Welninski đến Kelly A. Hubbard, 125.890 đô la. • 103 Flohr Ave., Jane M. Nadler; William A. Nadler đến Austin J. Luczak, 105.000 đô la. [ad_2] Nguồn

[full-imagination]

Betty Morgan Wolfe

Elizabeth “Betty” Anne Morgan Wolfe, 89, of Spartanburg, SC, died Sunday, February 2, 2020, at White Oak at North Grove. Born October 8, 1930 in Salley, SC, she was the daughter of the late John T. and Lois Higgins Morgan and the widow of Harold Zendervester Wolfe. Mrs. Wolfe was a member of First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, attended Winthrop College, and volunteered with Mobile Meals Service for over 20 years. Survivors include her daughters, Beth Wolfe Ellis (Tim), Catherine Wolfe McMakin (Chuck), and Cindy Wolfe Haggerty (Al), all of Spartanburg, SC; her son, Hal Wolfe (Nancy) of Peachtree City, GA; grandchildren, Shannon McMakin Griffith (Jason), Christine McMakin Cantrell (Jason), Cameron Haggerty (Amanda), Summer Ellis Hunn (Michael), Stuart Haggerty (Melissa), Morgan Wolfe Homan (Chris), Brian Wolfe, and Maggie Haggerty; 14 great-grandchildren; and sisters, Jeaneene Wise of Blackville, SC and May Ackerman of Blacksburg, VA. In addition to her parents and husband, she was predeceased by her siblings, Sara Quattlebaumn and Robert “Bob” Morgan. Visitation will be 10:00-10:45 AM Tuesday, February 4, 2020, at Floyd’s Greenlawn Chapel, 2075 E. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29307, with funeral services following at 11:00 AM, conducted by The Rev. Sal Barone. Burial will be in Greenlawn Memorial Gardens, 1300 Fernwood-Glendale Rd., Spartanburg, SC 29307. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Mobile Meals Service, PO Box 461, Spartanburg, SC 29304; or the Alzheimer’s Association, 901 South Pine Street, Spartanburg, SC 29302. Floyd’s Greenlawn Chapel from The JF Floyd Mortuary via Spartanburg Funeral

#Spartanburg Funeral #Funeral Consultant #The JF Floyd Mortuary

[firstumcschenectady]

“We Hope for What We Do Not See” based on Jonah 2 and Romans 8:18-25

Despite my enjoyment of the “Who Did” song1, I haven't preached about Jonah often. I may even have groaned when I looked at the texts for this week – even though I was the one to pick the essay from “We Cry Justice” and the accompanying recommended scriptures. I fear, though, that my avoidance of this text is unjustified.

Because, the issues I have are really quite silly. Here we go:

Whales don't eat people. Nor do large fish.

Stomachs have acid, but not a lot of air, making them uninhabitable

You know, stuff like that.

But it turns out that taking a story literally and objecting to the pragmatic details is a really great way to miss powerful symbolism and deeper meaning within a story. So dismissing this story has only had the impact of keeping me from attending to the wisdom it has.

Which I noticed when I actually read the 2nd chapter of the book of Jonah, which is rather surprising. You may recall that in the first chapter Jonah was asked to to to Nineveh and tries to run away instead, gets on a ship going in the other direction, a storm comes up, Jonah suggests that the storm is God's way of saying he isn't listening, he suggests he be thrown into the sea, the sailors try not to do so, but finally they throw him in hoping the rest of them will live, and the storm quiets and the sailors are converted.... and then the whale did swallow Jonah. Down. ;)

So, given that chapter 2 is a prayer of Jonah from inside the whale, I think there would be just cause to assume that the prayer is either a lament that God put him in this horrid situation OR a plea for help, a request for forgiveness that results in Jonah being released from said whale? Right?

But it isn't. The prayer of chapter 2 is a prayer of THANKSGIVING, whereby Jonah seems to have already concluded that the whale is a means of salvation, and is thanking God for God's gracious actions. And that's a place where I noticed that there is something useful in this story, because … well, I'm not sure I'd have gotten there.

I think that if I had a sense of God asking me to do something I vehemently didn't want to do, that resulted in my very near drowning, and then gasping for air inside an enormous beast I couldn't talk to or control, I'd have missed the memo that said enormous beast was a gift from God. Really. I mean, maybe, 3 days in, hungry, thirsty, and still wet but shockingly alive I might have figured it out, but that's even kind of doubtful.

But Jonah's prayer starts with “I called to the Lord in my distress and [God] answered me.”(NRSV 2a) So, it seems like he got it immediately. (We're working with symbolism here people, let go of any assumption of factuality and let a good story be a good story.) And, the prayer is even specific, “The waters closed over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head...yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O LORD my God.” (5,6d)

Wow. Jonah is sinking to the bottom of the sea, hopeless, and helpless, and then experiences God as lifting him up from the place of death, of bringing LIFE out of DEATH. And, I'm kinda familiar with THAT metaphor, right? But this is a different angle on it.

For me, the incongruities of life in the belly of the whale finally recede to make space for the questions of life and faith. When have we been floating down to the bottom of the sea, out of air, and out of hope? There are a lot of possible answers to that, right? And our lives are different, so our answers are different. Grief can feel like sinking to the bottom of the sea– anticipatory grief and the utter horror of waking up and realizing someone you love isn't there Depression can feel like sinking to the bottom of the sea. Job loss and financial hardship can feel like sinking to the bottom of the sea. Loss of relationship. Abuse. Illness. Injury. Car accidents. Becoming unhoused. Failing. Flailing. A lot can feel like sinking to the bottom of the sea.

And what was the thing that picked you and kept you alive when you could no longer do so for yourself? Who or what was the whale? Was a phone call from a friend who cared? The arrival of flowers? The long, hard, careful work of a therapist? An unexpected welcome? An offer you couldn't have anticipated? The life restoring work of first responded and medical professionals? Someone showing you the ropes you couldn't figure out on your own? A good Samaritan?

How long did it take you to realize that you weren't at the bottom of the sea anymore, and you could breath (if only a little bit), and there might be a hope for dry land again someday? Was it immediate? Did it take 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 years?

I wonder, if sometimes the darkness at the bottom of the sea is so scary that we block out the memory of it, but with it we then block the memory of being scooped up. Especially because being eaten by a whale does NOT immediately seem like rescue. Right!?! At the bottom of the sea, one condolence card can't really make a difference – except sometimes it can. Sometimes knowing that someone else grieves with you, or sees you, or can share a memory that gives you a new story about a person you loved – sometimes that can be the whale.

Several years ago during a stewardship campaign, I was gifted the task of asking participants in some of our ministries what our ministries meant to them. As previously mentioned, I have a problematic tendency to be overly pragmatic, and while I delight in our breakfast program, I'm aware that it offers 1 meal out of an wished for 21 for a week. However, our guests assured me that the 1 meal matters.

Similarly, at that time we had Sustain Ministry, where we gave out soap and toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, and diapers to those who needed them. (Note: other organizations now do this work – thank God – and the need we were responding to then has changed.) I asked those waiting if they'd be willing to be interviewed, and I asked them why what we did mattered. One woman said that the resources we offered made the difference for her between being able to take care of her kids on her own and being financially forced back into an abusive relationship.

I loved Sustain ministry, but I thought it just made things a little easier for people whose lives were really hard. I didn't know it was whale picking someone out of the bottom of the sea.

In the fall of 2021, after about a year and a half of ministry during a pandemic, while adjusting to being a new parent, and with a few other significant stressors in my work life, I was a hairsbreadth away from leaving ministry. Truthfully, I had been, on and off, for 2 years by that point. More so, I didn't really know it. I knew I was really tired. I knew I felt like my ministry didn't matter. I knew every day of work was a fight, and I didn't want to fight anymore. But I actually didn't know I was near the bottom of the sea in my work, until our District Superintendent looked at me and said, “what you've dealt with isn't normal, you need a break. How long do you want? I'll find coverage and money to pay for it.” She was the whale, or maybe the 8 weeks I took off were. Maybe both? Let's go with both.

Sometimes I still meet people who know that I took that break – the announcement of it was shockingly popular on YouTube- and I watch them carefully dance around asking me if I'm still a pastor, or still a pastor here, or really what I do in the world now. They're often shocked to learn I'm still in ministry and grateful for it. (That's fair, a whole lot of people have exited ministry since then.) I continue to think I have a lot to learn to be in ministry in life-giving and sustainable ways, but the way I knew I still wanted to be a pastor and YOUR pastor was that once the day-to-day pressures were relieved, I found myself dreaming of what we could do together, and missing you. I'm been in those weeds at the bottom of the sea, pastorally, but I just needed some gulps of fresh air to be able to find the dry land. I'm really thankful there was a whale. And, yet, I didn't know how important the whale was when it arrived.

Romans 8 speaks of hope particularly directly, reconsidering the struggles of people and the world as labor pains of the kindom of God being born. While I don't want to sanctify the pains or struggles of the world, it would be really great if they were productive like that. If they mattered, and made new things possible. The essay from “We Cry Justice” today talks about the pain of ecological destruction, and the power of the people to stop horrible decisions, EVEN when money is on the other side. That people, together, have power. Which is a good example of the ways that the pain of the earth can become motivation for healing the earth. It is a way that pains can be labor pains.

Romans 8 also speaks famously about hope. “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” None of us can see the whale coming when we're at the bottom of the sea. Nor, even, could we know it is a saving whale if we did. But hope involves knowing that God is with us, and God is creative, and there ARE whales sometimes, and we can BE whales sometimes, and no matter what happens, we know a God who brings life - again and again.

Dear ones, sometimes God sends whales when we are at the bottom of the sea. Thank God. Amen

1For the uninformed: https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/10499923/100+Singalong+Songs+for+Kids/Who+Did+%28Swallow+Jonah%29%3F

February 25, 2024

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

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #lent #hope #Jonah #Who did? #Whale did

[firstumcschenectady]

“Our Prayer” based on Psalm 71:1-6, Matthew 6:9-13

In June, after we celebrated the life of Walter Grattidge, I was walking through the sanctuary with the intention of putting my microphone away. Three people were in the sanctuary, seemingly admiring the stained glass, which was a little unusual because Dottie Gallo's cooking creations were available at that time in Fellowship Hall.

I believe I said something incredibly profound, like “I'm putting my mic away, but while I'm here, can I help you with anything?” The answer was unexpected.

The three people turned out to be a mother, a daughter, and the daughter's husband. The mother was raised in this church, and was a teenager in the 1940s when Rev. Dr. Lee Adkins Sr. was pastor here. I've heard wonderful things about the ministry of Rev. Dr. Adkins Sr., but the story she told was the best one yet:

She was a curious and thoughtful young person, and she struggled with the stories she heard in Sunday School and how she was taught to interpret them. In her frustration, she went to Rev. Adkins to ask him some pointed questions. (Already, I'm loving this story – right? She's feisty, she's good at Biblical interpretation, and she has access to the Sr. Pastor as she should.)

She named her concerns, and in response he ask her to listen to a story. His story was this:

When he was a young man he was struggling to decide what to do with his life. One day, he was hiking, and when he got to the top of a mountain, and the sky opened up before him, he saw written in the clouds “Preach,” and he knew his life's work.

He then told her to go home, think about his story, and come back in a week or two and explain it to him. She did. She thought long and hard about it. When she returned she said to him, “I do not believe that the clouds actually said 'preach.' I think you were moved by the beauty and sense of awe around you, and you found within yourself clarity on your life's work, and the best way you can communicate that is to say that the clouds spelled out 'preach.'”

Now -get this – this is my favorite part. He said, “OK, go home and think about it for another week or two and come back again.” Now, she said that she was really wanting to give the “right” answer and it was quite distressing to be sent away to try again. But she did, and when she came back said to him, “I stand by my answer.” And he smiled and said, “good.”

He affirmed her capacity to think, to interpret, to use her reason, and in doing so gave her ways to approach the Bible and the world.

She said that she was taking her family on a tour of her life, and they were in Schenectady so she could show them the church. (They live in Western Canada I think.) The following day we were having our combined Pride services, and they'd known about that and just walked by hoping to get in. Her family had left Schenectady soon after the story she told me, her father's job changed. But for her that conversation with her pastor opened up the world. She is now a great-grandmother, and she talked about being formed by that permission to be curious and reasonable, and how in her family there are now 4 generations of people who are who they are because she was given permission to THINK about her faith by her pastor.

I've been holding this story (not perfectly, sometimes it slips out because it is so good), but holding it for preaching for this day. Because when we think about Homecoming and what it means to come home to this church, I think that story has some pretty central themes about who this church has been and who this church is.

This is a place where faith and reason are welcome together. This is a place where curiosity is welcome. This is a place where people know that the Bible's truths are often shared in metaphor. This is a place that seeks to form people with permission giving, rather than limitations.

Which gets me to a second central piece of how I know you, First Schenectady United Methodist Church. Some years ago now when asking parents about what color blanket they wanted for their baby's baptism, their response was “We'd like a rainbow blanket, because we want our child to know they will be loved as whoever they are.” I completely copied them when it was my turn ;)

One of the many joys of being the pastor here has been the chance to get to know people who were raised in this church as I have worked with them to prepare the Celebrations of Life for their parents. I know of any stories of the church's children of the 20th century being wrapped in rainbow. However, as I've gotten to know those who were raised in the church, I've been astounded to find some deep similarities.

The men who were raised in this church are unusually kind, considerate, empathetic, gentle, and thoughtful. The women who were raised in this church are usually self-assured and able to be appropriately assertive. Let's be honest, those things both break gendered stereotypes, but fit the fullness of the human experience. This church raised people with the space to be the best and most authentic version of who they were, and made space and capacity to reject the norms of society that put people into boxes.

I was able to put my finger on what was so extraordinary several years ago now, and it has been really fun to see my theory confirmed over and over again since.

Dear ones, the impact of this church in the world is HUGE – even if all we count is how the people raised in this church were given the love, space, and capacity to become fully themselves. This church has been a counter-cultural force for good for a VERY LONG TIME.

This church has been doing God's work for a long time.

Thank God.

And thank you.

I have been reminded this week of how beautiful and delightful this world really is. And it is beautiful even while it is broken. The beautiful and the broken are simply both true.

As people of faith, we are given the great gift of being reflective about how we respond to the world. So much of what we do together is reflecting on what is good, what is God, and how we can respond. We have the chance to think about, and practice, centering down with God, centering down to relationships, centering down to simply enjoy the goodness of life – and then using the energy we have gathered in the centering down to seek justice for God's people. Isn't that a wonderful thing to get to do??

The Lord's Prayer is full of layers of meaning, has been examined with rich study, and there are translations of it that make my heart stir. We can't get into most of that in an even vaguely reasonable time frame, so I just want to focus today on the last line in our reading, “and do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from that which is evil.” The rescue is sometimes deliverance, and deliverance is interesting in the Bible because it is the original meaning of salvation. As Dr. Gafney says, “Salvation in the Hebrew Bible is physical and material deliverance or rescue of an individual or community from enemies.”1

The rescue that we need, the deliverance that we need, changes with time, changes with the communities we live in, changes with our own needs. But the reason this prayer still resonates all these years later in all kinds of different places is that a need for rescue is a pretty common human experience.

Yolanda Norton translates that line as “separate us from the temptation of empire and deliver us into community.”2

Thank God that God HAS delivered us, into community, into THIS community, beautiful and broken as this one is, it helps us be a part of rescuing the world. Thank God. Amen

1Wilda Gafney, A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church (New York, NY: Church Publishing, 2021), 284.

2Gafney, 285

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

September 17, 2023

#thinking church #progressive christianity #schenectady #fumc schenectady #umc #first umc schenectady #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #Homecoming #Stories #Community

[firstumcschenectady]

“The Tower” based on Deuteronomy 29:10-15 John 11:28-44

Last Summer Diana Butler Bass gave a sermon at the Wild Goose Festival that was shared and forwarded to me approximately 100 times, which was good because that's how many times it took for me to read it. And once I read it, I participated in the sharing and forwarding too. Her sermon was entitled “All the Marys”1 and it shared one of the biggest breakthroughs in Biblical Scholarship in generations.

Which, I know, is THE SINGLE MOST EXCITING THING I COULD EVER SAY! Or, perhaps, maybe, it might not be?

Stick with me.

It's worth it. This is a case where a huge break through in Biblical scholarship has pretty big implications for those of us who follow Jesus. I'm well aware they aren't all like that.

What I find interesting is that I've now read her sermon several times over the course of 10 months, and I can't seem to retain it. The implications are actually so big and require such an enormous re-framing of how I understand the early Christian story, that my brain keeps erasing it in favor of the familiar.

If you have spent less time in Gospel commentaries and/or seminary than I have, I suspect you are going to find it easier to accept these very simple truths than I do. Which is great! This is really awesome stuff, and I'd love for people to hear it, know it, and even retain it.

Diana Butler Bass tells the story of Elizabeth (Libbie) Schrader who felt moved to study Mary Magdalene, landed at General Theological Seminary in New York to work on a Masters of New Testament, and wrote her final paper on John 11. Her professor encouraged her to look at the newly digitized version of the oldest known text of John, Papyrus 66, from around 200 CE, and find something new in it.

I'm going to quote Diana Butler Bass here:

And so Libbie is in the library looking at the text and she sees this first sentence. And it’s in Greek, of course. “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and his sister Mary.” And Libbie said, “What? That’s not what my English Bible says. My English Bible says, ‘Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha.’” But the Greek text, the oldest Greek text in the world doesn’t say that. The oldest Greek text in the world says, “Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, at the village of Mary and his sister, Mary.” There are two Marys in this verse. And Libbie went, “What the heck? What is going on here?” And she started digging into the text, zooming in on it to try to see what she could see over the digitized version in the internet. And lo and behold, Libbie noticed something that no New Testament scholar had ever noticed.

And that is, in the text where it had those two Marys, the village of Mary and his sister, Mary, and her sister, Mary, the text had actually been changed. In Greek, the word Mary, the name Mary, is basically spelled like Maria in English, M-A-R-I-A. And the I, the Greek letter I, is the letter Iota. And it looks basically like an English I. Libbie could see by doing this textual analysis that the Iota had been changed to the letter TH in Greek, Theta. That somebody at some point in time had gone in over the original handwriting and actually changed the second Mary to Martha. And not only had that person changed the second Mary to Martha, but that person had also changed the way it comes out in English. It says, “The village of Mary,” that would’ve stayed the same, “and her sister, Martha.” Someone had also changed that “his” to “her”; that “her” was originally a “his,” but they had changed it to a “her.”

Admittedly, the original text is a confused and not very good sentence. “Now, a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, at the village of Mary and his sister, Mary,” it’s almost like they’re heightening the fact that Lazarus has this sister, Mary. They lived in this village together, and Mary is Lazarus’ sister. Someone had changed it to read, “Mary and her sister, Martha.”

Libbie sat in the library with all of this, and it came thundering at her, the realization that sometime in the fourth century, someone had altered the oldest text of the Gospel of John and split the character Mary into two. Mary became Mary and Martha.

She went through the whole manuscript of John 11 and John 12, and lo and behold, that editor had gone in at every single place and changed every moment that you read Martha in English, it originally said, “Mary.” The editor changed it all.

Now, that's a pretty big deal, but I imagine that maybe you don't... umm... I think the words might be “Care that much.” But let me say, “yet.” I haven't gotten to the part where this MATTERS yet, that was a really important BACKGROUND. It also makes John 11 as we know it really hard to read and make sense of. But that's OK too.

So the underlying question in this is “why?” Why would someone go through so much trouble to create the character Martha out of what was once Mary? The key may be in the part of John 11 we read last week,

25Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: the one that believes in me, though they may die, yet shall they live; 26and the one who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27She said to him, “Yes, Lord: I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one that comes into the world.

In the Bibles I have that “she” appears to be Martha but if she doesn't exist, then the she is Mary. And now we're getting to it. Christianity has long claimed that the first declaration that Jesus was the Messiah comes from Peter, the Rock, who is presented as having done so in Mark, Matthew, and Luke (the “Synoptics”) and that answer kinda worked because Martha was a pretty minor character and even though she says so in John, it is easy enough to ignore because Peter is THE ROCK, and Martha is... well, kinda a nobody.

Back to Diana Bulter Bass:

But if it is Mary, the Mary who shows up in John 11 is not an unremembered Mary... This Mary has long been suspected of being the other Mary, Mary Magdalene. Is it really true that the other Christological confession of the New Testament comes from of the voice of Mary Magdalene? That the Gospel of John gives the most important statement in the entirety of the New Testament, not to a man, but to a woman, and to a really important woman who will show up later as the first witness to the resurrection.

You see how these two stories work together. In John 11, Lazarus is raised from the dead, and who is there but Mary Magdalene? And at that resurrection, she confesses that Jesus is indeed the son of God. And then you go just 10 chapters later and who is the person at the grave? She mistakes him, at first, thinks he’s the gardener. She turns around and he says, “Mary,” and she goes, “Lord.” It’s Mary Magdalene. It is Mary Magdalene.

Oh, and now I get to place for you the final piece. Do you remember learning that Christ wasn't Jesus' last name? I do. Christ is the English version of Christos which was the Greek translation of Messiah, which literally meant “smeared” as in “smeared with oil” as in “annointed as king” because the Greek didn't have a Messiah concept like Hebrew did. So when we say Jesus Christ, we are actually saying “Jesus the Messiah.”

Well, a lot of people think Mary Magdalene was called that cause she was Mary, from Magdala. Except there was no village called Magdala. Diana Butler Bass summariezes it this way:

When we call her Magdalene, Mary Magdalene, is not Mary from Magdala. Instead, it’s a title.

The word magdala in Aramaic means tower. And so now you get the full picture. In the Synoptics, Jesus and Peter have a discussion. In that discussion, Peter utters the Christological confession. As a result of the Christological confession, Jesus says, “You are Peter the Rock.” In the gospel of John, Mary and Jesus have a conversation, and Mary utters the Christological confession. And she comes to be known as Mary the Tower.

Between these two confessions, are we looking at an argument in the early church? Peter the Rock or Mary the Tower?

But the John account was changed. The John story has been hidden from our view. All those years ago, Mary uttered those words, “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” …

Mary is indeed the tower of faith. That our faith is the faith of that woman who would become the first person to announce the resurrection. Mary the Witness, Mary the Tower, Mary the Great, and she has been obscured from us. She has been hidden from us and she been taken away from us for nearly 2,000 years. …

Or, or perhaps and, you can leave here with a question: What if the other story of Mary hadn’t been hidden? What if Mary in John 11 hadn’t been split into two women? What if we’d known about Mary the Tower all along? What kind of Christianity would we have if the faith hadn’t only been based upon, “Peter, you are the Rock and upon this Rock I will build my church”? But what if we’d always known, “Mary, you are the Tower, and by this Tower we shall all stand?”

OK, that's it. That's my big Biblical Studies breakthrough story. Perhaps you might want to laugh with me that the big breakthrough is simply another affirmation that God loves and cares about all people, JUST LIKE THE TEXT FROM DEUTERONOMY said in a lot fewer words.

But, dear ones, what if we'd gotten both stories? And maybe the even more important question: how can we live now that we have both stories? How can we be followers of Jesus who was seen clearly by Peter and by Mary? How can we be people of faith who both follow a leader who is a rock on which we are steadied and a tower who lifts us all up? What if masculine and feminine were allowed to stand together as holy to the deepest core of our faith? What if there is a whole lot of space for both/and in our tradition!?!?

Someone actually didn't want that. Someone edited it out, and made Mary smaller. Dear ones, may we commit ourselves to the opposite. May we go out and make God, and each other, and all we meet BIGGER! Tower like, even. Amen

1 ALL THE MARYS Wild Goose Festival, Closing Sermon, July 17, 2022 by Diana Butler Bass https://dianabutlerbass.com/wp-content/uploads/All-the-Marys-Sermon.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

May 21, 2023

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #first umc schenectady #Diana Butler Bass #Wild Goose Festival #Mary the Tower #Mary AND Peter

[firstumcschenectady]

“Seeking Peace” based on 1 Corinthians 6:1-6 and Luke 6:43-45

I tend to believe the the quote from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” 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.

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.

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.

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?

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 – 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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

Still, we continue to believe that you desire life and peace for all people. 

Holy Spirit, strengthen our resolve to advocate for peace, justice, equality, and compassion for all.   Don’t let us turn away.

Comfort all who are overwhelmed with loss—loss of life, loss of homes, loss of safety and security. 

God of the vulnerable and the oppressed, renew the energy and creativity of those committed to nonviolent resistance and change. 

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. We pray for your peoples around the world, wishing hope, health, safety, and abundance for all.

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.

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. 

Amen

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 ;)

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 – that Christianity has created the conditions by which Jews are dehumanized and live in fear around the world AND – hey look at us – Christianity has done the same to Muslims and many Christians do the same to Palestinians. Here, in the US – and around the world – 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 “heartbroken.”

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 “both/and thinking” and “moving toward collective action.” 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

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.

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.

This work is being done RIGHT NOW. I learned this week that “one 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.”3 4

Let's hear one story about peace, right now, huh? There is a group called the Parents’ Circle Families Forum—formerly the Bereaved Parents’ Circle. The 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.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg tells, and reflects on this story: 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.

Last week, his mother, Rachel, wrote:

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.

Hersh is my whole world, and this evil is the flood that is destroying it. I really don’t 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.

Every single person in Gaza has a mother, or had a mother at some point.

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.

And that’s the whole of it. “I would help your son.” Your daughter. Your child. Your beloved. Yours.

I understand that yours matters infinite worlds to you, because mine does, to me, and I hope that you see that, too.

I can see the infinity in yours, in fact, if I’m willing to look.1

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 – and in seeing all the world's children as “yours”. Dear ones, I think that's where the pain comes from when we see brokenness in the world. Because we know all children – all people – to be God's children, in need of good care, and worthy of good and abundant life.

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 ;)

Amen

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

2Work of Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training. I attended in 2017.

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

4The 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 ;) so mistakes remain my own.

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

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

October 22, 2023

#thinking church #progressive christianity #schenectady #rev sara e baron #umc #fumc schenectady #sorry about the umc #first umc schenectady #peace

[firstumcschenectady]

“All Are Welcome” based on Hosea 11:1-4 and Matthew 28:16-20

Sometimes I get distracted. Not just the normal distracted of turning to my phone when it buzzes or letting the internet take me down rabbit holes (although those happen too.) Sometimes I get so distracted talking about what kind of Christian I am NOT that I forget to talk about what kind of Christian I am.

In fact, that's so true that I'm squirmy already, as the word Christian is overly affiliated in my head with things I struggle with. One of you once said that “Jesus follower” worked better for you than Christian for just that reason. And I love that. But also, “Christian” means “little Christ” and I do think the whole point is to continue the work of Christ in the world and it is probably worth the discomfort involved in claiming it anyway.

A friend and colleague, the Rev. Andrew Nelson, recently dropped a book off for me. Which is a great way to share love, particularly when this was a book I'd been looking for and not finding for years! I didn't know EXACTLY which book on Celtic Christianity I wanted, but I knew I needed to find one. This one, turns out to be it: Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul by John Phillip Newell.

As I started to read I felt my whole being relax. Here, encased in centuries of tradition, is the faith that I know to the core of my being. When so much of my life in the church-at-large has been defined by being an outlier, a prophet, a person crying for justice for God's beloveds, it is awfully nice to hear that my faith has deep roots too. I think, perhaps, it is nice to hear that I belong too. That the faith that says “God created all, and it is good” is VALID, and REAL, and DEEPLY faithful – and not... some radical new idea.

I want to share with you some of what I heard in Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul, in hopes that it will also help drop down your shoulders, and let in a big deep breath. That we all can celebrate the God who is. The one who we know to be loving, ALONG WITH our great tradition. That we can acknowledge that we are faithful people with a faithful God.

(See, isn't it nice?)

The first chapter of the book tells the story of Pelagius (Puh·la·jee·uhs) , a Welsh monk who lived around 360-430 CE. But, it starts by sharing the beliefs of the first known Christian teacher in the Celtic territory – the one whose teachings would have formed what Pelagius knew. That teacher was Ireneaus (Ee·ruh·nay·uhs ) of Lyons and his teachings were that: sacredness was not opposed to naturalness, that there is holy in naturalness, that heaven found in things of earth, that the divine is to be cherished within earthliness of human life and RELATIONSHIPS, that Jesus was ROBUSTLY human, and that the universe is born out of the substance of God – NOT out of nothing.1 Taken to its natural conclusions, those beliefs say “the stuff of the body of earth is sacred stuff. Therefore, how the body of another is handled in relationship, how the physical needs of those who are hungry and homeless is responded to, how the body of the earth and its resources are treated- these are all holy matters.”2

Well, YEAH! And if bodies are holy, then they shouldn't be exploited, but rather honored and cared for. (CORRECT.)

In fact, this ended up being opposition to the way that the majority of Christianity under the leadership of the pope in Rome understood things. Because there is a doctrine called creation ex nihilo which says that creation was “out of nothing” and if that's true than STUFF doesn't matter and people can exploit it all they want. The implications of this in the world around us are abundant, but it is VERY nice to know this has NEVER been fully accepted in our tradition, I think.

The teacher Iraneaus taught that Jesus was the one who was “respeaking the sacred essences of the universe, re-sounding the divine that is in the heart of all things. This was to see Christ as reawakening in humanity what it has forgotten.”3 So not Jesus saving the world, nor Jesus standing against the world, but Jesus reminding the world of its sacredness and the things it already knows. I love it!

Now into the wisdom tradition that Iraneaus formed, came the monk Pelagius, who taught that “grace was given to reconnect us with our nature, which was sacred and made of God.” I believe that, and I like knowing how long that has been known! Pelagius ended up in Rome, which seems to have become a problem for his life, because rather than being with people who knew the sacredness of all, he was with people who knew the Church as a power-player in politics. (Ew.) And they took issue with him because he thought women were wise and worth both learning from and teaching. He also emphasized human sacredness instead of human sinfulness. He believed that “what is deepest in us is of of God and not opposed to God.”4 I just love it when people put WORDS to the things my very being knows to be true, but I hadn't ever quite known I needed to say.

Now Augustine, who I did have to read in college and seminary, was all out of sorts about this and spent a lot of energy discrediting Pelagius, because he wanted to focus on original sin. (Facepalm.) That original sin doctrine was useful for the empire, and has been useful for the church, but I would say has not be useful for God's people.

So, Augustine got Pelagius banned from the Empire, him and his teachings. Because apparently it is really upsetting to an empire if everyone is sacred, and then everyone maters. Then they're not there to be controlled and used, but rather to be revered and related to.5 (Actually, I knew that. Jesus taught me.) Worse than the other stuff, Pelagius also taught that people who had more than enough should... wait for it... SHARE with those who don't have enough. Once again, that's easy to see as following Jesus, but it got him excommunicated. (Shoot, I already facepalmed.)

Anyway, Pelagius went home to Wales and kept teaching, and wrote under pseudonyms so people could read it and – I love this – often used “Augustine” as one of them. That teaching also included “that it is not so much what you believe about Jesus that matters. The important thing is becoming like Jesus, becoming compassionate. A Christ-one, he said, is one 'who shows compassion to all... who feels another's pain as if it were his one, and how is moved to tears by the tears of another.” That sounds like us, doesn't it!?!6

Well, funny enough, the teachings of Pelagius weren't stopped by being banned by the Roman Empire, or excommunicated by the Western church, or even sent back home. I knew that, because I was taught them as a child, and have experienced them as an adult. I just didn't know their history.

When we get invited by Jesus to “go and make of all disciples” I don't think we're told to go into the world and tell people they are WRONG if they don't follow Jesus. Instead, I think we're invited to be in relationship with people and learn from their wisdom and share ours – including the stuff that Jesus respeaking and re-sounding – the wisdom we know in our souls and simply need to be reminded of. The stuff like “all of creation is sacred” and “all people are to be honored” and “the way of God isn't the way of control over.”

When I think about what beliefs I center my life on, I usually use the word “inclusion.” But I think I get to inclusion BY believing that all people are sacred, and beloved by God, and THEREFORE all people welcome in the church. I get all sorts of upset about exclusion, BECAUSE it implies a limit to the sacredness of God. And that's both wrong, and silly.

God is like the one who picks an infant up and smooshes them to their cheek. God is like that with all of us. ALL of us. Thanks be to God! Amen

1John Phillip Newell Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul (HarperOne, 2021), p. 24-26.

2Newell, 26.

3Newell, 26.

4Newell, 32.

5Newell, 40.

6Newell, 39.

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

June 4, 2023

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #first umc schenectady #Celtic Christianity

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“The Things We Fear, and the Things We Want” based on Deuteronomy 28:58-68 and John 11:17-27

I'm not particularly great at monitoring the secular calendar, so before I preach this sermon, I need to admit that I completely forgot today was Mothers' day.  This is only relevant because I'm talking about parenting, which is something I'd have sought to avoid if I remembered.  But I didn't.  So here we are.

I'm intimidated by Mommy-blogs, online parent groups, and even parenting book.  So I don't read them.  I guess in part I think of them as being like the Book of Discipline – the second you open it to figure something out you find you are out of compliance and then you have to decide if you want to A. Exert an exceptional amount of energy coming into compliance or B. Maintain the status quo while feeling guilty for knowingly doing it wrong.  That said, I don't think parenting quite has rules like the Book of Discipline so may it is more than I'm well aware of how judgmental people are of parents, and I'm just terrified of entering a space where I'll be judged like that.

(It occurs to me this is a powerful motivator for why people stay away from church too.  Scary parallels.)

All of that is to say, I want to talk a little bit about parenting, but I don't know any of the official words and I'm far to scared to go down the rabbit hole of the internet to find them.  So, here are words that no one has agreed upon, but I think are right.  I aim to be a “feelings and needs parent.”  By which I mean I seek to provide a lot of names for feelings, because I think talking about feelings helps everything, and having good names helps in talking about feelings.  Things like, for example, “I have dread when I think about online parent groups.”  The other part of this is needs, and for me that means that I believe that all human actions are motivated by attempting to meet basic human needs.  To go back to that example, “I have dread when I think about online parenting groups because I have needs for compassion and to experience myself as competent and I'm afraid that both will be threatened.”

I'm pretty well bought in to the value of thinking about human behavior as an expression of human need, and I'm also committed to the value of using feelings as sources of wisdom.  These are whole life commitments, and also parenting ones.  They aren't particularly easy parenting commitments though.  It means working together to figure out what is going on, and how that has impacted behavior, and what that means about what needs are seeking to be met, and how we might meet those needs together safely and without stepping on other people's needs.  And basically there aren't any shortcuts to doing that work.

The good part is that the skills I develop in parenting around feelings and needs are also ones that are useful in dealing with myself, and also in working with others in the church.  The bad part is that one can get kinda drained doing things the hard way all the time.

Alas.

Because the another option is basically what we have in Deuteronomy, where God is presented as an authoritative, punitive parent who says “do it my way, or suffer the consequences.”  And there the consequences are particularly awful. 

Whenever I read Deuteronomy I remind myself to hear it in context.  Deuteronomy was written down in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem and the despair of the Exile, in an attempt to answer the questions, “Why did this happen to us and what could we have done to prevent it?”  Those writing have just experienced a huge communal trauma that threatened every part of their identity and theology, and they want to believe that it happened for a REASON.  Because that's just human.  We want to make sense of the things that happen.

As people who largely believed that everything that happened, happened because God wanted it to happen, they then believed that the destruction had been God's punishment, and to keep God in the right it thus it followed that their own misbehavior was the culprit.  So, I can hear in our passage today an underlying assumption “oh how we wish we'd been more motivated to do things God's way so this didn't' happen to us!  I wonder what would have convinced us.  Maybe these threats would have helped.”

Even so, I still cringe.  That isn't the way I parent, it isn't the way I was parented, this isn't the way I want to see power used in the church or the world, and to get to the point, it doesn't fit the way I understand God.       

And yet, the idea of God as one who punishes and rewards is quite a prevalent concept in the Bible and to take a stand against it requires acknowledging that.  I am so grateful for John Dominic Crossan for the way he named the two “streams of thought” in the Hebrew Bible.  One is the one we heard today – the stream of covenant, reward, punishment, and threat.  It is there, it is plentiful, it can be found in the New Testament too if you are looking for it.  BUT the other one is just as plentiful, and he called that the stream of “Sabbath and distributive justice.”  That one says God created Sabbath as a gift to be equally distributed to all, and after Sabbath is distributed so too should be the land, the food, the education, … the power, etc.  It is a vision of community, of sharing, of collaboration, and of motivation to love because God loves.

Both of the streams exist, and both are substantial.  And probably both of them exist in us all to some extent, but most of us end up choosing one or the other, and I stand firmly on the side of Sabbath and distributive justice.  I'm not arrogant enough to claim the other one is WRONG, or lacks value, or those who follow it are un-faithful.  I just am here admitting that I know where I stand.

The punishments I hear in Deuteronomy are scare tactics, they are what people fear.  But fear isn't a great motivator, even if plenty of us use it on ourselves all the time. OK, fine, it is a REALLY powerful short term motivator, but it doesn't change or form hearts or minds and it runs out of steam relatively quickly. The punishments from this passage flow pretty neatly into the conceptions of heaven and hell and a God who judges who goes where – used to motivate people toward goodness and compliance but also quite poorly.  I've been asked by people why I am motivated to do good in the world if not simply to avoid hell. 

OYE!

In truth, I tend to think of the two streams of thought in the Bible as being highly reflective of two steams of thought I see in our society.  The Covenant one with rewards and punishments sounds a whole lot like authoritative leadership and a parental style often described as “daddy knows best.”  (Which doesn't mean that every family system in which this is the model has a father or has the father as the one who knows best.)  In this system everyone else's wisdom as well as their needs are dismissed so that the authoritative figure gets what they want and others are simply expected to comply. 

The Sabbath, distributive justice one sounds like an egalitarian family, one where the feelings and needs of everyone are taken seriously, and win-win solutions are sought together. 

Dear ones, I work with God toward the kindom of God because I believe it is possible to be a part of a better world.  I believe we can take care of each other.  I believe we can distribute goods and resources fairly.  I believe people are lovely and it is worth working for everyone to be better off together.   I believe in ABUNDANCE and that means there is enough for everyone if we just STOP being scared. 

Which means I would rather not scare people, since fear itself is part of the resistance to just distribution.

Now, I think some of the same energy that we find in Deuteronomy is also in John this week.  Martha believes her brother wouldn't have died if only Jesus was there, and a conversation ensues about the correctness of her belief.  For the Gospel of John, Jesus IS God, and whatever we may think about that notion, it is useful to remember when listening to John.  So Martha believed the presence of God would have prevented her brother's untimely death, and is rather irked Jesus didn't show up.  This becomes a opening to talk about Jesus/God's power of life and resurrection, and in fact the story goes on past what we read today to the resurrection of Lazarus. 

However, as Wilda Gafney says, Lazarus “is raised to life in the same old world.  Life in Jesus happens here among the brokenness, failings, and limitations of the present world.”[1]  While it could be easy to hear Jesus as talking about AFTERLIFE, the context of Lazarus pulls us back to THIS world.

Which means it pulls us back to making THIS world better, together, for all of God's beloveds, all of us.  I don't know better motivations than gratitude and hope.  Gratitude for the goodness of life and love, hope that with God all things are possible.  Including win-win solutions.  Including everyone's needs being met and everyone's feelings being taken seriously.  To get there, we get to practice – with each other, with our families, every where we go.  And thank goodness, there is a whole lot of grace for when we slip up. 

If you want to take a first, tentative step towards all this, here is a link to a “Feelings and Needs” sheet with a lot of feeling words and a list of universal human needs, and it is best to start with yourself.  What do YOU feel?  What do you need?  And how is it you feel God nudging you along to get those needs met? 

Or, maybe get to a deeper question:  what is underneath what you want?  What needs are really seeking to be met and what ways are you willing to try to get them met?  As we learn more to trust in God to care, we become better and better at sharing that love with others. We learn to make space for feelings, and needs. May God help us all!  Amen

[1]   Wilda C. Gafney, A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church (Church Publishing Incorporated: New York, NY, 2021) p. 185

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

May 14, 2023

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #schenectady #umc #first umc schenectady #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #Easter Season #What a text

[firstumcschenectady]

Protest or Revolt? based on Galatians 3:23-4:7 and Matthew 21:1-11

For many years, I have had the chance to work with a camper I'm going to call Penny today. (So, not her real name.) Penny is a woman who has Down's Syndrome, a huge personality, and a stubborn streak that can rival my own. She is also world class at engaging in passive protest.

In practice, at camp, this most often looks like a group getting ready to go somewhere, and Penny will sit down, and simply refuse to come along. Unless, that is, someone sings her favorite song and then slowly walks away from her, requiring her to follow in order to keep hearing the song.

The song, if you were wondering, is “This Little Light of Mine,” and it gets sung A LOT when Penny is at camp. Like, 50 times a day? Maybe more. Penny is very good at bending people to her will, and she really, really, REALLY likes that song.

A thing I respect about Penny is that she isn't going to do what she doesn't want to do. You can threaten her, bribe her, argue with her, or beg her. But she will simply hold up one finger, and dance it around a little, to let you know what she expects of you.

The thing is, that the camp I run is highly dependent on people being willing to function as a group and move as a group. We're stuck when one camper doesn't stay with the group, and it can force us out of adequate supervision! Refusing to get up is the PERFECT protest for our camp, because it puts the counselors and staff into a crisis. Truthfully, Penny gets what she wants because singing “This Little Light of Mine” all day every day is a lower price to pay than not being able to function or keep our campers safe. So she gets what she wants, we get what we want, and if there is a particular song stuck in one's head for years after, at least you eventually learn to smile about it.

Also, by most ways of looking at it, Penny doesn't have a lot of power in the world. So, God love her for using what she has well.

Penny at camp functions a lot like Jesus outside of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Jesus used what power to bring the change he wanted. He was up against the Roman Empire, but he similarly managed to put pressure on a sensitive point and get his message across clearly. The Roman Empire, however, did not concede as gracefully as the camp staff does.

Passover in Jerusalem was a conundrum for the Roman Empire. On the one hand, they wanted to show respect to an ancient faith tradition, and maintain the narrative of the Emperor's power, might and goodness. On the other hand, Passover was a celebration of God's actions in freeing the people from the oppressive power of a mighty empire, and a whole lot of people gathered very close to each other to do so, and that... felt dangerous. Because while I'm sure the Roman Empire didn't think of itself as an oppressive overlord, they maybe had a bit of an awareness that some others did. So how do you respect this important religious festival while also keeping it under control?

The Empire came up with a good answer. The local leader Pilate, the “king of the Jews,” marched into the city with a full imperial processional. There were soldiers on gleaming horses, drumlines in union, glittering silver and gold on crests, golden eagles (the symbol of Rome) mounted on poles. It was a BIG time show of power and reminder of the Empire and its hold on Jerusalem. The people who came to watch would have shouted the things they were taught to shout: Hail Caesar, son of God; Praise be to the Savior who brought the Roman Peace; Caesar is Lord.

The Empire's plan was to remind the people of the POWER and MIGHT and THREAT of the empire's military while also being “present” for the rituals – and keeping an eye on the messages from their carefully selected high priests.

It seems Jesus saw through it.

And his processional, the one that came through the East gate, brought a lot of clarity to what was happening at the West gate. Instead of a tall shiny horse, Jesus rode in on an unbroken colt (or donkey. Or both ;)). Jesus came in his ordinary cloths, without the sparkle of gold or silver. Instead of being accompanied by soldiers with weapons, Jesus came with his disciples – ordinary men known for drinking a bit too much and the inability to keep their mouths shut when they should. Instead of banners declaring the power of Rome and displaying the golden eagle, the people shimmied up palm trees and cut off the branches to wave. Palm Branches were the national symbol of Ancient Israel, their flag. The people laid their cloaks on the road for Jesus' colt to walk on. That is, they used the very little power they had as a carpet for Jesus’ feet.

Zechariah 9:9 reads “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Did you hear it? Your KING comes riding on a colt. Jesus wasn't just borrowing a colt – and he wasn't just being humble. He was connecting himself to the expectations of what the Jewish Messiah would look like. In fact, he was more or less claiming the crown. And the people supported him. So Jesus comes on a colt – which declares kingship – and the people wave the national flag – celebrating a new king!

To bring this into focus, Jesus riding a donkey into the East gate raised some questions:

Who is King of the Jews?

From where do they derive their power?

Does power come from the capacity to inflict violence?

Does their power come from sharing power?

Is Pilate there to celebrate God or to stop God's work?

Which parade is God in?

Jesus found the weaknesses of the Empire – in the need they had to maintain power and control with violence and with the overarching narratives of their goodness. He gave people ways to question it all, just by riding on a donkey.

While I think the Palm Sunday processional was one of the greatest nonviolent direct actions in history, it came with a very steep price. Leading people to those questions undermined the Empire itself. The Empire read it as a revolt, in fact they decided to read it as a VIOLENT revolt, which probably means it shook them to their core. Which is both VERY IMPRESSIVE as protests go, and VERY DANGEROUS as protests go. The Empire killed Jesus for leading a violent revolt agains the Empire.

And the only thing they got wrong was that it was nonviolent.

Actually, scratch that. They got two things wildly wrong. First it was nonviolent to its core. Secondly, they thought killing Jesus would kill his movement. You, listening to this sermon, right now are part of the proof of how wrong they got that one!

But to go back to the nonviolence for a moment... this is absolutely key to everything about Jesus, and it shouldn't be glossed over. The world tells us that the only power that matters is power over, and power over is enforced with violence. David Graeber in the book “Debt: A History of the First 5,000 Years” points out that only societies with inequality have police forces. And, only countries that are taking unfair shares of the world's resources spend extravagantly on their militaries. It turns out there is a direct correlation between inequality and violence, specifically state sponsored violence.

The Roman Empire was the military superpower of its day, and was also exemplary a taking wealth from the land and from the poor and syphoning it to the very, very wealthy. Who is exemplary at that today?

Anyway, Jesus didn't play by those rules. He didn't enact violence, or permit it, nor did he let the threat of it stop him. He engaged in power with, not power over. He lived nonviolence and by his very life taught its power. Paul, in the letter to the Galatians, says this as well as it has ever been said. “There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, there is no male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Well, that takes care of power over!! That simple sentence teaches us that as followers of Jesus, none of the coercive power of the world applies anymore. And once that power-over is gone, along with it goes the need for violence to enforce it. What is left is space for people to work together, collaborate, help meet each other's needs, and build connections and community. Which, to be honest, is a darn good reason to join that Jesus parade and choose his values instead of supporting the representative of the Empire on the other side.

But today, I'll admit, even this story that astounds me every time I approach it, and even this Galatians passage which has one of my two favorite verses in the New Testament, still fall flatter than usual.

Because here we are, 2000 years later, in a society that sanctifies violence rather than nonviolence. In a society with about the same income distribution as the Roman Empire. In a society that STILL functions as if some people matter and some don't. It is enough to make me wonder how well this Jesus movement is really doing after all. Furthermore, there is the “Christian Nationalist” thing that claims the name of Jesus while doing all the things of the Empire... power, violence, hierarchy, in groups and out groups, all of it.

And, this being the start of Holy Week, I'm going leave this here, in the discomfort. In the reminder that things are not OK, that people misuse the name of Jesus, that God is against violence but our country specializes in it, in the incredible power of the Palm Sunday parade that was a large part of why Jesus was killed. I'm going to leave us here in the brokenness. Spoiler alert: next week I have some good news to share. But for now, here we are.

May God hear our prayers. 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

April 2, 2023

#palm sunday #palm sunday protest #palm sunday revolt #thinking church #progressive christianity #Borg and Crossan #The Last Week #School Shootings #First UMC Schenectady #schenectady #umc #fumc schenectady #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #pandemic preaching #Palms

[firstumcschenectady]

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

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

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

The relevant parts are now known to read:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, friends, a WOMAN.

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

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

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

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

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

April 14, 2024

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

#schenectady #progressive christianity #thinking church #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #Season of Easter #Mary #Mary the Tower #mary magdalene #Tower People #Grounded and able to see

[firstumcschenectady]

“Resurrecting Joy” based on Isaiah 41:4b-10 and Luke 24:1-11

I have a question I'd like you to contemplate: Which do you like more – daffodils or tulips?

OK, assuming you are now ready – daffodil fans can you raise hands and cheer? Tulips fans?

Believe it or not, I'm going to take this a step further. (I know, I know, not the Easter sermon you were expecting.) Tulip fans – can you shout out things you love about them? Daffodil fans?

Thank you.

Amen

;)

Just kidding. This Lent we've done a Bible Study on the Resurrection Narratives. We read the stories of Easter from each of the Gospels, and asked a few questions about each one:

What does resurrection seem to mean here?

Why describe it this way?

How does it feel?

How does this connect today?

As we read and discussed, we started to notice something about the empty tomb stories: they feel incomplete. The empty tomb isn't the POINT, instead it feels like the introduction to the point. The tomb is empty... ok. That could mean a lot of things, including grave robbers. But each of the gospels ends the story of the empty tomb with something to nudge us towards its meaning. Luke ends with the rest of the disciples believing the empty tomb to be an “idle tale” but Peter going to see for himself and being amazed. In Luke in particular, the empty tomb is the start of sharing stories of the post-resurrection Jesus experiences. Those experiences are the ways the followers of Jesus end up claiming that he is alive, and the work of God in him isn't completed yet. It isn't, actually, the women sharing the story (though maybe it should be) or the dazzling clothes of the angels (black? white?). It isn't the early dawn on the first day of the week or the prepared spices. It isn't even the angels saying “he is not here.”

The empty tomb points to the continued life of Jesus, but it is in fact JUST an empty tomb. The early followers of Jesus were transformed in those early days by whatever experiences they had that led them to call it resurrection, and eventually they came to understand THEMSELVES to be the shared Body of Christ, and understanding that has been passed down the ages, right to this moment, when we are together the Body of Christ alive and doing ministry in the world. The empty tomb points to LIFE.

I'm going to take this even a step further. When we say “Christ is alive” I believe that it implies “and calls us to life abundant.” Life itself, just life, isn't the point. Especially today when medical science allows life to continue far after abundant life has ended, it is easy to see that this isn't just about being alive, but about being ALIVE – about life abundant.

Christ is alive and calls us to abundant life.

Christ is alive and calls us to full, beautiful, connected, joyful LIFE.

But, it is possible that for some of us, that sounds... I don't know, really hard?

Am I off? I don't think I'm off. Our lives are fulled with innumerable stressors, real ones. We've learned that about half of our society doesn't have enough money to “make it,” and another big chunk of society lives in fear of falling under that line. So monetary stress is real, regular, and abundant. Job stress. Health concerns. Traumatic experiences of the past. Worries about our loved ones. And then, heavens, all the things in the news. ALLLLLLLL THE THINGS. There is this constant stream of information about things we should worry about, or fix, or grief, or understand, or... care about.

And the stressors and the worries and the news add up, day after day, after day, after day and maybe full, beautiful, connected, joyful LIFE feels kinda unlikely? I read an article1 recently that discussed the ways life has improved over the past four years, and that somehow people don't seem to have NOTICED. The authors, psychiatrists, suggested that the malaise of the American public today is due to unprocessed pandemic grief, “But the country has not come together to sufficiently acknowledge the tragedy it endured. As clinical psychiatrists, we see the effects of such emotional turmoil every day, and we know that when it’s not properly processed, it can result in a general sense of unhappiness and anger—exactly the negative emotional state that might lead a nation to misperceive its fortunes.” I know we all want to be over it, but between continued illnesses and deaths and long COVID, we aren't. And, further, we haven't processed it. So, there are good reasons aplenty that we aren't all feeling like we're all in on that full, beautiful, connected, joyful LIFE that we're called to.

And yet, beloveds of God, we are called to full, beautiful, connected, joyful LIFE. Even now. So, how do we do it? I came across an idea that I believe MATTERS in reading I thought I was doing for the sake of becoming a better premarital counselor. I was sitting there reading Emily Nagoski's book “Come Together: The Science (and Art) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections” (highly recommend) and in the final chapter her teaching about sexuality and sensuality became even more spiritual. At one point she says, “Our only certainty is that one day, we won't get any more days.”2 Which is pretty much the whole point of Ash Wednesday and part of what we're meant to hold as we travel through Lent AND Holy Week.

She explains in her book the phenomenon of “savoring” which she defines as people's “capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance positive feelings in their lives.”3 She says that there is a Savoring Checklist, and it includes: sharing joy with others – talking about what is happening and why it is good; reminding ourselves that time is passing as a way to cherish a moment before it passes away, which could sound like saying to yourself, '”Time is short and I choose to do this with my time.”; expressing the joy in our bodies – laughing, and jumping, clapping and whooping; and finally slowing down to pay attention to the experience of joy or pleasure itself – in many of the ways we've been taught through mindfulness.4 She goes on to say that every time we chose pleasure and joy we enable ourselves to pick it again in the future and remember the pleasure and joy of the past. Then she says, “when we savor pleasure and thus highlight it in our memory, we can remember our lives as more worth living. We look back on our day, our year, even our entire lifetime, and we see less of the struggle and more of the countless moments of pleasure.”5 The memories “glitter across our memory, brighter and more numerous, when we take time to savor them.”6

OK, so the gist: to live life abundantly there is a trick: take the wonderful moments and savor them – share the joy by talking with others, notice the wonder while it happens, and let your body be full of joy. When you do that – when you savor this wonderful life that God gave you, it will bring your attention to the good, the wonderful, the pleasurable, the joy-filled parts of life, both now and over all.

It will, it turns out, move us to full, beautiful, connected, joyful LIFE. Just, enjoy the good stuff!! Savor it, let yourself be delighted when you are. And of course, this can be some of the big stuff of life. Every year I savor singing Easter hymns with brass accompaniment, and when I think back to my wedding I remember a moment in the midst of the worship service when I wished it could last forever because it was such a delight. But pleasure and joy are easily abundant everywhere too. Food tastes good (if you are lucky.) Stretching your body feels good. Laying down to rest is a wonder. Your favorite song is worthy of savoring.

And, to bring it full circle, there are pretty flowers in the world. Ones that you have now brought attention to, embodied the joy of, talked about the joy of, and … savored. Daffodils and tulips, they're pretty amazing, huh? And they are just one of the many wonders around us, gifts given by God and others to calls us to full, beautiful, connected, joyful LIFE.

Thanks be to God!

Amen

1https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/covid-grief-trauma-memory-biden-trump/677828/

2Emily Nagoski, Come Together: The Science (and Art) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections (New York: Ballantine Books, 2024), 292.

3Nagoski, 270.

4Nagoski, 272.

5Nagoski 273.

6Nagoski, 273.

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 31, 2024

#thinking church #progressive christianity #rev sara e baron #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #Easter #Emily Nagoski #Come Together #Savoring #Joy #Savor joy #Full abundant life #Christ is Alive #Christ is alive and wants us to have abundant life #Happy Easter!

[firstumcschenectady]

“Hope for Just Justice" based on Ezekiel 22:23-29 and Deuteronomy 16:18-20

Our two scripture readings today clarify for me that I prefer to hear the dreams of God in the positive instead of the negative. Deuteronomy lays out how a just society should be ordered, in this case by clarifying what a just justice system looks like. Ezekiel points out that the justice of God has not been fulfilled and describes what things are like instead. And, boy, I like the Deuteronomy reading a lot better. But, it does seem fair to point that they're making the same point in different ways.

The ways that the Bible, especially the Torah in the Hebrew Bible, obsesses over just justice, tends to surprise me a bit. It pushes back on some assumptions I have about how complicated the society of ancient Israel was – and makes it clear that ancient Israel was a complex and REAL human society. It wasn't some dream state, or .. I don't, a part of such early history that the hurts of society weren't present yet. (My assumptions are really off and need some reflection.)

Part of the ancient Israelite narrative was that they were people who had been freed from slavery in Egypt. The scholarship I respect the most suggests that those who were actually in Egypt and freed may well have been a very small number, but their story resonated with others and was taken on as an identity narrative – first by nomadic people in the desert and later by some of the people in the land they would come to call the Promised Land and the culminating group of people who understood themselves to be ancient Israel were the people who identified with this story of God freeing them from slavery.

What feels important about that is that ancient Israel was thus a place that knew how worldly systems of domination worked. Right? Egypt was a monarchy with slavery and forced labor and money flowing from the bottom to the top. Those who were listening to God and dreaming a new society were wanting to prevent the same thing from happening again. Those same scholars also suggest that the hills of Judea were largely populated by people who had exited the early societies in both the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, which suggests they were the ones who weren't successful in those systems, who left because they thought they could do better on their own than in a society that was pressing down on them. This may be why the “God freed us from slavery” narrative resonated so well.

The first 5 books of the Bible create shared identity and a shared dream, the idea of creating a society the way God wants it to be. We know that they were written down AFTER the destruction of the Temple in 587-586 BCE and the biases of those times impact what how things were written down, including a yearning to have listened better so as not to be in that situation. Ezekiel is a prophet OF the exile, he was called while in exile in Babylon, and spoke his prophetic words from Babylon. Which gives us the context that it is from another domination system – Babylon – that todays words came into being. (Although there were more edits later, of course.)

Anyway, Deuteronomy makes these points about what justice should look that feel so ON POINT that it is hard to remember they were written down 2.5 millennia ago. Judges need to be everywhere – an assumption there will always be disputes that need an impartial third party to help. Judges should render JUST decisions. Judges should not distort justice. Judges should not show partiality. Judges should not accept bribes ( ah. hem.) Bribes blind wisdom and prevent right judgement. Justice and only justice must be the work of those who judge – and their work is imperative to making it possible to live in the land in right relationship with God and each other.

So, apparently all groups of humans have disagreements and need trustworthy ways of finding just solutions AND being able to offer that justice to people WITHOUT BIAS based on power or wealth is one of the fundamental pieces to creating not only a functional society, but a society where people find it easiest to connect with God.

Well, Deuteronomy, no lies are found there.

Ezekiel goes a little further, condemning all the leaders for the lack of justices that the vulnerable experience: the upper class is violent towards the poor; the clergy enable the wealthy to skip the sabbath in order to seek more wealth; the officials destroy lives for their own gain; and the prophets claim it is all OK. The result, then is oppression of the poor and needy, and the immigrants being mistreated without having any capacity to seek justice.

Um. Wouldn't it be super cool if the prophet of the exile who remembers the destruction his society and reflects on what issues might have brought down his beloved nation sounded like he was talking about a really, really different place than the one we live in??

Yep, I'd prefer for Ezekiel not to resonate and Deuteronomy to be self-evidently the way things already are.

And... here we are anyway.

I do not wish to make a comprehensive list of all the ways our justice system lacks justice, because I'm told people don't like multi-day sermons (🤷🏻‍♀️), but one of the end results of our system is that we have 2.3 million people incarcerated in the USA, which is about 0.7% of our population. Therefore, While the United States represents about 4.2 percent of the world's population, it houses around 20 percent of the world's prisoners.1 And, as we know, the prison population is incredibly disproportionate by race, and those who are imprisoned are the people in the US who lack the right not to be in slavery, and many of the jails and prisons in the US are run by for-profit industries who are making money both on the labor of the inmates and on the fees they charge to offer sub-human care to the inmates.

Maybe I am more open to how Ezekiel expresses concerns than I thought I was! ;)

As is often the case, I think I've managed to preach us firmly into despair, and now we get to move together towards hope. Because of being part of the church, I was introduced early on to the concepts of restorative justice and how they differ from punitive justice. Even knowing this has been life-changing. Our current, imperfect, Social Principles say:

In the love of Christ, who came to save those who are lost and vulnerable, we urge the creation of a genuinely new system for the care and restoration of victims, offenders, criminal justice officials, and the community as a whole. Restorative justice grows out of biblical authority, which emphasizes a right relationship with God, self, and community. When such relationships are violated or broken through crime, opportunities are created to make things right.

Most criminal justice systems around the world are retributive. These retributive justice systems profess to hold the offender accountable to the state and use punishment as the equalizing tool for accountability. In contrast, restorative justice seeks to hold the offender accountable to the victimized person, and to the disrupted community. Through God's transforming power, restorative justice seeks to repair the damage, right the wrong, and bring healing to all involved, including the victim, the offender, the families, and the community. The Church is transformed when it responds to the claims of discipleship by becoming an agent of healing and systemic change.

And this isn't just TALK in the church. The United Methodist Church has standards for companies it will and will not invest in, including in our clergy pension programs, and companies that make profits from private prisons are on our DO NOT invest list. If you were wondering, this church holds the same policy. United Women in Faith have a specific focus on stopping the school to prison pipeline. The General Board of Church and Society advocates on our behalf in Washington for criminal justice reform. There is a program called “Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century” that aims at strengthening predominately Black congregations in mission and ministry, and one of their foci is on ending mass incarceration. More of my education on these concerns has happened here in this church, in the Intersectional Justice Book Club, and in conversations with you wise people. We also have in our midst a United Methodist Home Missioner whose job is to offer family law services to inmates in NYS prisons. Just by being part of the UMC our local church is part of changing what is into what should be. That's a big part of why our connection matters.

I think a lot about being the tragic gap – the place where you see both how things are and how things should be and are vulnerable to the pain that results from the distance between them. I believe the tragic gap is a holy and important place to be, but NOT because we need to be left in despair. Rather because change can't happen unless we see with clarity what is AND see with clarity what can be. Being vulnerably in the tragic gap is a way to be open to God's creative work within us. For most of us, the work to make the justice system more just isn't our primary work – but here is the amazing thing! By being in the church and doing our own primary work, we enable others TO DO that work. The goal of the Body of Christ is to work towards justice, but no one person is meant to do all the pieces. Thank God for all who are seeking restorative justice, criminal justice reform, working on behalf of those incarcerated, for those seeking the well-being of friends and family in prison, and thank God for those who are living in prison and finding ways to seek justice and live love despite it all.

Things aren't as they should be, but that's not a reason to lose hope. God and good people are working on change, and change will come. On this, and on many other ways justice is lacking. Thanks be to God. Amen

1https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2022-statistical-tables

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 17, 2024

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #lent #hope in the midst of despair #justice seeking #We Cry Justice

[firstumcschenectady]

“Hope for the Meek” based on Psalm 37:1-11 and James 5:1-6

I really love the book of James. When we worked our way through it in Bible Study years ago, I remember the shock that members of this church had that there was a book of the Bible that they could just receive without having to fight with it. That it was a book about God as we know God, and it didn't even feel like there was a lot of contextual translating to do. Just... it was right. And that was a relief. And it is a great book.

Also, I did HEAR the passage this morning and it wasn't particularly comfortable to sit through, particularly as a citizen of the wealthiest nation the world has ever known. And I know I am complicit.

I know I am complicit because I am a human who likes to eat food and while I do engage in some practices to make sure that the coffee we make at home results in neither deforestation of rain forests nor wage theft from growers... I don't manage to do that with every purchase. For instance, I have no idea if the people who harvested and transported the broccoli I'm making this week are paid fairly – and in this society if I don't know … they very well may not be.

And that's just ONE component of life, right? The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the ways we travel, the things we purchase, the ways we deal with refuse, and if we have homes the ways we heat them, the places electricity comes from ….

I can't keep up. And often, even if I wanted to, there aren't good options! Or, the options that are good are so expensive that it seems like the money would be better used redistributing resources to those who are impoverished by our systems.

And, as you may already know if you've been listening to me preach for a while, I can then go down rabbit holes of guilt and frustration and be overwhelmed and just hang my head in shame for siding with the rich oppressors when it is SO CLEAR that the whole darn system is biased against God's beloveds who live in poverty.

So it is kinda easy to weep and wail for how things are, even when I'm in many cases the oppressor and only sometimes the oppressed.

But then I stop, sometimes, and listen for God.

It is an occupational hazard, one that I strongly recommend to all people.

And what I hear feels like an interruption of my though process and spiraling about broccoli and solar power.

Instead, I hear a calling to a bigger picture, almost like the ways that the parables of Jesus were useful in bringing attention to the systems of oppression in his day and in breaking through the details to see the broad strokes. I hear God suggesting that I not obsess over the sourcing of broccoli, nor feel an obligation to perfect every purchase I make, and INSTEAD to focus on the big picture. Which then leads me to ask what the big picture is, and God laughs at me.

This is pretty much status quo for our relationship.

And then, suddenly, I remember what I did on Monday. On Monday I went to the Capitol with the “Invest in Our New York” campaign that was co-sponsored by many organizations – the ones I was connected to were the Labor and Religion Coalition and the New York State Poor People's Campaign. It was a day for faith leaders to ask for a Moral New York State budget and it was a true delight to have two of this church's laity in leadership present as well.

Anyway, we got to have conversations about what PROGRESSIVE tax laws, and how if we stop being so regressive in our tax laws we could have enough money in New York to transform the lives of the vulnerable among us. Because, remember, tax law can make a difference in HOW MANY HUMANS LIVE IN POVERTY and such important things like that, not to mention how much money is available to subsidize housing... and pretty much every other important function of government as well.

So, this week I'd bee in the Capitol advocating for

A capital gains tax on income over $500,000 a year gained through investments – which is estimated to bring in $12 Billion (yes BILLION) a year.

Raising corporation taxes on companies with more that $2.5 million a year in profits – which would raise $7billion annually

Breaking up the income tax brackets differently, and adding a few at the top – which would raise $21 billion annually

Taxing the WEALTH of billionaires – a sustainable annual income of $1.5B

Creating an heir's tax on inherited wealth over $250,000 – an annual income of $4B.

Now, you may note that these are not radical. They're not impacting most New Yorkers. They're asking the wealthy to pay their FAIR SHARE so that there is enough to provide resources for everyone.

This really seems like the stuff James was talking about – that when someone who has a wealth in the billions and objects to paying taxes at the same rates as those who are bringing home a paycheck makes those objections, James would respond, “weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you.” Because objecting to taking from obscene wealth to pay for food for the hungry is INHUMANE.

God isn't asking me to be perfect in all I do, or all I purchase. But, I did hear that God would like SIGNIFICANT systemic change, particularly changes that pick up those who have been harmed the most.

I really like these asks we made on Monday, which I interpreted to mean that they're pipe dreams. Because normally if I like something, other people think it is radical. However, we were assured that they are likely to be in the Joint House Budget proposal. Now, I think a lot of things go into that and then a lot of things end up getting negotiated out, so I'm not holding my breath or anything but --- that's good news.

It is seriously good news that our state, which has the greatest wealth disparity in the country, because we have an unusual percentage of the super wealthy, is giving serious consideration to how we can have tax laws that work for everyone and not just for the super wealthy.

We can't win every battle, we can't get every good resolution passed, and we can't spend all of our money responsibility. There will always be ways that James calls us out, AND, at the same time, there is reason to hope.

The Psalm says, “the meek shall inherit the land, and delight in abundant prosperity.” When I first read it, I wondered if this was simply a device to keep people from losing hope. I thought about how trust in God to create justice “eventually” has been a means to maintain the status quo. But then I started to wonder what it would be like to trust in this dream of God's. Maybe I won't ever see it, but maybe my life can be a contribution towards getting to it.

What if those who wished to do harm didn't have the power to do so, so people didn't get hurt? Then the ones James calls out as taking the wages of laborers..,wouldn't? What if we could live together with security and delight? What if those who are in need didn't have to fight to get what they deserve, but we all lived in a society with just distribution of resources and the meek people who aren't willing to lord over anyone else – what if they also get enough and had delight and ease?

The Psalm isn't a pipe dream, it is yet another description of the kindom of God we're working toward. A more moral state budget isn't a pipe dream either. As Rev. Dr. Theoharis – oh, did I mention she was also there advocating with us on Monday??- as Rev. Dr. Theoharis says, change is possible INCLUDING when people who are seen as POWERLESS work together.

I love her story of migrant laborers taking on big farming and winning.

I love that requests for a more moral budget are in consideration. I love that I got to advocate with amazing people on Monday, and be heard by some great ones too. I love having a little hope. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea that the meek get the benefits without having to fight for them. That's an image I want to savor. That in the kindom of God it isn't your birth place, or your connections, your skills, or even your capacity to be persistent that gets you a fair shake in life – but it is your EXISTENCE. The meek. The meek shall inherit the land and delight in abundant prosperity. That's what I'm working on, and I'm sooooo very glad to be working on it with you, beloveds of God. 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

March 10, 2024

#thinking church #progressive christianity #rev sara e baron #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #lent #People People's Campaign #IONY #Moral NY State Budget

[firstumcschenectady]

“Hoped for Dignity” based on Acts 6:1-6 and 1 Corinthians 11:17-26

When I was a child I thought that the church was a holy place and that meant that the people who were there did good things, and good decisions were made there.

Growing up wasn't particularly fun. Shaking off all those illusions was a lot of work. Now I know that the church is a holy place and that means people try to do good things and make decisions and sometimes we do and sometimes we don't.

These days I can read two passages about the early church bringing normal human dysfunction to shared meals and not even bat an eye. Of course normal human dysfunction happened in the early church! And the middle church! And the late church? Whatever we call ourselves now. Of course ways people didn't see each other's needs have always happened and of course that applied to people with enough resources not seeing those without enough resources well. People. That's apparently how we work. Including in the church.

I've never been super fond of Paul's “solution” in 1 Corinthians though. I've never understood why he recommended eating at home instead of sharing all the food that everyone brought. Luckily, we have our Acts reading too, one that feels so radical it seems like Jesus is sitting in the room making the recommendation himself.

So let's focus on the Acts one. This is in the very early church when the followers of Jesus were functioning as one family in really practical ways. People sold everything they had and contributed the resources to the whole and were then utterly dependent on each other. Usually I read this part of Acts and just feel guilty that the modern church is such a weakened version of that commitment to community and shared livelihood.

But this passage shows that even in the VERY early church when people were radically committed to God, to following Jesus, and to each other there were still issues. And these issues were intersectional. The community of faith following Jesus in those days was still a part of Judaism, so all the followers of Jesus still knew themselves to be Jews. However, by the time of the early church, Judaism already had both a home base and a diaspora. Some Jewish people still lived in the land of their ancestors and spoke Hebrew and Aramaic, some came from families that had lived in other places and spoke primarily Greek. Maybe, even, most of them spoke each other's languages but the “Hellenistic” and “”Hebrew” Jews refers mostly to where their families had settled.

In any case, while in the world at large being Hellenistic would have been a position of greater power, for the early church being Hebrew was a position of greater power and that meant that the Hellenistic Jews were LESS powerful. And, because humans … are kinda awful sometimes... that meant that the most vulnerable members of the Hellenistic Jews – the widows – suffered the most and weren't getting enough FOOD.

Which is horrible, and infuriating, and also just so NORMAL.

The solution, I'd say, isn't normal though. It isn't normal in the world and it isn't even normal for the church. Because the issue was brought to “the disciples” and they did something I'm not used to seeing church leaders do. They set a boundary and said “we aren't capable of caring for this in addition to the things we're already doing.” Which was incredibly healthy, especially when they said that AND came up with a plan to make sure it was cared for.

So then they told the community to find 7 people to care for the fair distribution of food. Which means that it was the whole community that did the really amazing next thing, not just the twelve disciples. The amazing thing they did was pick SEVEN men with HELLENISTIC names. One of whom we're told was a convert to Judaism, so go diversity on that one.

And those seven men became the ones in charge of resources distribution. The words used as “wait tables” also have administrative connotations, and I suspect those are accurate.

In my years in the church I haven't ever seen it happen that when a marginalized group reports structuralized mistreatment that they're given all the power over the structure. Never. I've seen marginalized groups report structuralized mistreatment and they've been given space to speak, or they've been empowered to report on the problem, at times there are even spaces made for committees to be formed, and on occasion those committees are even mostly populated by those who have been marginalized.

But I've never seen the POWER HANDED OVER.

I've never seen the response, “This has been done poorly and the most vulnerable people aren't being treated well? Then let's fix it by making sure that those who are vulnerable have complete control over the resources people need, because they'll be more attentive to distributing it fairly.”

Well, I've never seen it anywhere but right here. And this feels like a bigger miracle than those healing stories the gospels are full of. Did the early church really do this? Did they really trust God and follow Jesus this well? Did they actually invert the power structures of the world and trust the disempowered to fix the system?

Yes, yes, I know that it was 7 men and no women and definitely none of the widows. It is a miracle anyway. I've seen the church at large. Trust me.

Seriously, this gives me goosebumps.

Because I can imagine SO MANY objections to doing it this way. Right? “They'll just keep all the food to themselves.” “Will the Hebrew widows be hungry now?” “What do those guys know about distributing resources anyway?” “This is hard work, it should be done by experts.” “What will we do if someday there isn't enough food? Will they be able to handle it then?” “What kind of reporting are we expecting of these 7 to the 12 that it can be clear they're being accountable?”

But that wasn't what happened. 7 people were selected, they were blessed, they did the work, and Acts goes on to tell us some of the wonderful things these people did to build up the community and bring glory to God. The 12 went back to their important work, the 7 did their important work, everyone got the resources they needed, and more people were attracted to this radically equal Body of Christ.

And I think that means if it happened once, it could happen again!?!?!? It probably has, even if I haven't heard about it. I suspect God is working on it happening RIGHT NOW in a whole bunch of places. This is a miracle of hope – that true dignity can be restored to God's beloveds who are in this moment vulnerable and in need.

This amazing miracle is a part of the story we find at the table of God we extend at the communion table. So invite you to bring this miracle with us as move into sharing our resources with each other and sharing the bread and the cup. 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

March 3, 2024

#thinking church #progressive christianity #rev sara e baron #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #lent #hope #hope in the midst of despair #if it happened once

[firstumcschenectady]

“Wailing as a Means to Hope” based on Amos 5:10-15 and Jeremiah 31:15-17

I've committed to a theme of hope in the midst of despair this Lent, because it is a topic I sense we all desperately need. You can be forgiven for thinking that thus far in worship readings we've done the despair part better than the hope part. Our “We Cry Justice” reading came from the section entitled “Struggle and Lament” and an essay entitled, “You Must Let Us Wail” and it was fabulously matched with Amos bemoaning the poor being trampled and Jeremiah offering us the famous words, “Rachel is weeping for her children.”

What excellent summaries of exactly the states of the world that result in a sense of being hopeless and overwhelmed. Dismay, lament, injustice, wailing, and despair.

Amos and Jeremiah are prophets, and that means they're doing something different with the despair than we might expect. Truthfully, they're USING it. They're using it to motivate people, to create change. Amos looks around, sees the messes, points them out, and then calls people to live differently. We hear it within our passage today:

Seek good and not evil,    that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,    just as you have said. Hate evil and love good,    and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,    will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Those two verses show up in the midst of a looooooooong lament, but they're also THE POINT. “Do life differently, don't keep up this system of things being unjust.” And, indeed, Amos is lamenting the unjust ways society is siphoning wealth from the poor to the rich. Many modern prophet smake similar points in similar ways. But perhaps we're not hearing the point within the lament – the POINT is to create change.

Jeremiah is doing a similar thing but on a larger scale. Jeremiah is the prophet of the exile: he saw where things would land if nothing changed, he saw destruction happening, he saw the depth of despair, and then afterwards he points out that not all hope is lost. His is a tough book, but the hope in it is real. We may also be trained to hear more easily, “Rachel is weeping for her children” than the lines that follow it, “They shall come back, there is hope for your future.” Jeremiah isn't speaking an easy or light hope, he is speaking hope into the darkest of times – and that hope was just as real as his concerns about the exile had been.

In Jeremiah's writing, despair is named, and met with hope, despite it all.

Interestingly, Stephen Pavey seems to be doing a similar thing. He is speaking clearly about the injustices of our day, but he isn't doing it to bring hopelessness. He says, “Callie and Martin, like Amos, are speaking for God using the poetry and prophecy of lament. They are calling for justice to be worked out and lived out in order to build a different world, a beloved community.”1

There is a funny truth here: prophets don't lament things being the way they are to induce hopelessness and lead people to shut down because they're overwhelmed. Prophets name injustice because they believe JUSTICE is possible. Prophets name systemic greed because they believe an equitable distribution of resources is possible. Prophets name their concern about “how things are going” because they have hope it can get turned around.

Why isn't this more obvious? Why does this seem worth mentioning, even?

I think dear ones, because we now live lives saturated in “news” that can sound a little bit like prophecy, but isn't. Headlines lament poisoned water, but “the news” is an industry committed to turning a profit from exposing bad news. There may be plenty of people in the industry who do so hoping it will motivate change, but that isn't the industry's first concern. And, we'd probably be OK if there were just headlines about poisoned water. We can work on that! But there are also headlines about... wars, possible genocides, famines, coups, floods, fires, earthquakes, ELECTIONS, hospital mergers, lack of nursing home staffing, COVID learning declines, long COVID, increasing poverty rates, lack of housing for migrants, use of solitary confinement despite it being banned...

What else have you read THIS WEEK?

The news can sound like a prophet, but it isn't one.

Because a prophet shares concerns about injustice to motivate changes towards God's visions of justice. NOT to make money.

Now, I'm really not trying to pick on the news industry (it is having a hard enough time), nor discourage you from seeking to be informed (which sometimes can feel like a form of power in an otherwise powerless existence). Rather, I'm wanting to remind us all that a constant intake of bad news isn't something we're OBLIGATED to engage in, and knowing doesn't ACTUALLY create change. Especially if we're already overwhelmed, especially if we're worried about our own lives of that of one of our loved ones. The world is vast and complicated and none of us are ever going to know everything, and it is definitely OK to fast from the news when it leads you to hopelessness. (Lenten Spiritual practice I'd recommend, even.)

Because the news isn't doing the work of the prophets. It isn't rooted in hope.

The prophets do that work and God still calls them to do it. Interestingly, the prophets sometimes get overwhelmed by despair too, but somehow they find their way through Somehow the urging of God to call for something BETTER than what is, motivates them to move beyond what's wrong and into what could be. When we seek out information, maybe it matters a little bit why the story is being told – and why it is being listened to. None of us can respond to the hundreds of concerns we can read about every day, so it is worth paying attention to if in-taking them is live-giving or life-draining. I do not believe God needs us to know about one more justice issue we can't tackle if knowing it drains us from hope.

There is, however, something fundamentally GOOD about injustice being named – by prophets and even by the news. The piece of hope is that people will respond “this isn't as it should be.” Now, again, if that's just a way to make some money, meh. But STILL, just naming that things being broken isn't as God wants them to be MATTERS.

The act of lament is the act of seeing what is broken and wishing for it to be healed.

Sometimes, dear ones, when we feel hopeless, I think we're really engaging in the sacred act of lament. And we need not berate ourselves for engaging in sacred actions, even if they're hard.

What we may need to guard against though, is being so overwhelmed that we move into helplessness. And that, beloveds of God, I sometimes fear is one of the impacts of the 24 hour news cycle compounded by social media. They move us into learned helplessness. Because we hear about wars fought far away, and children being made into orphans, and we can't actually DO anything about it – and we hear about … and we can't do anything about it, and we hear about... and we can't do anything about it, and we start to learn that we can't do ANYTHING.

Which is simply not true.

We can't create peace in the Middle East, but we can reach out to our neighbors in the Capital Region who are Muslim and Jewish and remind them with our words and actions they are seen and loved. That matters in the face of the hatred being slung around, and it matters in simply planting the seeds of peace and love in the world. We can't eliminate hunger within the world or even our community, but we've learned we can serve one hot meal with a healthy dose of respect and that it can matter a whole lot. We can't eliminate single use plastics, but we've learned to grocery shop with reusable bags, and carry reusable water bottles and those actions add up.

There is plenty we can do, actually, there is so much we can do we struggle to decide which ways to share our love in the world, right? GOOD!!

Dear ones, a yearning for the world to be different, a lament at how things are, a longing for more justice, even fear that things might continue without change – these are beautiful expressions of HOPE. Because something in you believes this brokenness isn't enough, and shouldn't be enough. It meant to motivate change.

Not despair, not being overwhelmed, not learned helplessness. Change.

Hate evil and love good,    and establish justice in the gate.

It is possible. With God all things are possible. Love good dear ones, it isn't time to give up yet. Amen

1 Stephen Pavey“12: You Must Let Us Wail” in We Cry Justice, ed. Liz Theoharis (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021) p. 57 used with permission.

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 18, 2024

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #umc #schenectady #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #Lent #We Cry Justice #Prophets #Hope Series #Lament as sacred practice #Not at peace with brokenness