#Thinking Church

[firstumcschenectady]

“Context is Everything” based on Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Luke 19:28-40

I grew up understanding Palm Sunday to be a “yay Jesus” parade, and with a vague sense of confusion about how the “yay Jesus” on Sunday became the “crucify him” by Friday. Luckily, I came across “The Last Week” by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan and they taught me about a whole lot of things I was missing.

The most important thing I was missing in understanding Palm Sunday was CONTEXT. First of all, Passover. This year Passover started last night, and it is really good when the Jewish calendar and the (adapted) Christian Calendar line up because our stories from this week are all connected to Passover.

Passover is the Jewish celebration of God freeing the people from oppression and leading them into freedom and self-governance under a system of justice and equity. Specifically it is the freedom from the oppression in Egypt, but it turns out that that specificity is and is not important.

In the time of Jesus, Galilee and Judea were under the control of the Roman Empire. And while the Roman Empire would have stated things quite differently, emphasizing how great the Roman Empire was for all the people in it (uh huh…), the people disagreed. They noticed how the tax rates impoverished the poor to enrich the elite. They noticed how the military that “kept the peace” did so by silencing people’s basic concerns. They noticed that more and more people were dying of starvation. They noticed that their religion was being used to support the Empire, when clearly the God they knew wasn’t in favor of all the ways that justice and equity were being ripped away from the people.

And, despite all of the propaganda to the contrary, the Roman Empire knew all this too. Which is why when the major Jewish holiday of “The Passover” came up every year, and massive numbers of Jewish pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate God’s acts of liberation for God’s people, the Empire got antsy.

Like authoritarian regimes do when the people gather, particularly when the people gather together to celebrate FREEDOM.

Anyway, it was the Empire’s tradition that the Roman Authorities of the Day would gather in Jerusalem during Passover as well, along with some extra military power, to discourage people from getting any ideas about their God’s capacity to overthrow THIS oppressor.

Furthermore, the normal seat of power in the area was on the Mediterranean Sea, so coming to Jerusalem required moving. And if you are going to move the authorities, and the military, into the city where you want people to remember you still hold the power, you might as well do the moving as a big happy parade, right?

This is the second supper important piece of context. Before the Passover, every year, there would be a massive parade coming in from the West. Pilate, the Roman appointed Governor of the province of Judea had an Imperial Procession to accompany him – soldiers on gleaming horses, drumlins in union, glittering silver and gold on crests, golden eagles (the symbol of Rome) mounted on pole. 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.”

Thus, even the entrance into the city emphasized the power and authority of Pilate and Caesar and served to discourage the people from getting TOO excited about Passover and its basic meaning.

And this happened every year. People knew it happened every year. People knew that the authorities were big on shows of power, and the authorities counted on the shows of power to discourage the people and encourage compliance with authority.

Jesus knew this too.

I am pretty sure Jesus also knew that creating a mockery of the Parade of Roman Authority would not endear him to the Roman Authorities.

But it would diminish the power of the parade to intimidate, it would give voice to the needs of the people, it would remind the people that the God of the Passover was still with them.

And Jesus that breaking up the illusions of the Empire for the sake of reminding people of the power of God was worth it.

So he staged a counter-parade, one to come in from the East instead of the West.

His had no military to threaten the people with violence, instead it had cloaks on the road showing people’s profound, unforced trust in Jesus.

His had no gleaming trained horses, just an untried colt, according to the other gospels a young donkey. Now, make no mistake, this wasn’t just a contrast with the Western Parade. It also fulfilled an expectation about the Messiah. Zechariah 9:9 says:

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.

So, in riding on that colt, Jesus was reminding the people of what a King was supposed to look like to the Jewish people, and what the Roman Empire was NOT offering them afterall.

In response, instead of those golden eagle banners on display coming in from the West, the people waved Palm Branches, both easily accessible and historically a symbol of Ancient Israel.

And then, finally, whereas the shouts coming in from the West exulted Caesar, the ones coming in from the East exulted God and God’s servant, “"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"

Once you see this, you can’t unsee it. Also, once you see it, you get a better sense of why the Roman Authorities saw Jesus as a threat to their power, right? Palm Sunday is no where near as far from Good Friday as I thought it was as a child.

Now, at the end of Luke’s version of this Palm Sunday story, we hear, “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."

I want to remind us all that in Luke, the Pharisees were Jesus-friendly. They were making a practical and pragmatic suggestion that may well have functioned to save Jesus’ life if it was followed. They were reading the situation correctly. They wanted to help.

Jesus replies that the momentum has taken over and can’t be stopped, and we can note he also decided not to try.

I want to offer one more piece of context into this story, in this case into the whole story of Holy Week, and this one instead of coming from the scholarship of Borg and Crossan comes from the wisdom of our Disciple Bible Study group. Our texts all suggest that the Jewish authorities of the day were a part of the arrest and condemnation of Jesus. Only the Roman Empire could crucify a person, so we know that the Roman Empire killed Jesus, but all of our scriptures say they acted with the Jewish authorities.

The most important piece of context around this information is that the Jewish authorities of the day were PUT IN PLACE BY ROME to SERVE ROME and were REPLACED when they were insufficiently loyal to ROME. So it is really, really, really, REALLY important to distinguish between Jewish “authorities authorized by Rome” and “the Jews.” The failure to make that distinction has been deadly for our Jewish siblings in faith.

But I think, based on our conversations at Disciple, that it is possible to take this even a step further. In 70 CE a revolt against the Roman Empire emerged in Jerusalem and the response from the Roman Empire was a massacre and destruction of Jerusalem in a way that still has impact to this day.

I think it is possible that the Jewish authorities who were authorized by Rome and judged on their loyalty to Rome were still, in fact, trying to do their best by their own people and protect them as much as they could. Those leaders saw clearly what would happen if a revolt or revolution got out of control, and they didn’t want to see their people massacred.

Which is to say, it is possible to look at the position of the High Priest and his family, and others who were complicit in being loyal to Rome and probably condemning Jesus and, well, seeing why they did it. And that their intention was to protect their people.

Isn’t that a bit uncomfortable? Furthermore, the sect of Judaism that was in power during the life of Jesus was the Sadducees, but that tends to get misconstrued in the gospels because the Sadducees were so completely wiped out when Rome destroyed Jerusalem that the writers of the Gospels seem to have forgotten about them.

Jesus, clearly, had decided that it was time to defy the authorities, empower the people, and remind everyone of the wonders of God. Other people thought that was too dangerous, and it was going to get them all killed.

Because in systems of oppression no decision is easy or clear, and lots of decisions are between bad and worse, and they were operating in a system of oppression.

Which, beloveds of God, is a very good set up for Easter. Because in the end the authorities of the day can threaten violence, can threaten death, and are far too often capable of inflicting both. But on Easter we remember that not even death can stop the work of God in the world.

But, that’s for next week.

For this week, I think, our primary task is to dream a little bit about what kinds of protests, what actions of disobedience, what teaching and empowering of the people TODAY would count as following in the footsteps of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. It is more than a little terrifying, and I have a lot of compassion for those Sadducee leaders, but I’m a follower of Jesus and that includes following his lead in protesting systems of oppression and reminding people that God cannot be stopped.

So, what forms of protest and disobedience is God calling you to?

May we listen well. Amen

April 13, 2025

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

[ef-1]

Rip Pope Francis thank you for staying alive just long enough to tell JD Vance to fuck himself and then implicating him in your death

[ptr-sqloint]

acheiropoieton, still alive in the crypt.

[zillychu]

everyone sh. shutd up im cooking smthn

[mellosghosts]

this is what you get for dating an atheist

original

[mochiiniko]

windows and glaciers

[sage-nebula]

Let's talk about Toriel.

Toriel is a grown woman, a mother of two. She teaches kindergarten at the local school, and volunteers at the local church as part of the choir. She is recently divorced. Her oldest child has recently gone off to college, and her youngest is:

Adopted from a young age

A different species

Known for pulling pranks and otherwise causing trouble, sometimes to great expense (e.g. bath bombs in the toilet)

Despite this, Toriel loves her youngest child as though they were her biological child. She checked out a "how to care for humans" book many, many times over the course of parenting Kris. She drives them to school each day, makes sure they're fed and cared for, and is clearly invested in their social life given how excited she is to learn that they've made a friend. As a newly single mother, she's doing her best.

But let's talk about her being newly single, shall we? She recently divorced her husband, Asgore. Unfortunately, Asgore has not accepted this. Toriel is being stalked by her ex-husband; he keeps giving her unwanted bouquets of flowers, and showing up wherever she goes. He even lampshades this, as though it's funny, when he pops out from hiding in the bushes near the church, after knowing that she would be there. Every time he does this, Toriel responds with obvious discomfort and anxiety, and makes an excuse to get away as quickly as she can. Asgore's behavior seems goofy and "well-meaning," but he is clearly ignoring his ex-wife's boundaries and actively disrupting her living her life by showing up where he knows she'll be, uninvited and unwanted.

So Toriel is recently divorced, with one child off to college, and another child who is clearly not doing well (despite Toriel's best efforts) still at home. She is being stalked by her ex-husband, but in such a way that it comes across as "friendly" or "kind" to everyone else, meaning she can't really make a big fuss about it or she'll look like the bad guy.

Then a new guy moves to town. He's friendly, he's funny, and they hit it off immediately. And unlike everyone else in town, this is a friend that doesn't have a connection to Asgore. (Rudy was Asgore's friend first, after all; it's not as if Toriel can really open up to him about how much his best friend is really putting the ass in Asgore.) This is someone that she can open up to, someone that she can confide in, someone that she can let a little loose with. Because she can't let loose at school, around the children; she can't let loose at church, in front of the wider community; but with a friend, in her own home?

And Sans is non-judgmental. Sans likes her jokes. As mentioned, Sans doesn't know Asgore, so he's not going to be inclined to brush off Toriel's concerns or discomfort because "well he just really loves you" or "he's just being kind." (Not to mention, Asgore also trauma dumped to Sans a bit, making Sans visibly uncomfortable as well, so Sans might even be more inclined to hear Toriel's side.) Sans knows about responsibility, given that this version of Papyrus seems to have issues of his own, and therefore perhaps Sans can relate with Toriel on how it is taking care of someone when you love them, but you don't exactly know how best to help them. Finally, Toriel has someone in her corner, someone who can understand, who she can have fun with.

Toriel isn't one of the main characters, and she's a grown woman and a mother (figure) at that, so I feel like it's easy to dismiss her side of things. Was it great that she was drunk when Kris came home, or that she and Sans continued partying even after Kris tried going to bed? No. But Toriel is a person, a whole entire person with a life outside of being Kris' mother. She's allowed to not always be on her best behavior, and she's allowed to make and spend time with a new friend when she, too, is pretty isolated as a result of her divorce and clearly stressed with the fact that Asgore is stalking her. ("Trying to win her back" is not, it turns out, an excuse for stalker behavior.) Toriel even tells Kris that the house feels lonely now that it's just the two of them, meaning that she, too, has been plagued with loneliness just like the main cast, and that Sans is, perhaps, her Susie.

Toriel is not an awful, uncaring mother because she got a little silly drunk with the first friend that is truly hers since her divorce. She's just a person. And she's allowed to be a person.

[technically-human]

Edwin after the confession is a menace

Bonus Charles being normal about it:

[yak-leather-whips]

Guys, its not some fucking “bad luck devil” or whatever. It’s clearly this fucking time gargler or whatever the fuck that’s behind all this nonsense. Aguefort literally lays it out for us that the quangle makes things happen out of order. Things like, say…Zelda and Gorgug being broken up even though we know from the Seven that they’re still together in Junior year, or Aelwyn suddenly moving out and going from a snarky 19 year old whose never had a job or gone to college to a middle school teacher with 5 cats in the course of 3 months, or the sophomore album being 10 months late even though Fig only finished her debut a little over 16 months ago AND they were in the middle of the tour, or Hallariel and Gilear getting engaged after like a year when 3 months ago Gilear wasn’t even allowed to sleep in her bed, and Sklonda defending one of the organizers of this folk festival when the festival hasn’t even happened yet, or Figs birthday suddenly moving from Christmas to July.

[teethburied]

rust + hallucinations

[chetney-pockopea]

Pitying the poor ardent who has to symmetrical-ise Kal’s name now he’s a herald. Kalalak. Kala’alak. Kaladidalak. None of these are good options. There’s already a Kalak, even. Religious scholars are gonna HATE this.

[firstumcschenectady]

“It. Is. Well.” based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Luke 4:-13

If I rewrote the temptation of Jesus story for today, it could sound a little different:

The tempter said to Jesus, “If you are the son of God, scan social media for updates about your friends and ignore all rabbit holes and clickbait.” Jesus answered, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love… so, no.” (Hosea 10:12a)

The tempter said to Jesus, “Here is the world on a piece of paper, it is called the newspaper. Read this and tell me again that God is good.” Jesus answered, “God’s steadfast love endures forever, and God’s faithfulness for all generations - and that truth is deeper than any news.”

The tempter said to Jesus, “Here is a way to protect yourself, to get yourself out of the messes all around you.” And Jesus said, like Jesus liked to say, “Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.”

That is, I think that a significant temptation facing us today is the temptation to become overwhelmed, to slide into despair, or to become self-protective. As many have pointed out, that temptation has been handed to us on a golden platter by those who believe that having us overwhelmed and mired in despair means we will be more compliant, but even knowing that, it is hard to stay centered.

And, I want to make space to say, I don’t think any of us can stay centered all the time and we all have different vulnerabilities, different access to resources, and different levels of tolerance, and with GOOD REASON some of us can’t find our centers very much at all. Or ever. Which isn’t any sort of personal failing, it is just that being attacked is dis-regulating.

Some of you are already familiar with the story behind the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul,” but as I think it is otherwise an odd choice of chorus for our gathering hymn for Lent, I want to tell the story again. Horatio Spafford’s life was a bit like Job’s. (Grimace) Spafford had 5 children and a lot of wealth. One of his children died, and then much of the wealth went up in smoke in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Two years later the family traveled to England but Horatio sent his wife and remaining children ahead of him while he finished some work. Their ship sank and all of his children died. His wife was saved. When he followed, and his ship traveled over the waters where his children died, he stood on deck and watched. And it is said that the song came to him then and there.

Now, I fear that the story can be a little bit too poignant, and someone could take from it that grief and loss are to be ignored or dismissed, and a person of sufficient faith can face any disaster with poise and grace. I don’t mean ANY of that. I think that any grief comes in waves, and sometimes one finds a grace-filled peace and sometimes one finds the depths of despair. And I don’t think being a person of faith insulates anyone from disaster or being deeply impacted by it.

I do think though, that somewhere within us is a piece of our being that is connected directly to the Divine – some people call it soul – and nothing in the world can damage our souls. Our bodies can be harmed, our minds can be harmed, sometimes even our so called “spirits” can be broken, but nothing in the world can damage our souls. And we all have them.

One of the reasons to engage in Contemplative Prayer is to allow the soul – who knows God intimately – the space to offer guidance to our beings as a whole. Another is to find that “peace like a river” that our souls know but usually our whole beings can’t access.

The Quakers have done a lot of work in thinking about and learning about souls in this sort of definition. One of the things they teach is that souls are SHY. They get compared to wild animals, who spook easily, trust hesitantly, and need a lot of space. Some of the continued education time I’ve engaged with while here at First UMC Schenectady has been devoted to “soul-work,” led by the Center for Courage and Renewal which was founded on the teachings of Quaker Parker Palmer.

Courage and Renewal engages in practices to let our soul-wisdom out. Their retreats include a lot of silence, time for journaling and art, and the use of “third things.” Third things are some sort of art – music or poetry or paintings, etc – that are used as a vehicle for reflection and as an indirect way to seek soul wisdom. People have a chance to notice aspects of the art, notice the feelings they have in response to the art, and wonder a bit about the connection. A practice like this is part of our offering on Wednesdays in Lent, a space with lots of silence, some intentional questions, and plenty of spaciousness. Those shy souls might feel safe enough to peak out!

The wonder of the work I’ve done with Courage and Renewal has been in learning that when one soul peaks out, other souls get really curious and are more likely to do their own peaking out as well. The wisdom of one soul is never exactly like the wisdom of another soul, but nevertheless they recognize that type of wisdom and their “ears” perk right up.

In an ideal world, this sort of wonder would happen every week in worship too, and I think to some degree it does. But worship doesn’t have quiet enough silence, or patience, for it to happen a lot. Nevertheless, grace appears because God is like that, and sometimes we’re really able to share our deepest truths and be heard by others deepest listening.

Dear ones, the point I’m trying to make may be a little obscure this time, so let me attempt to be clearer. Deep within you there is an unbreakable connection to the Divine. You may have other language for it, today I’m calling it soul. While the upheavals of the world can do profound damage to you, they can’t hurt your soul. Your soul might hide more deeply within you, or be more shy about sharing its wisdom, but it can’t be hurt! It can’t be hurt by distressing decisions or outrageous news or even by direct harm to you.

Because God’s own self is a part of you, and God is bigger and stronger and more loving than anything in the world could ever stop.

Which is why, in the middle of Lent, in a time when it feels like our society and the world are rolling backward, I think it is really important to sing, “It is well, it is well, with my soul.” I also think it is a great time to engage in contemplative prayer practices that help us connect with the Divine, with our own souls, and with peace.

All of which helps us feel the truth of “it is well, it is well, with my soul.” Because the wonderful thing is, it always is, always, no matter what. Thanks be to God. Amen

March 9, 2025

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

[maalidoesart]

I am what God made me

very much inspired by one of my favorite manga artworks:

https://x.com/shirahamakamome/status/1894770502369214690?s=46&t=rgrqd0uE0eOp-oGkBhiPTA

[opens-up-4-nobody]

:-P

[potato-lord-but-not]

sorryyyy sorry sorry

[softestaries]

do we think matt even realised it was wilson fisk he was taking a bullet for or was he reliving the same night foggy got shot all over again, except this time daredevil got there fast enough to stop it?

he saved his arch nemesis but he couldn't save his best friend.

he got shot on the same side as foggy.

the showrunners are sick.