Easter sermon video: An Idle Tale

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Easter sermon: An Idle Tale

Luke 24:1-12

An Idle Tale

James Sledge                    Resurrection of the Lord                         April 21, 2019

In recent weeks I’ve seen several versions of an Easter Facebook joke that goes something like this. “In an effort to be more biblical, only women will be attending the Easter sunrise service.”

Over the years, many have remarked that the story of women being the first witnesses to the empty tomb must be historical. No one would invent this sort of Easter story. People still dismiss what women have to say in our day. Imagine what it was like in a day when women were not even citizens, when they couldn’t be witnesses at a trial, when they were considered property that belonged to a man, either their father or husband.

And sure enough, in Luke’s version of that first Easter morning, no one believes the women. You’ve heard the story before. Some of Jesus’ female disciples, and apparently none of the men, had followed when Jesus’s body was taken to the tomb. Then they had gone back, prepared spices, and rested on the Sabbath as the commandment required.

Early Sunday morning, they took the spices to the tomb, hoping to give Jesus the tender care they had not had time for on Friday evening. But when they arrive, they find the tomb open and the body missing. As they are wondering what to do, two men in dazzling clothes, later described as angels, say to them. “He is not here, but has risen,” and remind the women how Jesus had told them that he would be crucified and rise on the third day.

And so Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women hurry back to tell the eleven and the others what they had found. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

I probably wouldn’t have believed them either, even if this had happened in 2019 where women aren’t routinely dismissed… unless they are contradicting a man. I know what’s possible and what isn’t. I know that dead people stay dead. Even if I believe that a soul moves on somehow, I know that the body stays in the grave. “He is not here, but has risen.” What a cockamamie idea. Who would believe such a thing?

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He was among those who didn’t believe the women’s report, and yet he rushes to the tomb. Why rush to investigate an idle tale? 

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Sermon video: Accidental Parade Goers

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Accidental Parade Goers

Luke 19:28-40; 22:14-23

Accidental Parade Goers

James Sledge                           Palm/Passion                           April 14, 2019

My memory sometimes misleads me, but I recall the Palm Sundays of my childhood being bigger deals they are nowadays. In my childhood church, the palms didn’t have to share billing with the passion. Every year it was a parade from beginning to end. A lot more fun that way, but with a significant downside. The church of my childhood memory rushed from Palm Sunday parade to Easter parade, from celebration to celebration, and it was easy to miss the betrayal, trial, and execution that lay in between.

In one of his letters, the Apostle Paul writes, But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and the wisdom of God. For Paul, and for the gospel writers, the cross is absolutely central, but it is more fun to go from one parade to the next.

Each of the gospel writers tell the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem slightly differently. Perhaps you noticed that there were no palms at all in Luke’s version. This isn’t because the writers have heard different versions of events but because they are more like preachers than reporters or historians. The gospel writers have slightly different points and emphases for their congregations to hear and so they tell the story differently.

Luke, like all the gospel writers, connects Jesus’ entry to Psalm 118 and to the prophet Zechariah. The prophet speaks of a coming, victorious king who rides in on a colt, and the psalm is a coronation psalm, one that would have been used in Israel’s past when a king ascended to the throne.

In Luke’s telling, an interesting distinction gets made between the parade watchers and Jesus’ actual followers. Luke doesn’t report a crowd, but he does say that people kept spreading their cloaks on the road, which certainly befits a royal procession. But it is the disciples, and not the crowd or people, who begin to shout joyfully from Psalm 118. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Some of the Pharisees object to this explicit naming of Jesus as Israel’s messianic king, but Jesus insists that his disciples are correct. Apparently these Pharisees weren’t overly bothered by cloaks spread on the road. They don’t mind celebrating Jesus as a great teacher or healer, but to declare him God’s Messiah, the long awaited king, is too much.

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Sermon: Being More Like God

Micah 6:6-8

Being More Like God

James Sledge                                                                                       April 7, 2019

In a day when many church congregations are struggling, strategic planning and church revisioning have become quite common. Seemingly endless books, conferences, consultants, and other resources are available for such work, but sometimes this work is made difficult by a lack of fundamental clarity about why church exists in the first place.

Typically the problem is one of assumption. Members and leaders assume that they know why church exists, but if you ask them to spell it out, you sometimes get answers such as, “You know, to be church.” If you press for specifics, most people can come up with some sort of answers, usually a list of prominent things happening in their church such as worship, Sunday School, and a few other items. But it is hard to do much in the way of strategic planning if you define why church exists by the things it currently does.

Fortunately, we Presbyterians have denominational statements that spell out the fundamental reasons for congregations to exist. One is something called “The Great Ends of the Church.” This century old statement lays out six primary ends or purposes. They are:

the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;

the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;

the maintenance of divine worship;

the preservation of the truth;

the promotion of social righteousness; and

the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.[1]

Our scripture for this morning, as well as our Renew focus for today, has me thinking especially about those last two: promoting a rightly ordered society and showing the world what God’s kingdom looks like.

Sermon video: Idyllic Community

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.