#First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

[firstumcschenectady]

“Hallelujah, It Is Finished!” based in theory on John 21:1-14 as a story of resurrection

Dear ones, it is official. The era of institutional discrimination against queer and trans people in the United Methodist church has ended.

The phrase that said that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” is gone, and our new statement on Human sexuality reads:

We affirm human sexuality as a sacred gift and acknowledge that sexual intimacy contributes to fostering the emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being of individuals and to nurturing healthy sexual relationships that are grounded in love, care and respect.

Human sexuality is a healthy and natural part of life that is expressed in wonderfully diverse ways from birth to death. It is shaped by a combination of nature and nurture: heredity and genetic factors on the one hand and childhood development and environment on the other. We further honor the diversity of choices and vocations in relation to sexuality such as celibacy, marriage and singleness.

We support the rights of all people to exercise personal consent in sexual

relationships, to make decisions about their own bodies and be supported in those decisions, to receive comprehensive sexual education, to be free from sexual exploitation and violence, and to have access to adequate sexual health care.

The “funding ban” is gone – church support at levels can be extended to organizations doing ministry with LGBTQIA+ folx.

We don't call anyone “self-proclaimed practicing homosexuals” anymore (PHEW), and now we affirm that queer clergy can be ordained and appointed in The United Methodist Church AND that if they can't be safely appointed at home they can be appointed across conference lines.

We now allow clergy to preside over and UM churches to host same-gender weddings.

There are no longer chargeable offenses for ones' sexual orientation or for doing same-gender weddings.

AND we've created a process to RESTORE CREDENTIALS of those who lost them because of their sexuality, gender identity, or presiding over a wedding. (It remains to be seen if anyone will use this.)

AND we've put in place a regionalization plan that allows for areas around the world to do ministry in ways that work for them, THANK GOD, and also means we can move from these NEUTRAL stances to POSTITIVE statements in the near future.

Friends, that first one, the “incompatibility clause” was added in 1972 and we've been fighting to remove it every since. 52 years.

The era of harm to God's beloved queer and trans people through The United Methodist Church is OVER.

HALLELUJAH.

I have a memory of being in junior high Sunday school and learning that The United Methodist Church was bigoted against queer people and being simply horrified that they didn't know better yet. I thought back then that it was just a matter of time for the church to catch up.

I remember going to General Conference in 2004 and learning how intentional and organized the homophobic movement was. It blew me away. It wasn't simply that the church forgot to notice they had this justice issue to fix. It was that people were working hard, with great intentionality, to do harm to God's beloveds.

I have done my part, to change the church. So have you. So have tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe more. I can't quite process how many people have worked so hard to bring this day. The laborers have been many, and until this past two weeks the fruits have been few. But here we are.

THIS is the First Sunday of a fully inclusive United Methodist Church.

And, I thought it would feel better.

It is like I forgot about how pain works. I forgot that when the active harm stops coming, that's when you finally get to really feel it all. That's when the grief hits. That's when the anger is finally able to be let out.

Until this week the harms kept coming, and all we could do was survive.

And now we have to heal.

Darn it.

IT IS FINISHED, HALLELUJAH.

And.

And we lost beloveds to suicide. And we lost those called to other churches or professions. And we lost the full authenticity of those called and serving. And we lost members who were told they were incompatible, or they couldn't get married, or they couldn't have their kid baptized. And we lost those who just couldn't stay anymore. And those who have been WAITING have lost so many years.

52 years.

AND, sorry, I know I'm Debbie Downer, but we know we closed the Central Jurisdictions in 1968 to create a beautifully diverse fully shared body of Christ and racism is still alive and well anyway. And we also know that women have had full ordination rights since 1954 but don't have pay equity or any other kind of equity. So removing formal discrimination doesn't solve the whole problem.

You already knew that too.

Ever since the rules changed to allow all of our siblings their ordination rights, I've been humming Mark Miller's song “The Journey Isn't Over.” God's call in my life to bring justice in the church and the world for God's beloveds who are trans and queer hasn't changed. I'm so grateful, so very, very grateful not to be ashamed of my denomination more. But the journey isn't over:

From Seneca Falls,

from Selma to Stonewall

we've come a long way,

we've come a long way.

From Seneca Falls,

from Selma to Stonewall

we've come a long way,

but the journey isn't over.

Friends, THIS journey will be over when God's beloveds who are trans and queer, God's beloveds who are women and non-binary people, God's beloveds who are BIPOC, God's beloveds with disabilities, AND ALL of God's beloveds are able to live in fullness and abundance in the kindom of God.

From now until then, we're called to make it so.

Hallelujah, THIS STAGE is finished, AND the journey isn't over. Amen

[lboogie1906]

Pastor Henry “Pistol” Mason (June 19, 1931 - May 29, 2020) was the first Black baseball pitcher for the Philadelphia farm team, the Schenectady Blue Jays in 1955. He was born in Marshall, Missouri to Tansie and Anna Mason. His father was a laborer in a rock quarry and his mother’s occupation is unknown. He had five siblings.

Believed to have received his nickname “Pistol” because of his 95 miles-per-hour fastball, he was a football and basketball player in high school. Baseball was the sport he chose to continue after high school. Mason completed high school in 1951 and traveled to Kansas City, Missouri where he was offered to try out for the Kansas City Monarchs, the longest-running franchise in Negro League Baseball.

He hurled 16 innings to defeat the Philadelphia Stars 3-2. Serving in the Navy for two years kept him from playing baseball. He returned to the Monarchs in 1954. He counted legendary pitcher Satchel Paige as a friend when the two bonded over fishing. He made a deal to teach Paige how to fish if Paige would teach him how to hit. He hit a game-tying home run against Montreal.

He became the first Black pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies in the major leagues in September of 1958. Willie Mays was the first hitter he had to face when he played with the Phillies. He played in the International League for Buffalo and Miami. Spending most of 1959 with the AAA Buffalo Bisons, where he won 12 games in 6 starts. He completed his career in 1962, with varying success while playing for the AAA Pacific Coast League in Honolulu.

At the age of 30, his elbow would no longer allow him to play the game of baseball, so he went to work for the Goodyear Tire company for 10 years. He became an ordained Methodist minister and served as the Associate Pastor for Saint James United Methodist Church and another Kansas City church for 14 years. He was a supporter of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City and toured the country for many speaking engagements to tell his life story.

He is survived by his wife Delores Finch Mason his 2 sons, and one granddaughter. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[binkas]

                           Meditations on Scripture While We Are Apart

                                               A Lectionary Blog 

Dearly Beloved,

I share this meditation as I pray for the world, and for you, dear reader, that all might have peace and hope in this time of pandemic.

Pastor Robin Ressler

The Gospel reading for Sunday is the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. You can read it here:John 11:1-45

(FYI, Mosaic is the name of the cooperative ministry of United Methodist Churches in northern Schoharie and Schenectady Counties, of which Barnerville UMC is a member.)

                                 Jesus and his Friend and His Church

I have been asked by my clergy colleagues in Mosaic to preach on this text as part of our collaborative, online worship service this Sunday, so I’ve been thinking about this story.

Here’s a question I encountered as began to prepare to preach:

Why did Jesus wait two days after hearing that his friend Lazarus was dead before he went to see Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus? 

My first thought was that, of course, Jesus waited so that everyone would know that Lazarus was good and dead and his body had already begun to decompose, so that those who witnessed the event would know that Jesus was not simply (!) healing Lazarus, but actually bringing him back from death to life.

 I don’t think, however, that  this is the type of answer the questioner was seeking. She went on to say that she couldn’t understand why Jesus would allow his friends Martha and Mary to suffer so long, when he had the ability to turn their mourning into dancing (Psalm 30:11), which, of course, he eventually did.

Today, her question becomes, Why are we suffering from this awful pandemic, and, perhaps more specifically, why are we, who are not ill, suffering confinement? Why are we suffering in ways that range from inconvenience to economic insecurity, boredom and loneliness, to severe emotional pain and worse?

Last week I had the difficult task of telling the people of Barnerville United Methodist Church that it was time for us to close our church for a while. I say difficult, because the folks of this parish love their church and are extraordinarily faithful in attending Sunday worship. I felt like I was taking from them their most cherished possession. I felt like an old meanie, and I didn’t like it.

However, my congregation consists of mature Christians. People were sad, but they also reassured me that this was the right thing to do.

Even more wonderful than this reassurance, they told me that closing the church didn’t mean we would stop being the church. They told me that they -- and we -- would be all right.

Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus did not have the type of illness that led to death, but to the Glory of God. Can we believe this of the current pandemic? Is this an outrageous thing to suggest?

From my crooked little farmhouse in Mineral Springs, I hear stories of massive change in the lives of people near and far, and the stories are far and away not all bad. People are reaching out to others, using whatever resources they have to help. Sometimes this means donating money. Sometimes it means spending time on the phone with a lonely person, or simply spending more time with their family. Or sewing face masks, donating food, or writing a song, or ____________ (you fill in the blank -- hopefully, you are seeing, hearing, and participating in these stories).

These are stories of healing. We Christians can understand them as stories of the Holy Spirit working through us.

During this time of pandemic, I have been blessed to be part of a church whose members and leaders are using their time, their energy, and their talents to birth a new way of being church.

We have done this not only by reaching out, but also by reaching in: by prayer and meditation, by reading and contemplating scripture, in song and in silence spending time beseeching, listening to, and praising God.

This is a story about healing, too.

For us who are the pastors of rural congregations -- a job that has, over the years of the church’s presence here, made lone rangers of many of us -- the pandemic has brought us closer together. It has instilled in us a strong spirit of community, and a visceral sense of membership in the body of Christ. I would even say that, despite the stress, despite the limitations of our current situation, we Mosaic pastors have been having some fun as we innovate worship together. 

It is my hope and prayer that out of this pandemic the church will emerge stronger, more vital -- more truly alive and Christ-centered than it has been in recent years. It is my faith that it will.

Listen, I do not believe for one moment that God caused this pandemic. What I do believe is that God is in, with, and among us as we walk through these dark days together. I believe that God is weeping with us over the pain and suffering of our fellow human beings.

At the same time, from my perspective as a rural pastor in one, tiny corner of a worldwide pandemic, I do see this: I see a church that many feared was dead coming back to life. I hear the voice of Jesus saying, “This present situation does not lead to the death of the church, but through it the Glory of God may be shown.”

Jesus left his disciples with marching orders to heal, to baptize, and to proclaim the Gospel.

As a friend of ours said, “Go and do likewise.”

Amen.

                                                                                                      A Prayer 

                        ( adapted from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer)

             Everliving God: We pray you inspire our witness to Jesus Christ

               that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope

                 of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the                         Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

[democratsunited-blog]

Seven Up in a Chaotic Democratic Primary in New York’s Nineteenth

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=4556

Seven Up in a Chaotic Democratic Primary in New York’s Nineteenth

Early Wednesday, in the small city of Kingston, New York, on the western bank of the Hudson River, Jeff Beals, a former C.I.A. intelligence officer and U.S. diplomat, and one of seven candidates in next week’s Democratic primary to represent New York’s Nineteenth Congressional District, was sitting in a café called Outdated. “The soul of the Democratic Party is what’s on the ballot on Tuesday,” he told me, leaning across the table. Beals, who is forty-one, and who now works as a high-school history teacher in Woodstock, has distinguished himself by focussing on one issue: the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics. He has also made himself the Party rogue. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee suggested that he raise between one and two million dollars, and asked him to sign a memorandum of understanding promising to keep them apprised of his financial plans and coffers and to spend three out of every four dollars on “paid communications.” Beals refused, and he went on to win endorsements from the People for Bernie Sanders and the Justice Democrats (a national group formed by Sanders staffers). In the 2016 Democratic primaries, Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the district by eight points. If Beals gets even half of those Sanders supporters, he believes he will win. “My campaign is the story of how when you stand up for a really strong progressive platform that truly takes on the donor class, and the corporatization of our politics, you find something shocking—the donors aren’t there for you, but the people are,” he said.

Tuesday’s primary is one of the most competitive and bizarre in the country. The Nineteenth—a horseshoe of eleven rural counties around Albany—is one of the House’s rare swing districts. Wealthy, liberal towns dot the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River Valley, but the Nineteenth is mostly white and working class.

Obama won the district by six per cent in 2012, and Trump won by ten per cent in 2016. In the 2016 Congressional election, the Republican John Faso, a lawyer and former state assemblyman, defeated the Democrat Zephyr Teachout, a law professor who had moved to the district from Brooklyn, by nine points. Bankrolled by four super PACs that contributed a total of $6.7 million, Faso’s campaign flooded the airwaves with attack ads, calling Teachout a “liberal carpetbagger” and “a professor.” In office, he has backed many of President Trump’s positions, voting against the Affordable Care Act and supporting budget proposals that would gut the Environmental Protection Agency.

The enthusiasm to beat Faso largely explains why seven candidates, none of whom have run for office before, remain in the race. They are a full bank of fresh blood, each one seemingly more genial and accomplished than the last. Erin Collier, a thirty-four-year-old economist who has worked on agriculture projects for U.S.A.I.D., grew up on a family farm in Cooperstown, New York. She’s the only female candidate, and has received endorsements from the New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Emily’s List. Gareth Rhodes is a twenty-nine-year-old former press aide for Governor Andrew Cuomo. He is also a district native, from a farm in a religious Bruderhof community in Ulster County. Rhodes spent the last year visiting the district’s hundred and sixty-three towns in a 1999 Winnebago that he bought off Craigslist. The strategy has been a success; several people I met remarked on the fact that he was making an effort to learn about voters’ concerns—health care, the environment, and immigration. Dave Clegg is a longtime local civil-rights trial lawyer and an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church. As if to one-up Rhodes, he just completed a two-hundred-mile bike tour of the district.

The other three contestants are the biggest fundraisers. Antonio Delgado, the only candidate of color, is at the top with nearly $2.3 million. He is a corporate lawyer who grew up in Schenectady, just north of the district, earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, attended Harvard Law School, started a hip-hop record label in Los Angeles, and, most recently, was a litigator for a corporate-lobbying firm in New York. Pat Ryan graduated from West Point and served two combat tours in Iraq; he has since worked as a tech entrepreneur. Brian Flynn is a businessman who contributed six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to his own campaign. He has been criticized by Beals, in particular, for claiming to be a small businessman when, in fact, he was the president of a company worth $149 million. The Washington Examiner, a conservative publication, recently noted that Flynn was wearing a Rolex in one of his ads, in which he says, “Billionaires and corporations have rigged the system against us.” I asked him about the watch. “The Dalai Lama has fifteen Rolexes,” he told me.

Polls have revealed no clear leader, but Rhodes received some important endorsements last week: from the Times editorial board and seven labor unions. That could be more than enough to guarantee a victory. Although this district has outsized national significance, no more than ten per cent of its registered Democrats are expected to vote.“Eight thousand votes is a guaranteed, stone-cold lock,” Mike Hein, the Ulster County executive and a prominent state Democrat, told me on Tuesday afternoon. I was tagging along with Rhodes on a door-knocking excursion in Kingston. We had run into Hein in the middle of a residential street lined with old Victorians with sagging porches. “That’s a razor-thin number, especially when we are talking about things like global safety, our entire economy, our world position, children being caged, separated from their parents—this horrific series of things that we’re facing as a nation,” Hein said. “It’s going to come down here.” He smiled and his eyes widened. “This could be the district that flips the house.”

At breakfast, Beals, who, in his excitement, didn’t touch his bowl of oatmeal, contemplated the amount of money—nearly ten million dollars—being thrown at such a tiny primary. “Think about how insane and outrageous that is,” he said. “Take all three guys running who have spent over a million dollars each. Think about how much money they’re basically giving, or paying, for every vote.” Beals ended up raising slightly more than three hundred thousand dollars. (“That’s still a lot of money!”) He looked away wistfully. “Imagine if all the money that had been gathered for this race had been put into a fund to develop New York Nineteen,” he said. “It’s a tragic waste.”

The upside of seven candidates is a sort of wacky, down-home sweetness. For a meet-and-greet on Tuesday night, the Rhinebeck Town Hall was packed with so many people that some were hanging through the windows; others were listening from behind the brick building. One attendee, Kayo Iwama, a Bard College music professor, said it was the first political event of her life. “The candidate base is so rich, and I was confused, and I realized how important it was to get a sense of each candidate, and what they were like in person, given the political situation,” she said. The crowd, mostly gray-haired and sensibly attired, was enthusiastic: clapping, whooping, asking lots of tough questions. “I think I speak for almost everyone here when I say that our top priority is electing someone who can beat Faso,” Emily Houpt, a fifty-seven-year-old art teacher told me.

Yvette Rogers, a local Democratic organizer who moderated the event, asked each candidate why they thought that they were the one for that job. Dave Clegg got a big laugh with his response. “This is my deacon side,” he said, pointing to the right half of his body, “concerned with justice and compassion. And this is my trial-lawyer side, willing to cut your heart out and eat it in front of you.” He also got the loudest, longest ovation of the night when he announced that six hundred members, including clergy, of the United Methodist Church had brought a formal complaint against Jeff Sessions over his “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, arguing that it violated church rules and possibly constituted child abuse. (Sessions is a devout United Methodist member.)

A woman in a flowy blue dress asked Delgado about his funding. “We’ve been sold up the river a lot of times by politicians. I was looking at your record today, and you sound really good, but somebody told me that you worked for a big lobbyist corporation,” she said. Delgado spoke eloquently about what his career had meant to his working-class parents, about how, after graduating from Harvard Law, he had worked with disenfranchised youth in Los Angeles for five years. But he wasn’t making any money, and his parents were scratching their heads. So he took a job with a prestigious law firm; he was one of only two or three African-American attorneys out of two hundred employees. “It was a momentous occasion for my family,” he said. “What I learned there were skill sets that too few folks from my community get.” He added, “My diverse set of experiences put me in a position to be a real champion, a real advocate, for our shared progressive values.” When he finished, she asked again, “And you’re not taking money from big business?” He said he was not; of course, corporations are not allowed to donate to campaigns. Outside, as the sky turned pink, I asked Delgado about that moment. “Look, I’m empathetic to that,” he said, wearily. “There is corruption in our system. The sensitivity is warranted.” His press aide, who was recording our conversation, reminded him to discuss his role at the firm. He nodded, then looked back at me, holding my gaze. “I am not, nor have I ever been, a lobbyist. I’m a litigator.”

Read full story here

[allycatblu]

Happy Palm Sunday!!! (at FUMC - First United Methodist Church of Schenectady, New York)

[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

[firstumcschenectady]

A Reminder of Who God Is and Who We Are Called to Be

God's steadfast love endures forever

and God's faithfulness for all Generations.

God is the God of creation,

of all people and all living things,

and even all non-living things.

God seeks the common good.

God is on the side of the oppressed.

God is the one who seeks just distribution of resources,

starting with sabbath,

and extending to all things.

God is a God of abundance who made this earth with plenty.

God wants us to share so all can thrive.

God is the wellspring of love.

God shelters us, even when no one else does.

God is the one seeking the kindom.

And we, dear ones, are God's people.

Called to compassion.

Called to be shelter in the storm.

Called to bold action to protect God's loved ones.

Called to be peace and work for peace.

Called to be in a community of grace – without boundaries.

Called to look for God's hand moving us towards justice,

even when it is hard to see.

Called to live in the tragic gap and see how things are

and how things should be and not look away.

Called to build the kindom with God, even when it is hard.

Called to be, and to be love.

Called to trust in God's steadfast love and faithfulness.

May we hear God's call. 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

Nov. 10, 2024

[firstumcschenectady]

“The Saints Sheltering Us” based on Isaiah 25:6-9 and Revelation 21:16a

Our guts are clenched

We aren't sure what comes next

Terrible options abound

It would be nice

to be on that mountain

or in the new Jerusalem

To be past the fears

to be assured of life

for things to be as God would wish

To be beyond sadness

to know no more grief

to be together in joy

Though the prayer echoes through the ages

thy kingdom come

on earth as it is in heaven

it isn't

yet

Instead we gather

to remember the Saints

Bob who loved his wife too much to let her go

Harold who enjoyed absolutely everyone

Lois whose pure goodness flowed everywhere she went

Nancy who thirsted for knowledge and connection

Pat who loved kids to her core

Beryl whose devotion cared for many generations

June whose personality was its own source of gravity

We loved them

They formed us

They taught us

They loved us

These, the newest of our saints

now form the great cloud of witnesses

with those who where already there

So many we've loved and lost

and been formed by

So many saints

So much wisdom

resilience

humor

faith

care

love

joy

hope

Enough, it might seem

to make it through today

and tomorrow

This week

this month

this year

Enough to shelter this storm

Enough

There is love enough.

In them.

In us.

In God.

Thanks be.

Nov. 3, 2024

All Saints Sunday

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

[firstumcschenectady]

“Changing the Narrative” based on Deuteronomy 15:1-4 and Matthew 26:1-16

I grew up in the country, and went to college in rural New Hampshire, so when I started interning as a pastor in urban Los Angeles, …. well, there was a big learning curve. I was scared of cities, because they were just new to me, and I found them overwhelming. Los Angeles is a major urban center, and like most of our urban centers it has dazzling wealth and heartbreaking poverty. Homelessness is an especially huge problem in Los Angeles because people spend their live savings to get there expecting to “make it big” by walking down the street and having a producer hire them for a major movie. Also, it isn't cold there, so there aren't networks of code blue shelters.

I worked at a wonderful church, the Hollywood United Methodist Church, and in ways similar to here, the congregation itself was a mixture of the housed and the unhoused, and no conversation about the church happened without awareness of their unhoused neighbors. One of the most distressing moments of my life was in getting to know the unhoused in the Hollywood Church and those who lived around it, and realizing that many of them were the same population as the people I cared for at Sky Lake Special Needs camps. That the most vulnerable among us were living the hardest lives is a lesson I've never gotten over. While I served there we would also go to Skid Row – the poorest part of Los Angeles - and serve meals, an experience that wiped any lingering blinders I had about the justice of unfettered competitive capitalism.

After my first year interning at Hollywood, I went on a mission trip to Cuba with Volunteers in Mission. We started in Havana, and eventually drove east to the site where we would work. After several days on the road I finally realized that I was tense all the time because it constantly felt like we were about to slip into a neighborhood like Skid Row, and I expected the punch to the stomach that I'd experienced in seeing Skid Row. But, in Cuba, everything felt like the neighborhood before you got to jaw-dropping poverty. But you never got to jaw-dropping poverty. This was 2004, and I've since learned that in the early years after the US embargo there really wasn't enough enough food, but by 2004 the island had figured out how to feed and house everyone sufficiently – even though cement crumbled and drug stores were largely bare.

There wasn't much panhandling in Cuba either. There was a little bit, in tourist spots, but our hosts pointed out that because everyone is housed and fed in Cuba, the panhandling was for extra money, not for for basics. I ended up going back to Cuba a few years later, and had very similar experiences. Like the metaphors of a fish being unable to understand water, it took leaving unfettered competitive capitalism for me to be able to see it.

This week I had the chance to attend a conversation led by the Labor and Religion Coalition on the New York State Budget. Many of us are familiar with the Federal Poverty Line, right? And we're also familiar with it's limitations, namely that it is abysmally low and a person or family living above that line will still be struggling to make ends meet. You may already know about the United Way measure “ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed)”, but I didn't. (Can't tell you if I hadn't heard it or hadn't retained it though. Shrug.)

ALICE is a measure of who isn't making ends meet in society. Fabulously, United Way does an amazing amount of work with the data on Alice. For instance, in NYS 14% of people live under the poverty line. Another 30% of people are in ALICE, and 56% of people are “doing OK” and making ends meet. The numbers a bit worse in Schenectady – in our city 49.8 people live below the ALICE threshold, which is to say that HALF of the people in this city aren't making ends meet.

What was particularly interesting in the presentation this week was the visual on recent poverty rates.

Namely, that during 2020, when the government focused on responding to people's needs with stimulus checks, child tax credits, and expansion of SNAP benefits, people living under the national poverty line hit a 20 year LOW.

And since then, the rates have been creeping back up. The work of the Labor and Religion Coalition and their partners The Poor People's campaign includes asking NYS to readjust it's priorities. Stop having regressive tax laws that benefit corporations and the wealthy, and use the income gained to bring greater support for the most vulnerable.

Compared to how we have been operating as a society, this feels like a PIPE DREAM. There so many barriers, so many counter arguments, so much fear of the accusation of “raising taxes.” But then I read the Bible, and I read it with the guidance of Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Rev. Dr. William Barber, and God is behind that pipe dream.

Which, for me at least, means it is possible.

Which means we can dream about what it would feel like to live in a society where everyone is housed, and housed adequately. Archaeology suggests that in the first 400 years of Ancient Israelite society – the years before kings – all the houses were about the same size. Which means that society was organized around mutual care for each other and sharing of resources. I've been shocked to learn from the book “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow that MANY ancient societies were really egalitarian like that, including ones with major urban centers, including ones that were stable for many centuries. The ancient Hebrews weren't an outlier.

The Hebrew Bible, though, gets really clear on what is needed to create a society where people care for each other. Everyone needs access to resources – in their case land. Did you know that in Hawaii the native people divvied up the land like really narrow pieces of pie because they knew every group of people needed access to the resources of both the land and the sea? God has worked with peoples in so many times and places to take care of each other, and that means it is possible. Liz Theoharis sufficiently mentions the other rules, “forgiving debts, raising wages, outlawing slavery, and restructuring society around the needs of the poor.”1 That's what we hear in Deuteronomy today. That's what Jesus reflect on in the gospel.

I'm struck by her clear statement that “charity will not end poverty.” It reminds me of the Simone Weil quote, “It is only by the grace of God that the poor can forgive the rich the bread they feed them.” As long as we have a society that makes some people rich BY making other people poor we'll have lots and lots of opportunities for charity, but nothing will change.

Our work, I believe, is the work of “narrative takeover.” For us, it may take some time. There is a lot in this unfettered competitive capitalism that we've been trained not to see, or to think is necessary, or acceptable, and the work we're doing with “We Cry Justice” this year helps us reframe the narrative.

What IS the purpose of a society? If it is to fulfill “there will be no need among you,” then we know what direction to turn in, even it it will be a long journey to get there. It is funny, isn't it? That people know the quote “the poor you will always have with you” but they don't know that the implication of it is “as long as you fail to follow what God is asking of you.”

So I invite us to this dream. What would it be like to live in a society that houses people well, where everyone had enough nutritious food, where healthcare can accessed? Can you even dream it? What are the implications? I think life would be easier for teachers – because so many barriers to learning would be eliminated. If those who spend their lives fighting to make ends meet were able to focus there gifts elsewhere, what could they offer? We would be able to offer great care to those who are aging, those who are young, and those with special needs – none of which we're doing now. People fighting to survive might then have energy for art, music, gardening, and other wonderful things that would enrich their lives and the lives of those around them! I suspect mental health would increase, because the fundamental fear of falling through the safety net wouldn't keep people up at night, and because there would be less stress, and more time for people to connect with those they love. Lives would probably get longer, violence would decrease, ERs would be less crowded, I think there might even be less litter and faster scientific progress. OH, and just that quick reminder- studies say that housing everyone, and feeding everyone, and getting healthcare to everyone would COST US LESS AS A SOCIETY THAN HOW WE DO IT NOW.

Kinda makes you wonder who benefits from how we do it now, doesn't it?

OK, that's probably about as much fish trying to see the water as we can take for a day. But I'd love to hear from you what else WILL happen when we make God's dreams a reality.... let's keep on building that narrative for each other, until we can see the dream clearly and then see the ways we are most gifted at moving towards it. May there be no need among us. Amen

1Liz Theoharis “1: Is Ending Poverty Possible?” in We Cry Justice, ed. Liz Theoharis (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021) 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

January 28, 2024

[firstumcschenectady]

“Blessed to be a Blessing” based on Psalm 67:1-5 and Genesis 12:1-4

“Take, eat; this is my body which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

“Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

These words in our traditional communion liturgy connect the Last Supper of Jesus to our communion table here today, to every communion table around the world today, to every communion table in history, to every communion table in the future, AND to every table we sit at to eat.

They extend even further. The extend to the tables that are empty of food, and to the people who lack tables, and those who have neither. The words connect as well to our siblings in faith around the world who are displaced from their homes – migrants, assylum seekers, and those who have been evicted. It can boggle the mind, the ways the Table of God connects us!

The words of Jesus, at the Last Supper as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels tell us to remember every time we eat and every time we drink. The communion liturgy just reminds us of that. Every time, we are to remember that we are God's. Every time, we are to remember that's God's love is steadfast. Every time we are to remember that we are blessed by God to be a blessing for the whole world. Every time we are to remember that Jesus remembered God's mighty acts of salvation – at the Passover – and added to them the reminders that we are capable of continuing his ministry as the living Body of Christ.

Every time we eat. Every time we drink.

We remember.

We're called back to our purpose: we've been sent out to share love.

We've been sent out to continue the work of Jesus, of calling people back to God, and God's vision of abundance for everyone. To the work of community, of relationship, of listening, of learning, of love.

And today we remember those who have plenty and those who have nothing. Those who are at peace and those who can't find any peace. Those who are afraid and those who are filled with joy. God's table is for all.

In Genesis Abraham is blessed by God, or so our stories go. Today's little passage makes sense of it. His blessing is that he gets to be a blessing for the world. It isn't for him. Blessings aren't meant for just one, they're for sharing. Eventually it came to be known that the ancient Israelites, too, were blessed. They too were blessed to be a blessing for the whole world.

The World Communion Table is, at first, just the communion table set and celebrated in many churches on the same day. But it is so much more than that too. It breaks down the barriers in our faith, it connects us, and it reminds us that we, too, are blessed to be a blessing. Not to hold on to anything God gives us, but to share it widely.

And so, today, we unite our table with many others around the world, and then we extend our table from the one in this room to the ones in the Fellowship Hall. And hopefully at supper time we remember that the tables have stretched just a little bit further to our own homes. And tomorrow at breakfast we can think about some loved ones we've shared meals with and pray for them and their tables. We'll try to understand the immensity of God's love, and the multitude of ways God seeks to feed God's people. So that when we sit to eat, we remember.

And we're grateful.

To be blessed.

To be blessings.

To be connected.

And now we move towards God's table, to start this journey again. Thanks be to God who uses food and drink to remind us of what we need to know most. 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

October 1, 2023

[firstumcschenectady]

“Explaining Christmas“ based on Luke 2:1-12

One of the privileges I have this year is to explain Christmas to a 2 year old.  I'm aware many have done this before me, and at this point I'm pretty sure most have done it better than I have.  But, I've learned along the way that when I have to explain really complicated things to very small children I end up learning what I really think.

Now, I think the common answer to give a young child about Christmas is “It is Jesus' birthday.” Which seems legit, and I know my child has some grasp of birthdays. I am, however, less confident he has a grasp on Jesus.  And while I simply adore Marcus Borg's explanation that Jesus was “a Jewish mystic,” … well, that wasn't going to help.

And, if I'm honest, we may think of Christmas as Jesus' birthday, but that only matters because of who Jesus was.  For those who think of Jesus as fully human and fully Divine, Christmas could be summed up as God being born on earth.  A lot of Christian Christmas derives from this idea. It gives us the space to consider the vulnerability of life, and how dependent we are on each other.  For those awed by a powerful God becoming vulnerable as a newborn, it follows that the vulnerability of our humanity is in fact quite tender.

For me though, Jesus was a man who knew God intimately and taught of God and lived a God-centered life in profound ways that continue to be useful for knowing God even today.  And THAT, also, it turns out, doesn't translate well to a 2 year old.

So I found myself saying, “Christmas is when we celebrate someone who taught us about God's love.”  Well, I'm not entirely sure if I said God.  But I'm OK with that because I think the phrase “God's Love” is redundant.  

And, by the grace of God, that line got accepted, and I don't have to answer more questions.  Yet.  

Next year promises its own challenges.  ;)  I suspect by next year I'll be learning that my seminary degree and nearly 20 years of ministry experience are insufficient to the task.  I'll let you know.  

But for now, Phew!

And also, I'm sort of interested to learn what I really think of Christmas.

The Christmas stories in each Gospel are sometimes called “the Gospel in miniature” and they really do an amazing job establishing the setting, foreshadowing the story as a whole, and setting up the themes of the Gospels they begin.  Luke focuses on women and shepherds, the outcasts being the first to receive good news for all people, the looming presence and power of the Empire and its taxation methods, the cycle of birth and death as a way to talk about the fullness of life, humility, and the value of pondering the wondrous things of God.  I even see in the story the foreshadowing of Jesus rising from the tomb, as the animal feeding trough he is said to have been laid in at birth was BELOW the floor and chiseled out of rock.  He would have been lifted out of that to be held.  (I swoon a bit at this metaphor.)

So of the Christmas stories are Gospels in miniature, than what we say about Christmas is what we have to say about Jesus.  And if this implies that I think Jesus is “someone who taught us about (God's) love,” then I'm at peace with that conclusion.  (I'm also relieved to already be ordained and not have to attempt to justify this to a Board of Ordained Ministry).

There are a lot of fabulous nuances to this story, and I would have a ball playing with them. I'm entranced by the Isaiah passage and the space it gives us to connect birth and death as well as connecting the delivery of a child with the “delivery” of a nation into safety and well being.  AND I'm going to let it all rest.

Today we celebrate the birth of one one who taught us about God's love.  Today we celebrate one who taught us about God's love.  Today we celebrate God's love.  Thanks be to God, who is love.  Merry Christmas, and 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

December 25, 2022

[firstumcschenectady]

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

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

It is to you that God speaks.

It is to you that God has been speaking.

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

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

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

Take heart.

Take hope.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 23, 2022

[firstumcschenectady]

“Interconnected” based on James 1:17-27

Welcome to the book of James. It is one of my favorites, despite the fact that it takes away one of my best preaching tools. That is, I usually spend a lot of time explaining context and making sense of a scripture in the time and place it was written. But James is almost a form of wisdom literature. It is universal. So, we're able to spend our time on the ideas in the book directly.

James is written to the followers of Jesus in the diaspora – that is, those who lived outside of the Holy Land. The ones who had been DISPERSED from the land of their ancestors in faith. This feels relevant right now too. I don't know any church members at FUMC Schenectady who would claim modern Palestine or Israel as their native land, but I think that all of us are displaced from the “land” we once knew, and have not yet settled into the “land” we'll live in eventually. The Pandemic has displaced us all (although not all the same amount.)

In this opening chapter of the book of James, we are urged to LIVE our faith. James wants faith in ACTION. He urges people not to just listen to preachers ;) but to LIVE their faith, and he gets rather specific about it. James believes that people who are followers of Jesus should be acting out different values than the world's.

The crux of the advice from today's passage is “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.” For James, this is integral in what it means to be “religious” - right up there with caring about God's beloveds who the world doesn't value (“widows and orphans.”)

As far as I can figure it out, the work of Christians is to build the kindom of God. The kindom, sometimes called the beloved community, is God's vision for the world. We will know it is here when the power of love overcomes the love of power; when the abundant resources of the world are used for the good of all people; when kin-ship connections cross all boundaries; when the poorest and most vulnerable people have enough to survive and thrive; when no one has to teach anyone about God because God is known by all. The kindom is God's long term plan for us, and our work to get there happens in two broad ways: first, by creating Christian communities where we practice kin-dom values and treat each other like we're already there and second by working with God to share love, to seek mercy, and advocate for justice so that the world is healed.

One of the parts of kindom building that can be hard sometimes is that it requires seeing clearly what the world is like now. We have to do this so we can hold it in tension with how God would have the world be in the kindom, but often the aching pain of the world as it is can be hard to let ourselves see clearly. For instance, we can't work towards a world without rape and violence unless we admit that we live in a world with rape and violence, and that there are barriers to changing it. So, we seek to see clearly. We seek to see how things are AND how God wants them to be.

Now, I don't want to shock you or anything, but the United States is a highly individualistic society. (The kindom is not.) We in the US have proven to the world how terribly individualism works – time and time again. Including in our responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

You might think that if you were looking at this pandemic with clear eyes that you would see that none of us can be well unless all of us are well- that we are collectively only as healthy as the least healthy among us – that every act of protection and prevention has enormous ripple effects. However, if we had learned this lesson, we'd be spending as much as possible to make it feasible to vaccinate every willing person in the world as soon as possible. We'd even do this before triple vaccinating our own population, because slowing down the spread of the virus is the most important way to keep everyone safe, healthy, and alive. The well being of all and the well being of the USA actually align! Yet, we miss the mark.

The book of James has an interesting perspective on the relationship that Christians have to the world. In the face of the injustices of the Roman Empire, the wealth inequality, the slavery, the power imbalances, the death rates of the poor, James urges the faithful … not to get angry.

I find that my first instinct is to argue with this a little bit. “Are you sure?” “What about when...?” Yet, even as I argue, I am convicted by this passage.

Society is rife with anger. Anger is pulling us apart at the seams. Some of the anger, I'd argue, is “righteous.” It is a response to injustice that needs to be seen, acknowledged, named, and addressed. We'll talk about that in a moment.

Most of the anger is misplaced. The anger is being used to create groups of “us” that stand against “them,” and those distinctions dismiss that everyone in both groups are beloveds of God. The anger is being used to provoke fear, sell products, pass unjust laws, and elect politicians. The anger is being USED.

And James points out directly that the people who want others to get angry are selling them on the idea that if they get angry enough, they will provoke God to action. James says it won't work though. God will act when God will act, and furthermore, prayer is a better way to go about it. Anger serves the people promoting it, not God.

But what about righteous anger? As I've been saying recently, anger is a “secondary” emotion. That is, it exists like a red flag to mark a place where something that is held precious is being violated. It lets us know when our values are attacked, and underneath that is another emotion. Most often anger is there to act as the bodyguard to sadness or the diversion to fear.

Sadness and fear are sufficient. They can guide us to good action, they can show us the ways of compassion, they can help us grow together. They are wise enough, that once we find them, we can let go of the anger that guided us to them.

Which means that the way to be “slow to anger” is often to identify anger, and then sit with it and find out what is underneath it. It means that we sometimes need to listen – to ourselves and our tender emotions. God is there, with us when we listen, with us when we feel, with us when we discover what is under our anger. This is, even, a form of God's healing, God's salve in our lives.

Of course, “be slow to anger” is the third piece of advice we're given in today's passage. The first two are to be quick to listen and slow to speak. It seems clear that James' advice is aimed at faith COMMUNITIES, because his advice is aimed at deepening and maintaining good relationships among the followers of Jesus.

For the past several years, I have participated in “listening circles.” These intentional spaces have careful guidelines that are aimed at making sure there is holy and sacred space for listening – and speaking. At times there have been 20 or 30 people in these circles, and you might think that there would be a lot more speaking than listening. But, there isn't. Often there are prolonged silences between speakers, and they feel like time to absorb the wisdom one beloved of God has offered. When the obligation to have a response is taken away, along with the tendency toward chit-chat, there is spaciousness for silence and listening.

When I hear James say, “be quick to listen, slow to speak” I think of how healing those circles have been in my life. I love being freed from having to have a response to something someone says, and instead just listen to them and receive their wisdom. And, when I do speak into such a space, I am astounded at the power that comes with being heard with love.

As much as I have loved these experiences though, it isn't clear to me how to live “be quick to listen, slow to speak” ALL the time. Really listening to another of God's beloveds takes energy and attention, and … let's be honest dear ones, those are finite resources!!! We will drain ourselves if we try to listen WELL all the time. (I've tried.)

That said, there is a being who is capable of listening with complete attention, and full energy, with love and compassion, with care and support – all day, every day, to all of us. God, the creator, sustainer, redeemer has gifted us with life, and God is with us breathing new life into us day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and even second by second. When we seek God in prayer and meditation, we find that God is close at hand, ready and able to offer us healing. When all we have to offer are sighs too deep for words, God knows what we mean. When we are full of words, God listens until we have exhausted them. When we are able to be with the Divine in holy silence, God meets us there. And, of course, when what we offer God is our listening, …

well, that's when things really start to happen ;)

James encourages us to an active faith – not just to worship God once a week, but to live out faith in every day. He reminds us that the very people the world dismisses (the “widows and orphans”) are the ones that followers of Christ take care of. James doesn't hate the world – though he isn't impressed with it either - but he doesn't think being angry with it is going to change it. James encourages the people of faith to act differently. Take care of the struggling and vulnerable, listen deeply, speak with intention, slow down anger and learn its lessons instead of acting it out. Don't replicate the brokenness of the world – change it.

So, dear ones of God, I invite you to God's restoration, God's healing of the world, God's work of the Kindom: be quick to listen; be slow to speak; be slow to anger. With such “simple” acts as these, we can heal the world. May God help us. Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

September 5, 2021

[firstumcschenectady]

“Friend, Lover, Parent” based on Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Who is the best friend you've ever had? The one who listened to what you said and what you didn't say, the one who could make you laugh with a simple look, the one you trusted to tell you the truth even when you didn't want to hear it, and trusted to have your back even if you'd done something wrong??

I hope for you that you have had such a friend, and that if you haven't, that you WILL have such a friend. I hope you have enough such friends it is hard to figure out who is the best. But whether such a friendship has lasted your whole life, or it was a short lived one, or even one you read about rather than experienced directly, I invite you to consider how it felt.

Keb' Mo's song “One Friend” has the refrain:

All I need is one friend To get me through the Day One friend That never goes away Only one friend To understand And never let me down

The whole is a better place with a friend, and it is a whole lot less lonely. One of the “universal human needs” is “shared reality” and when I think of friendship, I often think of it as centering around “shared reality.” Well, that and “affection” and “humor.”

There is an intimacy to friendship, a joy in being known and seen and in seeing and knowing another. It makes life meaningful. And fun. Friendships make space for authenticity, imperfection, emotions, spontaneity, and general quirkiness. They let us be who we are, and help us let go of who we're supposed to be.

The primary metaphor for God in Christianity is of God the Father. When we're being expansive that becomes God as Parent, and occasionally God as Mother. But the primary metaphor is a top down one. God sets the rules, God sits in judgement, God knows better than we do.

In their essence, a lot of arguments I hear within The United Methodist could easily be boiled down to, “Do you believe in a Daddy-knows-best (Paternalistic)sort of God or in an everyones-opinions-and-needs-are-valued-here (egalitarian) sort of God?” They're both parenting styles, and they largely buy in to the “God as Parent” metaphor.

At one point in my life, a friend who belongs to the Self-Realization Fellowship asked I was at that particular time most connected to God through the metaphor of parent, the metaphor of lover, or the metaphor as friend. This was his take on the usefulness of the Trinitarian model, and I rather like it. He put the three metaphors on equal footing, and when he entered into prayer and meditation, checked with himself to see which aspect of the Divine was accessible to him at that point.

The passage from the Song of Songs seems to guide us a little bit more towards the God-as-lover metaphor, but I decided to start with friendship because I think the point of BOTH is intimacy. Our culture brings so much baggage to sexuality and romance that it can become hard to shake off the baggage and see what's underneath it.

Also, despite the extensive tradition of sexualizing one's spirituality (today most visible in “Jesus is my boyfriend” music, historically most visible in mystic monasticism), I prefer to think of the two as informing each other rather than overlapping.

The best part of our intimate relationships (friendships or sexual/romantic relationships) teach us useful skills that we can bring to our spirituality. The best parts of our spiritual connection with the Divine helps us bring our fullest self to other intimate relationships.

Every experience we have of mutuality, of connection, of love, and of intimacy makes possible the next one. As we build our capacity to trust “the Other” with ourselves, we get better at trust. And all of these things – mutuality, connection, love, intimacy, and trust are aspects of friendship, of sexual and/or romantic relationships, and of our spirituality.

As people, we YEARN for connection. We're also scared of it. And that applies to people and to God!

The book Song of Solomon is a series of erotic love poems. For many people, it is a surprise to find it in the Bible! And yet, many, many, MANY of our ancestors in faith considered it the pinnacle of the Bible itself. Many interpreters try to spiritualize the erotic text, taking one of the lovers as the Nation of Israel, or the Church, or a single person of faith, and God as the other lover. I'm less interested in those interpretations, and far more interested in the ones that think that the Song is about two human lovers.

If the Song of Songs is about two human lovers who appreciate each other's love, and bodies, and passion, then it is in the Bible as a reminder that the love of PEOPLE can open us to the love of God and the love of God can open us to the love of people. Also, if it is a celebration of physical love, then we are quite simply reminded of the potential goodness of physical love and in our society, that's an imperative reminder.

Dear ones, I believe the point here is quite simple: nurture healthy love where-ever you find it. Celebrate healthy love at every opportunity. Make time for love, make space for love, and make love a priority. Because love nurtures love, and love is what matters.

Thanks be to the God of love and relationships. 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

August 31, 2021

[firstumcschenectady]

“Blessings of the Journey” based on Psalm 84

Psalm 84 is one of those rare pieces of scripture that doesn't change meaning from first glance to last look. It is straight forward. The speaker, likely a pilgrim on a the way to Jerusalem, names the wonders of “God's house,” and is jealous of the birds who are able to roost on the Temple mount, and stay there forever.

The Psalmist names the joy of just being on the journey to Zion, an extension of the joy of Zion itself, and then asks for blessings for those on their journeys.

The Psalmist expresses clear and profound love of God, and gratitude for connection to the Divine and things of the Divine.

The commentators, who have to find something to say, mentioned how incredibly rare rain is in Israel around the time of the Festival of Tabernacles. That's OK though. It just makes it more profound when the Psalmist says that in the dry valley along the way, unexpected early rains come and pools and springs of water bring blessings.

The Psalm assumes that the Temple in Jerusalem is God's house, that the presence of God actually resides there. This was never universally accepted in Jewish thought, and Jesus carefully articulated that God is everywhere, but the idea persists. It is even a bit expansive. Many people think of all churches and worship centers as uniquely containing the presence of God. Likely, on some subconscious levels, we do too.

Or maybe they aren't only subconscious. There are definitely PLACES where I feel God's presence more easily than in the rest of the world. I BELIEVE that God is everywhere, but my human and finite being notices better in some places than others. Our sanctuary is one of them. I can almost hear the heartbeat of this faith community when I sit in silent prayer in our sanctuary, and the heartbeat of this church opens my spirit to God.

This pandemic has closed us off from so many PLACES, some of them our holy places. Parents send their kids to schools or day cares they've never been allowed into. Hospitals limit or refuse visitors. Buildings are closed, or limited use, or require approval to enter. This year our camps refused visitors and during retreat season required reservations to just take a walk. And, of course, our beautiful sanctuary lies quietly in wait for our return to it.

I think we may be in a good position to hear the Psalm's yearning. Whether or not God specially resides in our sanctuary (hint: no), the sanctuary is a place of worship, prayer, beauty, and safety that opens many of our hearts to God. 17 months after closing it for regular worship, we aren't unlike regular pilgrims hoping for a glimpse of the Temple. The actual church mice, and occasional church bats, have had far better access than we have!

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. Selah

The Temple was creation themed. It was designed to celebrate the God who created all that is. Sort of an interesting premise, huh? That the Temple was ONE place that celebrated ALL places, and people from ALL places came to that ONE place to offer praise?

Pilgrimage is a significant part of many faith traditions, and those who lived in ancient Israel would have known it well. Only the residents of Jerusalem had regular access to the Temple. Others had to make INTENTIONAL trips, and often made them for festivals.

Because the journey was aimed at connection with God and faithfulness in ritual, the journey itself was sanctified.

Friends, I think this is where we stand.

We're on a journey towards the places of God, with the people of God, and the place we stand is holy but it isn't where we are going to stay.

Luckily, the journey itself is sacred. It has meaning. It has purpose. It matters.

Much like walking a labyrinth, the journey IN and the journey OUT often matter as much as the moments in the center.

Some people never managed to make it to the Temple. For them, the closest thing was hearing the Psalms of the pilgrimage, the Psalms of Ascent, and finding their own meaning in them.

It is the meaning that matters. It is remembering that God is on the journey and not just the destination. It is noticing the unexpected blessings along the way – the early rains, the springs in the desert's dry valleys, the strength of God, the hearts of the people.

This pilgrimage isn't always where people want to be This one feels more like exile. This one has gone on too long.

But it is still a journey with God, from God's place, to God's place, with God's people. And it is a blessed journey. And there are early rains.

Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion.

Bless us, Holy God. Hear our prayers. Hold up the hurting. Find a way for the broken. Help compassion reign in the world. Hear our prayers.

Journeys are long and frightening, and they change us along the way. Guide us, Holy One.

O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed.

The best part of life is being connected with the God of Love and Life. Connections and relationships are what matter. Not important positions, or lovely possessions. Connections to God, to each other, and to creation. That's what feels like being in God's own house.

God gives us life, and makes it worthwhile. God gifts us, and helps us. God is worthy of our trust. And the journey itself is blessed, and a blessing. It will prepare us for the next place we arrive at.

For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor. No good thing does the LORD withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.

Holy one bless our journeys, and the places they take us. Amen

August 22, 2021

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

[firstumcschenectady]

“Every. Single. Time.” based on Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

As far as I can tell, the stories of the wandering in the desert are stories of the people learning dependence on God. Many of the stories of Exodus repeat the narrative “(1) Something was wrong, the people were worried. (2) The people complained. (3) God provided.” Since deserts aren't super hospitable to life, they make sense as places people can learn their dependence. The writer of Deuteronomy ends up worrying that once the people enter the “land of milk and honey” they'll forget that they are dependent on God. In the early centuries of Christianity the “Desert Fathers and Mothers” returned to the desert to seek connection with the Divine, and learn again the lessons of dependence.

Historically, there are some reasons to question the overarching narrative of the 40 year wandering in the desert. It may be MORE true that some of the proto-Israelites were desert nomads for a prolonged time in their history, and some of the proto-Israelites were slaves who had escaped from Egypt, and some of the proto-Israelites were Canaanites who decide to follow YHWH when the nomads and former slaves told their stories about YHWH. I rather like this idea, because it is pretty easy to see how nomadic hunter-gatherers in a harsh desert climate would definitely experience the gift of life as a gift from God. And, that their descendants who lived a more settled and fertile existence could relatively quickly change their minds about how lucky they are to be simply alive.

I rather like how these stories begin. The people are frightened for their lives. There is a lack of FOOD or WATER, and those are seriously dangerous lacks. The stories present frightened people as appropriately and realistically negative. They grumble. They mumble. They complain. They romanticize their former lives. In this case, they say, “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." And, I'll admit, I feel for Moses and Aaron. That ISN'T FAIR. It isn't even TRUE. But, I also feel for the people, because when humans are frightened for their lives, they really can't be held accountable for being “unfair” much less have reasonable perspective.

In these Exodus stories, every single time, God intervenes and provides. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Sometimes Moses and Aaron get annoyed, sometimes God gets annoyed, sometimes as a reader it gets annoying that they don't learn how to trust faster, but God provides EVERY SINGLE TIME.

And I have some feelings about that, because in our world today there is both an abundance of food and an abundance of hunger. Based on both the stories of our faith and the miraculous food producing capacity of the earth, I'm pretty sure that the story is STILL that God provides. But... human beings get in the way. We hoard (the US government is one of the worst), we promote “competition” for who gets to eat, we blame the hungry for being hungry, and we permit wealth to rise to the top no matter the cost to the bottom.

God provides.

Humans intercept.

The challenge is not scarcity – there is enough. There is MORE than enough. The problem is distribution . That is, the problem is acting out the belief that all people are worthy of surviving and thriving, as beloveds of God.

Around here, we try to do our part to change that story. We promote the humanity and belovedness of all people. We have a free breakfast, and we give people extra food to help them make it through the week. We advocate for policies to alleviate hunger everywhere in the world. We donate to SICM and help with summer lunches. We educate ourselves about food distribution, and work with “Bread for the World.” Our tithes and offerings promote justice and compassion programs around the world, and our extra gifts to UMCOR just add on to it.

But, it is a big problem and there is lot of work to be done to BOTH feed all of God's people AND change policies so we don't allow anyone to be hungry.

Some of the reason I said all that is because it is true. Another reason is because I'm about to take this story metaphorically, and I could not do so in good faith until I also took the literal meaning of hungry people seriously as well. Especially now when A LOT more people are hungry world wide then were before the pandemic.

When I first considered this passage, my attention was drawn to that complaining and yearning for Egypt. It seemed worth talking about our yearning for what used to be, and how the yearning can erase the realities of the past – things like slavery for example. Much of what I hear, and a good portion of what I experience these days is a yearning for pre-pandemic times. Recently, after I'd shared a bit about how odd it was to give birth during a pandemic and how unexpected parenting a baby during a pandemic has been, a perspective person said, “Well, and you got pregnant before the pandemic, you didn't sign up for any of this.”

I sighed with relief, like you do when someone really understands. Also, I think that applies to all of us a little bit. The things we were thinking about, planning, and even worrying about 2 years ago all changed on us in early 2020. And we didn't sign up for this! The stressors and conflicts we live now we wouldn't have been able to dream 2 years ago. And we didn't sign up for this.

2 years ago wasn't great. It really wasn't. There were serious injustices happening, and the things we were worried about were real. Comparatively though, I see why we want to go back. I can even see why the people grumbling in the desert would have wanted to go back. With death looming, anything else looks better. But Egypt wasn't their future, it was their past. And we aren't going back to pre-pandemic times either.

The wandering in the desert, as the story says, was important for forming the people, forming their faith, teaching them their dependence on God. It got them ready for the Promised Land, but it was so hard and so terrifying, there were a lot of times they thought going back was worth it. Without knowing what the Promised Land would be like, or when they would get there, the only things they knew were the terrifying lack of resources of the desert and the utter oppression of slavery.

For most of us, our pre-pandemic times weren't THAT bad, but I hear people saying now, “Having had a break from it all, I don't want to live like that anymore.” We're different. We've been formed by this time in the desert. We're still being formed by this time in the desert. I'm not sure when the Promised Land is coming.

As much as the desire to go back to Egypt caught my initial attention, I couldn't help but notice that it is only the beginning of this story. This isn't the story of landing in the Promised Land. This is a story of having God provide. This is a story of there being BREAD on the ground in the desert that would sustain the people AND quails flying overhead for protein, and both of them being gifts of life from the God of life. (In the desert, where other people didn't interfere with God's gifts.)

This is the story where God says, “'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.'" And then when it happened, and the bread showed up, the people said, “What is it??????”

And this is where I think God is leading me today.

We're in the desert, dear ones. Whatever our roles and circumstances were in Egypt, it is far behind. Whatever our roles and circumstances will be in the Promised Land, we aren't there yet. We are DEEP in the desert, learning our dependence on God. And that means that God is giving us gifts that we desperately need to survive.

And most likely we're responding along the lines of “Huh?” or “What is THAT?” Or “I'm not sure I want that.” Maybe more than anything we're thinking, “I'd rather have bread from Pereccas, or Gershons, or Friehofers.” These gift that God is giving, we might not even recognize them. We might not want them. We might be a little horrified.

Today's story ends with Moses telling the confused and hungry people, “It is the bread that YHWH has given to you to eat.”

What is the bread that God is giving to you to eat right now? How are you feeling about it?

Holy One, help us see what you are giving us, and help us receive nourishment from what you offer. We are tired, weary, weak, and frightened people. Your nourishment is what we need to go on, and we know that this desert wandering is not your final plan for us. Amen

August 1, 2021

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