#umc

In the time that the gospel of Matthew was written, Christianity was new, vulnerable, and intensely internally focused. The followers of the Way of Jesus were radical in their sharing of resources with each other, in creating lives with kinship groups based in shared faith rather than family ties, in undermining the hierarchies of the world with inclusion across all barriers. So, the Gospel of Matthew is speaking to those who were Followers of the Way about how they treat other followers of the way. That’s the original meaning of this passage for the one who wrote it and the ones who heard it.

I don’t hear it that way though. Christianity isn’t new or vulnerable anymore, and we’ve shown that being internally focused does a lot of harm. Furthermore, we know that God is in every human being and so whoever we “welcome” we know we are welcoming God. I hear this passage as universal, and while I know that is NOT the original meaning, … I think it is the truer one.

I also think the work of welcoming God’s people in the world is multifaceted. Let’s take a moment with that. Sometimes the work of welcoming is the work of welcoming actually new humans – so the work of midwives, nurses, doctors, and hospital staffs along with new parents, and their support networks. Sometimes the work of welcoming is the work of welcoming people to a new part of their lives, so the work of day care and school teachers, coaches, employers, co-workers, caregivers, and others. There is also the work around all that – with people who clean and maintain spaces, those who administer programs, the ones who build what is needed, the ones who maintain the roads and traffic lights, the engineers and architects, and government permit givers and approvers….

Just to welcome a person to a school or a nursing home takes a lot of labor.

But of course it is much broader than that. While we’re taught to conceive of our “economy” as the means of production and consumption that greases the wheels of money passing hands and increasing the GDP ….

I’m not convinced that’s really what’s all about.

I think most of us on this planet are trying to work toward the common good, to make things better for each other, to ease each other’s journeys, to contribute to communal well-being. We try to do this with our paid labor if we can (and not everyone can), but we also do it in other aspects of our lives.

Often I am busy trying to think about if we need new wells, and if we do, what sort of labor practices should be enforced to dig them… and I miss the absolute wonder of the shared cups of cold water.

We hear in Matthew “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones” and I think about the times that we do something that is not that big of deal but helps. To give a cup of cold water in those days would require someone having pulled water up from the well, but the bucket that came up would have filled more than one cup. It is a notable gift, but a small one. Not a deep inconvenience for the one who gives it, but a significant help for the one who receives it.

FURTHERMORE, I want us to notice that you can’t give a cup of water to someone if you don’t have the water, or if you don’t have a bucket, or if you don’t have access to a well. Giving a cup of water is a gift that comes from something you have and can give without a huge drain to yourself. So, none of this is meant to add to your guilt about what you can or can’t give, it is ONLY about giving from what is EASY to offer.

I like thinking about the equivalents of “giving a cup of cold water to one of these little ones.” That can be when people put a hanging basket of plants on their front porch instead of the back – cause people going by can savor the beauty with them. That can be offering a little patience with another car in traffic. It can be responding to a minor annoyance with humor or grace, and letting someone we are working with for just a moment catch a break. It can be letting someone know we see them and the work they’re doing, or doing a little task that needs to be done. I think of one of our breakfast guests who once referred to herself as a public weeder. When she saw weeds in parks, she pulled them. A cup of cold water indeed.

Maybe the cups of cold water are about HOW we do what we do. Do we rush through life treating people as objects who may be in our way, or do offer as much care and empathy as we can while we move through this world?

Our Luke 10 Team in this church has been engaged in an intense 9 months of training on organizing to combat White Christian Nationalism. One of the pieces I loved best about the training we did was how profoundly it lived is own values. Our leaders treated us and each other as beloved people of God, remembered that we have to be grounded in faith and beauty to work well, made sure we had opportunities to connect with each other, and created schedules that had generosity to them.

So often I’ve been in church and church adjacent spaces that claim to be operating under kindom values and then schedule things as tightly and fiercely as capitalism does. But Luke 10 was spacious. We learned, and we worked, but we did so as humans…. While learning and working to optimize other people’s experiences of humanity.

One of the ways I have come to understand God is that God helps us become more human. I think earlier in my life I thought the idea was to leave humanity behind and become more perfect, more like God, but these days I think God rather LIKES humans and seeks to help us live into our humanity, our imperfections, our diversity, and especially our vulnerabilities. Humans are beings who need to connect, need to make meaning, and need to help. God is for it! And for US.

On this Graduation Sunday we may be thinking of education as a means to an end of “getting a good job” but I’m going to suggest that education is a means itself. And, “getting a good job” is about finding a job that helps someone welcome others to their humanity and fullness of lives – or, at least, a job that leaves space for someone to do that work.

In the Social Principals we not only hear about the dignity of work, and people’s NEEDS to contribute, but also about the boundaries around work. We talk about the importance of living in a world where children aren’t working in exploitative industries, where unions can organize for safety and collective bargaining, where TIME OFF matters.

One of my friends was working for the predecessor to United Women in Faith when she gave birth to her first child and she talked afterward about the ways she was supported. She had good parental leave, and she had a GREAT return to work schedule that prioritized her health and her parenting. I was thrilled that she had that experience, and also relieved. Because if the Women’s group of the church can’t treat new parents well, who can? But, while we’re at it, I’d like the answer to be “the whole world.” In recent years I’ve worked on some Parental Leave policies for United Methodists in Upper New York and we have a great policy now, relative to the US. But our country doesn’t have that for most workers, and that’s not good for children, parents, or our society.

The more we are able to build work places, norms, society, and nations that honor people’s humanity by offering living wages and paid time off to be humans, the more we build towards the kindom of God. People want to work, people want to contribute to welcoming each other and building the common good. For now, I think, the work is to get rid of the barriers that let people live their lives well. And, to honor the ways we see humans sharing and welcoming – from giving away cups of cold water to lives spent in service. Thanks be to God for the welcomes we receive and the ones we offer. Amen

June 28, 2026

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

A photo of the front exterior and entrance of the Henry Clay Morrison Administration building at Asbury Theological Seminary. Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, has been removed from the United Methodist Church’s (UMC) list of approved institutions for ordination candidates. The decision, made by the UMC’s University Senate, stems from a clash over marriage and sexuality: Asbury…

Father Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, our ancestor in faith, the patriarch of patriarchs... is a pretty lousy father in our passage today. In the passage today he sends his eldest off to die in the desert. To be fair, in the chapter that follows he takes his prized youngest up a mountain to sacrifice him. So it isn’t really just this passage. Oh, and in both are said to be at the behest of God, who many of us were raised to call Father as well.

So, um, happy Father’s Day? Glad everyone has good Biblical models ;)

While I’m ruining holidays this weekend, I am a huge fan of the recognition of Juneteeth and the ways it calls us to attend to our history, including the fact that freedom didn’t come until message got to the people that they were freed.

And, in preparing to preach on this passage I spent some time on the website of the nonprofit Voices4Freedom who report, “At this present moment, there are more people suffering under slavery than at any other time in history. The Global Slavery Index (GSI) estimates that more than 50 million people are currently trapped in modern day slavery. Women and girls account for 71 per cent of all victims of modern slavery. That means one in every 130 women and girls is living in modern slavery.” And, before you spend too much time hoping that the USA is an exception, I’m going to ruin that too, “Of every 1,000 people in the United States, 1.3 are living in modern slavery.”1 So, out of the approximately 350 million people in the USA, 454,000 of them are living in slavery. Those numbers do not include the people incarcerated in our so-called justice system, nor those incarcerated by ICE, probably because it is hard to maintain a non-profit status while naming state-sponsored slavery.

So, um, happy Juneteenth?

Hagar was enslaved. Specifically she was enslaved by Sarah and Abraham. Sarah had instructed her husband Abraham to rape Hagar so that Hagar could be the surrogate mother for Sarah’s child. The child born was Ishmael and he was raised as the son of the promise UNTIL Sarah bore Issac. Once it was clear that Issac would survive past infancy, we get to this story. Issac is weaned, he survived. And so Sarah has Abraham kick out Ishmael and Hagar to ensure that her son gets all of the inheritance and God’s promises.

What would be easy to miss in the passage as Sarah and Abraham keep calling Hagar “this slave woman” “the Eygpitian” and everything but her name, is that Sarah takes back her relationship to Ishmael, revokes her motherhood by surrogacy, and claims that Hagar who bore Ishmael is his mother.

That is, we see the slave woman having the child who was stolen from her returned to her. And, at exactly the same moment they are exiled and sent into the desert to die.

After wandering in the waterless landscape as long as they could, Hagar realized they are going to die and her son would die first. She can’t bear to watch, so puts him down and wanders away to wait, and in the meantime she cries.

Phyllis Trible, one of the great Biblical Scholars, writes about her, “Hagar is a pivotal figure in biblical theology. She is the first person in scripture whom a divine messenger visits and the only person who dares to name the deity.” (Those were in chapter 16) “Within the historical memories of Israel, she is the first woman to bear a child. This conception and birth make her an extraordinary figure in the story of faith: the first woman to hear an annunciation, the only one to receive a divine promise of descendants, and the first to weep for her dying child. Truly, Hagar the Egyptian is the prototype of not only special but all mothers in Israel.”2

Hagar’s story is a common one. Trible goes on to say, “all sorts of rejected women find their stories in her. She is the faithful maid exploited, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the other woman, the runaway youth, the religious fleeling from affliction, the pregnant young woman alone, the expelled wife, the divorced mother with child, the shopping bag lady carrying bread and water, the homeless woman, the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures, the welfare mother, and the self-effacing female whose own identity shrinks in service to others.”3

Hagar’s child, Ishmael, is claimed by Muslims as their ancestor in faith, the one who makes them Abraham’s child. It is truly terrifying today to see the ways that Hagar’s children are still being dehumanized by the physical and spiritual descendants of Issac.

Hagar the Egyptian. Hagar the slave. Hagar who gets called “this slave woman” by Sarah, but is called by name by God. Hagar, whose eyes were opened and who found life where she thought there was only death.

My dear friend Rev. Dr. Barbara Thorington Green did her PhD dissertation on women presiding at the communion table, and attending to the metaphors we use. Within that work she found that African American women very often talked about God as the One Who Makes a Way Out of No Way. God did it for Hagar, and has done it for people since, and it is a defining characteristic of God.

In one of the books I quote far too often, “Debt: The History of the First 5000 years” by David Graeber, he talks about slavery in a way I hadn’t heard before. In particular, he talks about the ways that humans have identities, and that our identities are inherently relational. We are family to people – child and parent, sibling, nibling, etc. We are teachers and learners who relate to other teachers and learners. We have professions and ways we give our gifts to the world. We have friends and groups we belong to and hobbies we’re a part of. A person existing in their own space in society is deeply rooted in many relationships.

Consistently throughout history when people have been enslaved they’ve been forcibly removed from their place in society and thus had their humanity itself stripped from them. And, to be stolen from a community is to be stolen from identity. Removed from community, people who are enslaved don’t belong anymore. They usually don’t speak the language. They don’t have value. They become an object used by others to gain wealth or pleasure and no longer a subject who exists in relationships with others.

Hagar was a slave, taken from her people, her language, her family, her friends, her place in the world and used for her service and her body. In the end, she was disregarded and she and her child – the child she’d JUST gotten to have as her own after 16 years – were sent to die alone. Hagar, in so many ways, tells a universal story of slavery.

Hagar, quite notably, is seen by God. In the version of this story found in Genesis 16, Hagar names God “God Who Sees” and the well that saves them “Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” She knows that she is unseen in Sarah and Abraham’s household, unseen as a slave, not seen or treated as a human being. But the ways of the world are not the ways of God. God sees her. God responds to her distress. God makes promises to her, ones that are still claimed by multitudes today.

In the midst of a slavery that stripped her identity, Hagar was given identity by God, and became the mother of a people. God saw Hagar and acknowledged that Hagar was made in God’s own image. While she was less than human to the people she interacted with, she was claimed and loved by God.

This piece about identity, that people are at their most vulnerable when they are robbed of their community and thus their identities is really insightful about what constitutes our humanity. People in context are people. People out of context are objects – or at least that’s how millions are being treated right now (and have been).

As people of faith, even though we’re the spiritual descendants of Abraham and Sarah who are the antagonists in Hagar’s story, we believe that each and every human being is made in the image of God and is thus holy and sacred and fully human.

That includes everyone incarcerated, it includes farm workers, food service workers, construction crews, health and beauty workers, those living under the poverty line, those with addictions, children of those with addictions, those whose countries are a threat to their lives, those who have immigrated without papers, those who are forced into sex work (and those who choose it), climate refugees, orphans, and widows. Made in the image of God. Holy. Sacred. Human.

As United Methodists, ‘We understand slavery to be a repudiation of the basic Christian understanding that all people are created in the image of God.” All people. Including the 50 million estimated to be enslaved right now plus those incarcerated. Knowing slavery still exists, being willing and able to see and acknowledge it, is important. So too is paying attention to where our produce comes from, as Voices4Freedom says, “Up to 30 percent of farmworker families are living below the federal poverty line, experiencing situations of modern slavery where they are held against their will, through the use or threat of violence, and forced to work for little or no money. Thus, the fruits, vegetables, and meats we consume are often the product of slave labor happening in the United States.” But, even beyond produce, “The United States imports over $144 billion dollars worth of products created by forced labor or at-risk populations, more than any other country in the world.”4 Like the Social Principle say, “We urge individuals, families, congregations, and retailers to practice socially responsible consumerism by educating themselves about the sources of labor and the working conditions involved in production processes.”

There are in this world all these amazing people, made in the image of God, who are enslaved. And one of the most important responses that we have to it is to keep on claiming that they are made in the image of God. And every time we practice reminding ourselves that others are made in the image of God we’re doing a little tiny bit of the work to undermine the practice of stripping people from their identities. May we keep at, along with paying attention to where our produce comes from ;) Amen

1Quotes from https://www.voices4freedom.org/what-is-modern-day-slavery/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17137923068#:~:text=The%20Global%20Slavery%20Index%20(GSI)%20estimates%20that%20more%20than%2050%20million%20people%20are%20currently%20trapped%20in%20modern%20day%20slavery.%C2%A0, accessed 6/18/2026.

2Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 28.

3Ibid.

4https://www.voices4freedom.org/what-is-modern-day-slavery/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17137923068#:~:text=The%20Global%20Slavery%20Index%20(GSI)%20estimates%20that%20more%20than%2050%20million%20people%20are%20currently%20trapped%20in%20modern%20day%20slavery.%C2%A0 Under “Modern Slavery in The United States"

June 21, 2026

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

Note, by this point in worship we'd heard the Scripture read in French, Portuguese, English, and Spanish and learned the Lord's Prayer in American Sign Language (ASL).

I hope that everyone here today has encountered a language they didn’t already know. I’m not sure you all have, because a few of you are polyglots, but I hope most of us have. And, I wonder what it is like for you to sit and listen to a rather long passage that isn’t in one of your languages. Was it boring? Was it intriguing? Was it uncomfortable? Did you try to decode it? Did you tune out? Did you notice the windows are pretty? Did you listen for any words you might be able to figure out? Was it frustrating – having your brain work so hard to connect words and meaning and missing?

When I was a teenager I spent a summer in Ecuador, and attended school as part of an attempt to get better at Spanish. (Alas, I am not a polyglot and given my years of study and exposure my Spanish is an embarrassment.) I remember being passed a note in class one time, and it was SO exciting – I was being included, someone wanted to share something with me, I had a reason to stop trying so hard to listen to the teacher and instead to focus on something fun. And, I remember a profound disappointment when I realized that the note itself was also in Spanish and I was still going to have to work really hard to figure out what it said.

I also remember feeling stuck while I was in Ecuador. I knew myself to be a person capable of nuanced thought, and wit, and even complicated ideas. But I struggled to communicate as well as a 2 year old, and realized that people interacting with me had no way of knowing the person I was on the inside- because I couldn’t articulate it to show it. I also remember that the only exception to this was trigonometry class – because I’d already done trig at home and the math terms aren’t difficult to translate and the numerals were the same and when I was asked to solve a problem on the chalkboard I could do so without any struggle.

I am really glad I had those experiences. They taught me to be in awe of anyone who speaks with an accent, because anyone speaking a language that is not their first is IMPRESSIVE. They were also important in teaching me what it feels like to be on the outside, and that helps me value finding ways to bring people in.

Now, I am blessed beyond measure to be allowed to co-Dean a camp for people with Special Needs every summer. Because I’ve been spending part of my year in the care of people with Special Needs for most of my life, and because within that population there are a significant number of people who can’t easily speak, I’ve learned some American Sign Language in passing. As we do Bible Study at camp, one verse is selected as the Memory Verse and when we learn it, we learn it in English and ASL. Truthfully the two together help all of remember, and for people who are dominate in one or the other, it is good to have space to communicate easily. Many of our campers read quite well, and all of our campers get a chance to read from the Bible every day. Sometimes that requires a lot of support. With our campers who only speak through ASL, we strategically have them read the portion of our text that includes the memory verse so they can read in ASL. (I always memorize it in ASL and English the night before.)

Forgive me, I’ve told this story before, but it meant the world to me. Once year we had a camper with us for the first time and when she got to read in ASL her whole body lit up. She signed enthusiastically in response, a sign we didn’t know and had to look up. It turned out to be “chat” as in “We’re CHATTING!!!!!!” For her, the chance to be included, by having some of Bible Study be in ASL so she could participate was AMAZING.

When I hear the Pentecost story, and hear, “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.” The difference between trying to figure out what someone is saying with their regionalized accent of a language you may or may not know and hearing in your own native language is PROFOUND. Until you are in a place where you don’t know what is being said, it is hard to know how big of a deal it is to be able to understand.

In Genesis 11:1-9, we get the Tower of Babel story, a narrative bent on explaining why people speak different languages while dissing the Babylonians and their Towering Temple:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east,they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

The Acts passage today is the full circle of this story, taking the people whose languages had been “confused” and who had been scattered and bringing them together and with the gifts of the Spirit helping them to hear and understand each other.

The people heard and understood each other. They didn’t have to work at it. It wasn’t hard. It didn’t take concentration or effort. It was, as my camper once said, “CHATTING!” Just communication, happening between people, despite it all.

The Pentecost miracle.

Beloveds, even when we speak the same language fluently, miscommunication happens a lot. It is possible that it happens more often THAN not. We misspeak, mishear, understand words and phrases differently, add assumptions to what we hear, listen with emotional filters on, and – heavens – listen to each other while we MULTITASK. It may be a miracle anything ever gets through!

And, when it does, when we speak and are understood, when we listen and are able to hear, the Holy Spirit is at work, and it is good, and we have every reason to be grateful. Thanks be to God, who speaks all the languages, and is at work in the world helping us communicate.

Amen

May 24, 2026

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

We, in The United Methodist Church are part of a global church. The majority of United Methodists are located outside of the United States, although I think it is important to note that the United Methodist Church is still incredibly US-Centric. We are a global church, but we’re not terribly good at being one. That said, we’re getting better, particularly as we institute the “Regionalization Plan” that will allow different parts of the church more localized authority.

Psalm 96 is a global Psalm, a universal one. While its origins are in Ancient Israel, it is a Psalm about “all the earth” with declarations to share about God’s glory to “All the nations” and “among all the peoples.” Today, because we’re celebrating Miracle Sunday, I’m going to put aside my inherent dis-ease about if that’s colonialist and/or evangelistic and assume the best.

The best, as I know it, is knowing that God is with and for all people and all peoples everywhere AND that people and people’s know God in their own ways. We are all formed by our histories, our lives, the land we live on, and the ways we see the world. I went to seminary in the southwest, and really struggled with the desert climate. Many of my classmates found the desert to be the holiest of places where they felt closest to God and I could hear their passion and even understand their reasoning…. But the desert feels foreign to me. The forests of the Northeast sing to my soul, not the desert (although, shout out to Redwood forests which are ASTOUNDING.)

A desert and a forest are both parts of God’s creation but they form and nurture people differently. In a similar way, I often notice ways that the Upper New York Annual Conference is culturally different than Wyoming was and both are distinct from who Troy was.

Relative to the world the impact of desert vs. forest and one Northeastern US United Methodist Annual Conference from another is pretty trivial, but those little differences are notable and the world is BIG and DIVERSE and WONDERFUL and there are a lot of ways of knowing God and taking care of God’s people that are different in different places.

While Methodism started in England, the United Methodist Church’s history is very United States based. It emerged as a distinct church expression because of the Revolutionary War, it was formed by the same sets of thoughts and ideas as the US government, and it has had its ideological and financial base in the United States. United Methodist Churches outside the United States mostly started through missionary work from the United States, but we’ve now gone past the tipping point and more United Methodists and United Methodist Churches are outside of this country than it.

Many of our United Methodist Siblings in faith are in Africa and the Philippines. Some are in Europe as well, where United Methodism is small but mighty. The goal of Miracle Sunday for United Methodist Churches in the United States is “to raise funds for the Endowment for Theological Education in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines, creating 500 permanently endowed scholarships each year to prepare pastors for ministry in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines. The initiative responds to a significant global leadership gap, where far fewer clergy outside the U.S. have access to advanced theological education. By uniting in prayer, learning, and generous giving, the church aims to build sustainable, long-term support for theological schools abroad and ensure well-trained pastoral leaders for generations to come.”1

The truth is that educated clergy are a mixed bag. Really! Studies show that educated clergy are less effective in growing churches and are often correlated with denomination decline. (To be fair, correlation is not causation.) After last week’s celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Full Ordination Right of Women, I got motivated to open up history books from the former Annual Conferences. At which point I read a paragraph in a biography of another historian that stayed with me:

...one of the most significant transitions which occurred within the heats and minds of religious people, specifically Methodists in this nation. I write of the acceptance of the need for sound education...We need to remember than in the early part of the last century, Conferences were made up of preachers only, and that the need for an educated clergy, as opposed to the unlettered lay preacher, had by no means been established.2

For clarity, the book was from 1984, so the prior century was the 19th.

That is, an expectation of educated clergy in Methodism in the United States isn’t that old, and it is not entirely consistent either. Elders and Deacons have very firm educational requirements prior to ordination, but many of our churches are served by people who are not ordained. Licensed Local Pastors are required to get education as they go (although they aren’t always held accountable) but sometimes churches are served faithful lay people who haven’t had the chance to get any theological education. Still, though, we are blessed in the United States with largely educated United Methodist clergy.

And while we may be less charismatic, and studies say less prone to grow churches, I think there is value in educated clergy!! At its best, education in general and theological education in particular increase a person’s capacity to be aware of their own assumptions, help people see and question the status quo, and expose people to thinking and experiences beyond their own. For much of history, clergy have had more opportunity to be educated than most people, and were thus sources of educated perspectives in their small towns and villages. That remains true in some places today. In other places – like here – there are plenty of people with education, and we simply offer a particular vein of knowledge and curiosity.

I am so grateful I got to spend 3 years getting a Masters of Divinity Degree. Exposure to different ways of thinking about God in different theological traditions broadened my perspective. Courses forced me to become aware of my beliefs about God and check them against reality and logic. Classmates shared their live experiences with me, professors shared their wisdom and research, and there was a lot of time set aside for reflecting on what we experienced in churches and how that did or didn’t fit what we thought God wanted. I loved it so much that I was ready to go get a doctorate in Spiritual Formation when I was offered the chance to come here. (Serving here is a choice I’ve never regretted.)

Back to Miracle Sunday, “In the United States, 71% of United Methodist clergy hold a master's degree in theology, outside of the U.S., fewer than 5% do. That gap is not merely an academic inconvenience. It represents communities where the church is growing rapidly but the people called to lead those communities have no sustainable access to formation. Over 20 theological schools in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines receive little or no endowment. The barriers are real: distance, language, cost, faculty shortages, library resources.”3 71% to 5%. It becomes clear why we are seeking a miracle to start creating a significant change!!

That wonderful Psalm we read, the one that has a global perspective, nudges us to acknowledge the ways things are different around the world, but ALSO urges us to create more equity around the world. People everywhere are declaring the glory of God, but the nuances should be different – and ideally might be impacted by solid education.

Or, to say it in the words of Pastor Pierre Bandorayingwe of the Congo, “God’s glory is not confined to one culture; it is a global calling.”4 He also says, “Miracle Sunday is an act of faith: giving so that others may be formed and sent. God invites every congregation, regardless of size, location or circumstances, to join the mission of declaring God’s glory among the nations.”

Now, I want to have some transparency. We in this church are big fans of education, and we’re already supporting some really important educational initiatives We’re working with Upper New York on supporting dorm construction for Africa University and we’re working on our own to provide funds for students to get laptops at Africa University. And AU does theological education! There is a possibility this Miracle Sunday isn’t as distinct of a project here as it might be elsewhere.

But, nevertheless it gave us a chance to be more informed about the nature of The United Methodist Church, educated clergy, and to be reminded of how Big God is when we say God is the God of all peoples. So, for those who are willing and able to give today – thanks be to God! For those willing to become educated and serve – thanks be to God! For those who serve as clergy without the foundations of education – thanks be to God! And for this amazing and diverse world where we can all sing to God a new song in our OWN languages – thanks be to God! Amen

1https://www.unyumc.org/event-details/miracle-sunday-2026

2Jack Topolewski, “With Deep Thanksgiving: Wyoming’s Historians” in Notes and Sketches From Along the Susquehanna, ed by John Goodell and John Topolewski (Academy Books, Rutland Vermont, 1984), p 10.

3https://www.neumc.org/Miracle

On Monday we celebrated 70 years of full ordination rights and clergy membership for Women in the United Methodist Church – which is as we’ve already mentioned in worship a little more complicated that it initially sounds. What history isn’t? Really that happened in the Methodist Episcopate Church (of which this church was part at the time) and there had been clergy women for the prior 36 years but they were “locally ordained” which means two things: they had no guaranteed appointments and they had no to access to retirement funds.

Women preachers existed in the Methodist movement from the time of John Wesley whose own mother was a FABULOUS preacher through 1880 when rights were taken away and then in 1920 women regained local ordination and in 1956 full ordination rights. For all those years women preached, led, taught, and organized.The first woman who was given full clergy rights and membership in the Annual Conference was Maud Keister Jensen who got those rights TWO WEEKS after they became available in the Central Pennsylvania Annual Conference which merged into the Susquehanna Annual Conference – our sibling conference in our current episcopal structure. She gained her rights in abstensia cause she was a missionary serving in Korea. When she eventually heard it had happened she responded by wire, “I am deeply grateful for the privilege, but the honor was completely unexpected and due entirely to the early meeting of my Annual Conference. I feel that Georgia Harkness and other active women ministers deserve first recognition after their long struggle and able contributions to the church.” 1 2

In case you didn’t know, Georgia Harkness was the first woman to teach in a US seminary, and she’s from upstate NY and even lived and taught Sunday School here in the Albany District. Which is to say that this history is our history. And Rev. Jensen’s words emphasized how much she was part of a movement of women working together for each other.

The framing of this celebration of Ordination has been that it was a movement of the Holy Spirit, and that’s clearly true. It even sounds like our gospel passage where the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit and truth and remains with us to remind us of our call to love God and each other! Because, loving people involves letting them do the work God calls them to. (SNAP.) It seems worth mentioning though that even at that historical General Conference in 1956 where full ordination rights and conference membership for women were accepted, it wasn’t the plan! 2000 petitions came in about the topic, and the committee that was responsible for them came to the floor of the plenary with a majority report that meant to allow SOME women rights but only if they were single or widowed AND a minority report that hoped to prevent ALL women from full rights. A whole lot of people were in the Spirit’s way.

But she moved anyway.

And since then it is has been good and bad and in-between. And to share some of that, I invite my sisters to speak. (Remarks by Rev. Eileen Deming, Rev. Dana Carroll, Rev. Jane Baker, Rev. Pat Loughlin, and Rev. Sara Baron followed.)

1Many of these details came from the podcast/video found here: https://www.youtube.com/live/JJTpqiUF8uU?si=WXUiGyLC4_oT3NQy

As the preacher, it is my responsibility to pick Scripture texts for the week, and I most commonly pick from 4 texts recommended by the Revised Common Lectionary. These days it is also my responsibility to pair the readings with particular parts of The United Methodist Social Principles and it has occurred to me that my pairing today come with some assumptions.

The Gospel reading has Jesus talking about how sheep know the voice of their shepherd, and trust their shepherds, and the shepherd wants good for the sheep. So, too, then does Jesus care about all of us and take good care of all of us. It follows, but isn’t spoken, that we know the voice of God and attend to it and trust God’s voice.

And I picked the Social Principle on Eco-systems as the partner passage to the Gospel. This make sense to me, but might not make sense to others because when I think of the sacred voice of God that we’re tuning in to, Mother Earth is one of the tones of that voice. For me, to listen to God and to listen to nature/ Mother Earth/ Creation are so correlated as to be hard to tease out. But, it seems important to acknowledge that not everyone experiences Creation that way, and you may or may not have had any idea why I connected these two passages.

With in the Social Principle we hear, “Whether human beings are conscious of it or not, we are participants in and beneficiaries of complex natural ecosystems…” So many of the messes we are in today as a society seem to stem from the ways we haven’t remembered that we are participants in and beneficiaries of complex natural eco-systems. Including, I think, ways that people dismiss and distrust the wisdom of their bodies as an important source of knowledge!

Together, the Gospel passage and our Social PrInciple seem to me to remind us to attend to the Sacred. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice, and we are to attend to God’s voice, which can come to us in many ways.

The gospel says, “They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." I wonder what voices we associate as being the voices of not-God. Perhaps there are many? The voices calling for violence. The voices claiming that some people aren’t made in the image of God. The voices encouraging us to consume our way out of discomfort. The voices that tell us to hurry, to rush, to do more, that what we’re doing isn’t enough. The voices that claim scarcity – arguing that God didn’t make the world full of abundance. The voices of hopelessness that argue against the story of resurrection.

There are a lot of voices calling for our attention, that don’t benefit us or the kindom.

In fact, many days, if one attends to the news and/or social media, the voices of harm are overwhelming.

But, beloveds, we are called to attend to the Voice of God. That may even suggest we are to limit the amount we listen to the voices of harm.

Hopefully, this raises a question within us, “What does it mean to attend to the voice of God?” You will probably not be surprised that I think a great piece of this is to attend to nature/creation/Mother Earth. People who study attention say that one of the best things we can do for our modern-phone-addicted-minds is to put them on “do not disturb” and go into nature. Depending on our bodies and their abilities this might be a walk on a nature trail or sitting on a bench in a park – but I believe the further we get into un-manicured nature the more our brains and spirits can heal.

I also think that worship, prayer, and meditation are ways to attend to the Voice of God. One of the scientific pieces that supports the value of worship itself is that group singing is great for human beings! It connects us to each other in a myriad of ways, and connecting to each other is really good for our whole beings! Worship also gives us a chance to consider the values we live by, and talk together about what we’ve noticed from and about God. And, I’ll note, the pace of worship is slower than a lot of life. Sometimes there are transitions that simply take a bit, and it is OK. We have music that centers us and a space that fills us up and people to be with and it is glorious even when its just sort of a normal Sunday.

Prayer and meditation, sometimes called spiritual practices are intentional means of bringing our attention to God and away from other voices. Walking a labyrinth or coloring a mandala can be ways of letting our body have activity so the rest of our being can attend to God. Watching a sunset, or the stars, or listening to music, or the sound of waves hitting sand can fill us with awe and take of the weights off our shoulders. Writing in a journal or simply praying from our hearts helps us find words for the things we are worried about and the ones we are delighted in, and as we give them to God we find we can hold them differently. In prayer and meditation we manage to simultaneously make space to attend to God and ourselves, and in the best cases to tune ourselves to God.

One of the practices I’ve found most astounding in recent years are the practices of somatic awareness. These practices are ones that start with the assumption that our bodies know things and when we attend to their wisdom we become more whole. The ways I’ve been taught about somatic practices have startled me because they’re so different from anything else I knew before them. The practice I know best comes from Nonviolent Communication training, and “nonviolent communication” is really a method of attending to feelings and needs so we communicate with more integrity.

One of my teachers taught us that the feelings we feel are at their core sensations in our bodies that we’ve learned to name with feelings words. (Well, that’s if we’re lucky. Sometimes even feelings words can be new to some of us.) With some intentionality, and some help, we can start to find the sensations under our feelings and when we do that we learn even more about their intensity, connections, and nuances.

Turning to our bodies as sources of wisdom undercuts a lot of what we’ve been taught in this world, and gets us back to being a part of the natural world. We are creatures like all others, and our bodies are sacred and wise.

Our bodies are often ahead of our cognizant awareness. They know when we don’t feel safe, and when we really like another person. They hold our tensions and our traumas, and also give us clues about our joy and delight. I’m going to go so far here as to say that our bodies are a source of connection to God, and a way we are able to attend to God, and it can be really wonderful to explore that connection.