Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Sermon: Failing the Cowboy Test
Luke 23:33-43
Failing the Cowboy
Test
James Sledge November
24, 2019
I was sitting on the couch
watching television the other night. More accurately, I was looking for
something to watch. I pulled up the channel guide and scrolled through it, but
nothing really grabbed me. As I got to the very end, I saw a listing that read
simply, “Cheyenne.”
I used to watch a show called
Cheyenne when I was a little boy, and so I clicked on it to see if it was that.
Sure enough, there, in beautiful black and white, was Clint Walker starring as
Cheyenne Bodie.
Now I suspect that many of you
have never heard of either Cheyenne Bodie or the actor who played him, but the
show was a huge success when it aired from the mid-1950s to early 60s. According
to Wikipedia, it was the first hour-long Western and the first hour-long
dramatic series of any sort to last more than a single season.
Cheyenne was a large and muscular, but a gentle fellow, at least until someone needed justice. Then he was more than willing to use his brawn, or his gun, to set things right.
Cheyenne was a large and muscular, but a gentle fellow, at least until someone needed justice. Then he was more than willing to use his brawn, or his gun, to set things right.
Cowboy heroes were all over the
television when I was a boy, both in afternoon reruns and in primetime. There
were many variations in the slew of Westerns that filled the airways, but in
most all of them, the dramatic climax of the show came when good defeated evil
in a fist fight or a gunfight. Good put evil in its place, and, for a moment at
least, things were right with the world again.
My and many others’ notions of
heroism and bravery and masculinity were shaped by Cheyenne and the Lone Ranger
and Marshall Dillon and Roy Rogers and on and on and on. These heroes weren’t
afraid to fight for what they believed in, even when the odds were against
them. A real hero, a real man, might not want to fight, but he was more than
ready to do so in order to defend himself or others.
I wonder if this isn’t one reason
that so many of us Christians struggle with following Jesus. He asks us to live
in ways that are contrary to accepted notions of strength, of bravery, of
masculinity, of might and right. He tells us not to fight back. He tells us to
love our enemy. He says not to seek restitution when someone takes something
from us.
Jesus fails miserably at the
cowboy test, the superhero test. Yes, he does best his opponents in verbal
repartee on a regular basis, but when push comes to shove, he refuses to fight
back. When he is arrested, he goes meekly. When people give false testimony at
his trial, he makes no attempt to defend himself. When he is convicted for
being a political threat to the empire, he raises no objection. No wonder that
when the risen Jesus comes along a pair of his disciples on the afternoon of
that first Easter, they say of him, “But we had hoped that he was the one…” They
had hoped, but clearly he was not. If he had been, he would not have gone down
without a fight. If he had been, it wouldn’t have ended like this.
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Sermon: Saying "Yes" to God's New Day
Isaiah 65:17-25
Saying “Yes” to God’s New Day
James Sledge November
17, 2019
A
few weeks ago, one of my Facebook “friends” posted this on her page. “When the
time changes next weekend could we please go back to 1965 when life was
simple!!!!! I think most will agree the 60’s were the best years of their
life!!!”
“Most” here obviously doesn’t include anyone born
after 1970. It might not include those who served or lost loved ones in
Vietnam. It’s probably doesn’t include civil rights marchers who faced dogs,
fire hoses, beatings, and death threats. But for many, including an eight year
old me, it did seem a wonderful, simple time. We lived what I thought was the
nearly idyllic life of a typical suburban family. Oh, for life to be that easy
again.
Nostalgia
is a way that many of us react when things are not going as well as we’d like. As
with my Facebook “friend,” it usually involves some selective remembering that
focuses on the good and forgets the bad. Those who want to make America great
again, recall a time when American was in its ascendency, the preeminent
superpower with a growing middle class, burgeoning suburbs, and an interstate
highway system beginning to be built. Of course this nostalgia forgets the large
numbers of people who were systemically excluded because of race, gender, sexual orientation, and so on.
It forgets the ecological damage being done without the least bit of concern.
There’s
a lot of nostalgia in the church these days. Remember when the sanctuary was
always full? Remember when the confirmation class had forty youth in it?
Remember when we couldn’t find enough rooms for all the Sunday School classes?
Remember?
Of
course nostalgia forgets that 1950s Christianity often actively supported laws
enforcing racial segregation and criminalizing sexual orientations or behaviors
seen as “deviant,” The Church gave religious sanction to American society,
speaking in biblical terms of a new Jerusalem, in exchange for the culture all
but requiring people to participate in religion. But it was an easier time to
be church, although Jesus did say that following him would be difficult.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Sermon: Rightly Ordered Priorities
Rightly Ordered Priorities
James Sledge November
10, 2019
I’m
not sure when children’s sermons became a standard part of American worship
services, but my church had them when I was a child. As with other elements of
worship, there are resource books on children’s sermons. I have a couple of old
ones that a retiring pastor gave me. Unfortunately, almost all the ideas are
object lessons, practical examples used to explain more abstract ideas about
faith. But child development experts say that object lesson don’t work with
young children whose thinking is too concrete, which explains why it is often
adults who enjoy the children’s sermons while the little ones fidget through
them.
A
colleague once shared with me a children’s sermon on tithing. I really like it,
but it’s another object lesson. And so I’m using it in a regular sermon. A
basket of ten apples represents a person’s income. Our faith says that all we
have is a gift from God. The only thing God asks is that we use the first part
of our gifts to do God’s work.
God
has given me ten apples. A tithe would be one of them, so I will give one apple
back to God. And I still have a whole basket full to use for the things I need
and want.
But
very often, people don’t do it that way. I take my ten apples and buy a car and
food, pay rent, take a vacation, fund hobbies, pay for streaming and cell
service, and so on until little is left. Then I think about giving to God, but it
would be everything I’ve got.
I
can’t imagine that many young children ever made head nor tails of this lesson,
but the point is a good one for those of us old enough to understand. The
practice of generosity is much, much easier when it comes first. It is
difficult to be generous when you only give from what is left over after you
are done.
That’s
true of faith and discipleship in general. If we seek to follow Jesus, to pray,
study, serve others, worship, and so on, only after we’ve done everything else
we need and want, there is never enough time or money left over.
Faith,
discipleship, true spirituality, are largely about getting life rightly ordered.
On some level, we know this intuitively. You may have heard the adage, “No one on their deathbed
ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’” We nod our heads in
agreement yet we still struggle with disordered priorities.
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Sermon: Experiencing Love, Sharing Love
Experiencing Love, Sharing Love
James Sledge November
3, 2019
I
read an article the other day about recent research on partisanship in America.
It said that 9 in 10 Americans say they are “frustrated by the uncivil and rude
behavior of many politicians.” But at the very same time, 8 in 10 Americans are
“tired of leaders compromising my values and ideals” and want leaders “who will
stand up to the other side.”[1]
It
would seem, at least the case of partisan divides, that Americans decry the
political boundaries that divide us into camps, recognizing that these
divisions are caustic and destructive. And yet, these same Americans want
“their side” to fight against the other. We lament our divisions while, at the
same time, encouraging them.
And
in case you haven’t noticed, politics is just one of many things that create
“us and them” dynamics. We divide by race, income, gender, age, education
level, and more. Some boundaries are more rigid than others, but we learn at an
early age how to navigate and deal with them. It doesn’t take long for school
aged children to recognize divisions between rich and poor, in and out, cool and not so cool, athletes and nerds, and so on.
Religion
gets in on the game, too, with all sorts of boundaries, some clear, some
subtle. Are you a member? Are you saved? Do you believe the right things? Do
you fit in or not?
We’re a liberal church. We’re a conservative
church. We’re a liturgical church. We like highbrow music. We like praise
songs. I suppose that some such preferences are unavoidable, but we often take
it a step further. It’s not really church if it doesn’t have the right kind of music, right kind of liturgy, right political stance, or, perhaps, no
political stance. And if you don’t think such boundaries fence people out here
at FCPC, serve at one of our Wednesday Welcome Tables and observe the hundreds
of people there. Then observe how nary a one returns for worship on a Sunday.
They know that they don’t belong.
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