Sermon: Idyllic Community

Acts 2:37-47

Idyllic Community

James Sledge                                                                                       March 31, 2019

The congregation in our scripture reading is the very first one. It’s brand new, and there is no church building, no Sunday School, no youth group. There is no paid staff or formal governing structure. There is no budget, committees, task forces, or ministry teams. But despite having almost none of the things we associate with church, this congregation has something absolutely remarkable and astounding, the goodwill of all the people.

Think about that. What group or institution in our world has the goodwill of all the people, the entire population? Traditionally things such as education and medicine were held in high esteem, but not as much these days. When I was a kid, I got the impression that everyone trusted Walter Cronkite delivering the CBS News each evening, but I’m pretty sure the news media doesn’t have the goodwill of all the people these days.

What about religion? If you took a clipboard and walked the sidewalks of DC, asking people their opinion of religion in general, and the church in particular, what sort of response might you get? What if you went door to door here in Falls Church and asked about FCPC? How likely would you be to discover the goodwill of all the people?

Sermon video: Taking Our Place in the Story

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

For much of this spring, sermons at FCPC will not be from the lectionary passages. Rather the passages will be chosen to help interpret the various facets of our new missional mandate: "Gathering those who fear they are not enough, so that we can experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as God's beloved." This sermon is the first of these and accompanies a presentation on "How We Got Here."

Sermon: Taking Our Place in the Story

Hebrews 11:39-12:2

Taking Our Place in the Story

James Sledge                                                                                       March 17, 2019

Last April, Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist and former aide and speech writer for George W. Bush, wrote an article in The Atlantic magazine entitled, “The Last Temptation: How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory.”[1]  The article is tinged with sadness at the moral demise of evangelicalism, something Gerson deeply values as one raised in an evangelical home and educated at the evangelical Wheaton College. Here are some excerpts.

Trump supporters tend to dismiss moral scruples about his behavior as squeamishness over the president’s “style.” But the problem is the distinctly non-Christian substance of his values. Trump’s unapologetic materialism—his equation of financial and social success with human achievement and worth—is a negation of Christian teaching. His tribalism and hatred for “the other” stand in direct opposition to Jesus’s radical ethic of neighbor love…

…The moral convictions of many evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification. This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption. Blinded by political tribalism and hatred for their political opponents, these leaders can’t see how they are undermining the causes to which they once dedicated their lives. Little remains of a distinctly Christian public witness.

Fear and anxiety drive the “utter corruption” and loss of Christian witness Gerson writes about. But fear and anxiety are hardly restricted to evangelicals. There’s a lot of fear, anxiety, and pessimism in the progressive church these days. Conservatives and progressives have different fears and anxieties, but we can be equally reactive to our particular favorites. Fear, anxiety, and pessimism tend to corrupt our witness. If we could only lower the level. Perhaps something like the pep talk in the letter to the Hebrews could help.

Hebrews isn’t a letter like those Paul wrote to his congregations. It’s more of a sermon. Its preacher is worried about his congregation’s fear and pessimism. They had hoped for a quick arrival of God’s new day, a setting right of a world where small numbers of powerful and wealthy controlled things and enjoyed the good life while most people struggled to get by. But that hadn’t happened. Throw in the popular suspicion of Christians in the Roman world, add an occasional persecution, and you have a prescription for fatigue, anxiety, and pessimism.

And so the preacher tries to rouse them. Like the coach of a struggling team, he reminds them of all the greats that went before them and how they had triumphed under the most difficult and trying circumstances. But then the pep talk takes a rather bizarre turn. None of those past greats, says the preacher, received what had been promised them.

Here the preacher moves from pep talk to divine mystery. Greats of the past, the heroes of the faith, cannot make it, cannot be perfected or made complete, without us.

Sermon video: Are You Listening?

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Are You Listening?

Luke 9:28-36

Are You Listening?

James Sledge                                                       March 3, 2019 – Transfiguration of the Lord

I’ve just begun reading a book entitled, The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion for Seekers, Skeptics, and Believers. It’s a follow-up to another book by the same author, “What the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?” A Guide to What Matters Most.

Both books address, in different ways, the issue of Christian identity. It’s a topic I find increasingly critical in a  world where many didn’t grow up in the church. What they know of Christianity often comes from its portrayal in the media, too often examples of  the “Bad Religion” in that book. Meanwhile, Mainline and progressive Christians are often fuzzy about our Christian identity, other than not being like that “Bad Religion.”

It is all well and good not to be like those “Bad Religion” Christians, but you can’t define yourself solely by what you are not. You also have to know what you are. And if we’re talking Christian identity, it must have something to do with Jesus. That’s one reason I think this scripture on the Transfiguration is such an important passage.

Just on the face of it the event is a big deal. A cloud and God’s voice on a mountaintop recall the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. Moses and Elijah represent the law and the prophets, the very core of Jewish faith. And the divine words, “This is my Son,” recall coronation psalms along with Jesus’ baptism.

Just prior to the Transfiguration, Jesus foretells his coming death, and he teaches his disciples what it means to follow him. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  Those words still echo when Peter’s befuddled proposal for some sort of shrine is interrupted by God’s command. "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

“Listen to him.” With Christian identity, there is no avoiding this. Shrines and rituals alone won’t do. Professing one’s belief won’t do. Being a caring progressive or holding fast to conservative family values won’t do. We must listen to Jesus.

When I was a boy and my mother yelled, “Listen to me!” she spoke of more than hearing the words. “Listen” put me on notice. I’d better pay attention, and I’d better do what I heard.