Sermon video: Enacted Prophecy (Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Enacted Prophecy

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Enacted Prophecy
James Sledge                                                                                     September 25, 2022

 As a general rule, there’s no such thing as a popular prophet. You might even say that the term popular prophet is an oxymoron. By definition prophets are people who see things that others don’t,

The Peaceable Kingdom, Fritz Eichenberg,
1950, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

and that almost always puts them out of step with the status quo, make them a challenge to the status quo, and that almost always makes them unpopular.

One of our most famous, recent prophets, Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good example. Even though Dr. King is widely honored today, albeit an often sanitized and domesticated version of him, that was hardly the case when he led a civil rights movement. In 1966, the last Gallop poll to ask about his popularity during his lifetime found that 63% of Americans had an unfavorable view of him.[1]

The prophet Jeremiah has a book in the Bible named for him, but during his lifetime, he may well have been more unpopular than Martin Luther King. When Jeremiah first began his ministry, he was a voice of doom and gloom at a time when all seemed to be going well. But Jeremiah knew that Israel’s failure to love God and neighbor, to enact mercy and justice, could only lead to tragedy, and that tragedy eventually showed up in the form of the Babylonian Empire with its powerful army.

Babylon conquered Israel, carried off some of its intelligentsia, royals, and priests into exile. They installed a relative of Israel’s king on the throne to be a puppet ruler, and collected regular tribute from Israel.

Unfortunately for Babylon, and for Israel, this puppet king was convinced to join a pro-Egyptian coalition of neighboring kingdoms who would rebel against Babylon with assistance from Egypt.

Jeremiah had warned the king against such a plan to no avail, and Babylon responded with ferocity. They attacked Israel and besieged the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah urged surrender, for which he was branded a traitor and thrown into jail, which is where we find him in our scripture reading this morning.

Sermon video: God's Strange Economics (Luke 15:1-10)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: God's Strange Economics

Luke 15:1-10
God’s Strange Economics
James Sledge                                                                                     September 11, 2022

Cara B. Hochhalter,
A Parable - The Lost Sheep

 I imagine it must have been exhilarating to meet Jesus when he was walked the dusty roads of Palestine all those years ago. He must have had an incredible presence. We hear over and over how great crowds sought to hear him. There was just something about him. Luke says that people were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. Not only did Jesus do miracles, but people could tell that he was not like other rabbis, not like other teachers and religious leaders.

But for all the thrill of meeting this Jesus, it must have been deeply unsettling as well. You’d be hard pressed to realize it from looking at most churches, but Jesus had this tendency to upset folks, especially religious folks, those who were members of the established church of his day. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees,” Jesus said on many occasions, which in our day might be more like “Woe to you pastors and elders, to you theologians and denominational leaders.” 

But as if that weren’t enough, Jesus had this infuriating habit of explaining what God was like with stories that featured some of the least godly sort of people. Samaritans, who were considered losers both on religious and ethnic grounds, shepherds, who were regarded as unsavory ruffians without morals or couth, and women, who were not even legally recognized as persons, all get lifted up by Jesus as models of the mercy and love of God. 

It happens in today’s reading from the Gospel. Jesus is hanging out with low life and riff raff, and the religious folks get offended. They know that Jesus is a religious man and so they complained about him. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Jesus reaches out and extends hospitality to the very sort of people church folks look down on. No wonder religious leaders got upset.

Jesus responds to this with some of his stories, and of course he highlights a no-account shepherd and a woman, of all people, to exemplify the ways of God. “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

Which one of you?... I don’t know about you, but I might have raised my hand if Jesus had been talking to me. “Wait a minute, Jesus. You can’t leave the flock alone in the wilderness. What if a lion or a wolf comes while you’re gone? Many could be killed, and the flock would be scattered all over the country side. You might never find lots of them. Sometimes economics require you to cut your losses, sad as that may be. And what’s with throwing a big party for friends and neighbors when you get back home. Come on. How much is one sheep worth. You’ll end up spending more than that on the party.”

Sermon video: Trading in Our T-shirts (Luke 14:25-33)

Audios and videos as sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Trading in Our T-shirts

Trading in Our T-shirts
Luke 14:25-33
James Sledge                                                                                     September 4, 2022

Some of you may know that I’m a pretty serious runner. Serious is not the same as good, but suffice to say that I run a lot. I’ve been a runner off and on for over 40 years, and during that time I’ve run a slew of races, 5ks, 10ks, half-marathons, and full marathons.

If you’ve ever been a runner or been around races, you probably know that you often get a T-shirt. When I ran my first marathon back in the 1980s, I proudly wore my Charlotte Observer Marathon shirt until it finally became so torn and ratty that my wife made me throw it away. 

If I’m out someplace and see someone else wearing a T-shirt from a race I’ve run, I will often go up to him or her and say something like, “I see you ran the Richmond Marathon. How’d you do?” Sometimes this leads to a nice discussion about the race and layout of the course, a particularly difficult hill, and so on. We talk about how we did and how we hope to do in an upcoming race.

But sometimes when I’ve spoken to someone with a race T-shirt it doesn’t go like this at all. Sometimes the person will say to me, “Oh, I never actually ran in the race. I just liked the T-shirt and found a way to get one.

It always struck me as a little odd that people would want to wear T-shirts from a race they never ran, but clearly some people do. I wonder why they want to be associated with the race without actually running it.