Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Sermon: Justice at the Center?
Amos 5:18-27
Justice at the Center?
James Sledge June
28, 2020
I
recently read an article by a Black, Baptist minister entitled, “Why I’m Skeptical of New Christian Allies.”[1]
His target seems to be more evangelical churches, but I don’t think progressive,
mainline churches are completely spared. Pastor Lavarin is encouraged that so
many Christians, including large numbers who’ve not previously been active in
issues of race, are speaking out against police brutality in the wake of George
Floyd’s murder. But these feelings are tempered by worries that the change
doesn’t go deep enough.
He writes, “Although numerous Christians have
finally chosen to name racism, I am woefully skeptical of new allies who have
rushed to protest without examining the ways in which their own theologies
continue to nurture it. The failure to address theological racism will
cause new allies to come to this moment believing that the fight for justice is
merely theologically adjacent to their brand of evangelism as “the real work of
ministry”. For some, this is still just a societal issue, and not a
theological one.”
As I said earlier, this doesn’t seem to target us
Presbyterians. We tend not to have evangelism high up on our list of “the real
work of ministry,” but I’m not sure justice is much higher for us than
evangelism. For many Presbyterians, the real work of ministry is holding good
worship, educating and nurturing children, and perhaps engaging in some
charitable acts in the community. And so some of Pastor Lavarin’s critiques may
apply equally to us.
He continues, “Prior to this moment, new allies have
preached a gospel of Jesus devoid of justice. They failed to make the
theological connection that Jesus and justice are, in fact, mutually inclusive.
To invoke Jesus and then to invoke justice is redundant. Every time we invoke
the name of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the ministry of justice. Every time
we invoke the name of Jesus, we declare the Psalmist’s decree that justice and
righteousness are the foundations of God’s throne. Every time we invoke the
name of Jesus, we summon the Messianic prophecy that the Spirit of the LORD was
upon Jesus, to preach the good news to the poor, to set the prisoners free from
the Roman industrial complex, and to proclaim liberty to those who were
oppressed. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we remember that Jesus was
convicted of a crime he did not commit, received an unfair trial, and was
sentenced to a state-sanctioned lynching on a tree. We cannot divorce our
theology from the ministry of justice, for to do so, is to divorce ourselves
from Jesus, himself. The ministry of justice is the ministry of Jesus.”
But this pastor saves his most pointed barb for the
end of his article. “Before your church decides to go out and protest, consider
protesting your own theology that continues to intentionally and
unintentionally do harm to Black and Brown bodies. Before taking a knee and
holding a prayer vigil, consider this: there is no real substantive difference
between a racist bigot holding a Bible in front of a church, and a Christian
holding up a #BlackLivesMatter sign with no plans to parse out the
practical implementation of the holy truth of justice.”
Ouch. Even if
we are not the intended target of this arrow, it still has a sting for we have
often viewed justice as a good thing, but not necessarily something central to
our faith. It’s one of those extras like joining a prayer group or volunteering
at Welcome Table. It’s optional, an elective in the walk of faith curriculum.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Sermon: Breaking Down Dividing Walls
Ephesians 2:11-20
Breaking Down Dividing Walls
James Sledge June
21, 2020
Shortly
after the murder of George Floyd touched off waves of protests around the
country, I began to see people on Facebook and Instagram posting lines lifted
from the Confession of Belhar. For those who have no idea what that is, it is
the newest confessional statement in our denomination’s (the PCUSA) Book of Confessions.
We
Presbyterians love well-crafted and carefully articulated statements on what we
believe and what that leads us to do and be in the world. Our Book of Confessions begins with ancient
Creeds, the Apostles’ and Nicene, moves to a number of confessional statements
and catechisms from the time around the Reformation, then jumps to the 20th
century.
Even
though Belhar is new to our Book of
Confessions, it isn’t all that new. It took shape in South Africa in the
early 1980s when apartheid was still the law of the land there. It was written
by members of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church, originally the denomination
for those labeled “coloured” in the system of apartheid. This denomination was distinct
from the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, the white church.
The
Dutch Reformed family is one of our theological cousins whose roots go back to John
Calvin just as ours do. But I don’t think Calvin’s theology had anything to do
with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa developing sophisticated
theological justifications for apartheid that cited biblical evidence for a
divinely ordained separation of the races.
Of
course we Presbyterians did exactly the same thing during the times of slavery
and segregation. When I attended Union Theological Seminary in Richmond (now
Union Presbyterian Seminary), Dabney Hall was a residence for some students.
Robert Dabney was a professor at Union who served as a chaplain in the
Confederacy, and who wrote stirring theological defenses of slavery and the
noble cause of the South well after the Civil War.
His
views held sway long beyond his time. My brother and I once found some of the
my father’s school work in a box in my grandmother’s attic. Amongst the papers
was some sort of quiz or worksheet where the correct answer labeled Blacks as
the accursed descendants of Ham from the biblical Noah story, part of the
rationale Dabney used to justify slavery and the marginalization of people of
color.
The
Belhar Confession correctly calls such foolishness sin and insists that the
Church is called to precisely the opposite sort of activity, to ministries of
reconciliation and justice. Even so, it took us Presbyterians until 2016 to add
Belhar to the Book of Confessions.
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Sermon: Unmanageable God
Genesis 1:1-2:3; Matthew 28:16-20
Unmanageable God
James Sledge June
7, 2020, Trinity Sunday
In the beginning when God created the heavens and
the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the
face of the deep, while a wind(or perhaps Spirit) from God swept over the face
of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was
light. So
opens Genesis and the Bible. So opens a lot of religious silliness as well.
For
some people, the literal account found here becomes a critical item of faith,
one that prohibits them for believing in things such as evolution. Other
Christians, some in reaction to the first group, insist the story is merely
symbolic, describing a well ordered cosmos. Or they dismiss it entirely, a
primitive tale with no real bearing on the modern world.
I
think all these views miss the mark, in part because religion, both
conservative and progressive, has a tendency to become utilitarian. Religion
becomes about getting something that I want. Perhaps its a certainty that I’ll
go to heaven when I die. Perhaps it’s a sense of spiritual well-being that has
eluded me despite buying into the competitive, success oriented, consumerist
version of life that our culture peddles.
When
religion is utilitarian, it’s a resource to be used, a way to get those things
I want. That’s true if I’m a conservative who needs a list of things I must
believe in and affirm so I get to heaven. And it’s true if I’m a progressive
looking for spiritual purpose and meaning. In either case I decide what I need
from religion, from the Bible, from God. In essence, I determine what God’s
purpose is.
We
all witnessed one of the most crass examples of utilitarian religion this past
week when President Trump stood in front of St. John’s Church and waved a
borrowed bible. It was brazen and shameless in enlisting religion, enlisting
God to the president’s cause. But most all of us engage in more subtle, nuanced
forms of enlisting God to our causes.
But
back to our story from Genesis. When this story was written, it was, in part,
meant to undermine utilitarian notions of God. The ancient Middle East was filled
with gods; every kingdom had at least one of their own. These deities ensured
that the crops produced and the herds grew. And when conflicts between kingdom
erupted, they were viewed as power contests between gods, holy war in the
truest sense of the term.
And
Israel’s God had lost. The Babylonians had conquered them and carried all the
important citizens into exile. Never mind prophecies promising an endless
throne of David. Never mind assurances that Jerusalem would stand forever. Now
there was nothing; the great city, the palace, Solomon’s magnificent Temple,
all lay in ruins. Their God had failed them.
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