Lines in the Sand

If someone tells me that he has no trouble understanding what the Bible tells us to do, I know instantly that I do not want that person as a spiritual guide.  If God had wanted us to have a clear and unambiguous set of rules to follow, God would have provided "The Holy Pamphlet" rather than the Bible that we have.  (And it bears recalling that Christians can't even agree what books belong in said Bible.)  As it stands, we have a dizzying array of stories, rules, poems, songs, letters, and literary genres, some parts nearly impossible to reconcile with others.

Today's gospel immediately confronts us with this.  Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished."  Not one letter of the law passes away, so let's try one.  "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy... you shall not do any work."  Hopefully you see the problem.  For starters, the Sabbath is Saturday, and even if you justify relocating it to Sunday, we still ignore the command.

I'm not saying anything you probably don't already know.  No one, not even the most ardent fundamentalist-literalist, actually does all that Scripture says.  Everyone picks and chooses.  And yet, even though most everyone acknowledges this, we still draw scriptural lines in the sand, saying, "Break this commandment from Scripture and you've gone too far."

In my own denomination, issues around gay ordination and gay marriage have become theological lines in the sand.  Given Scriptures sparse treatment of homosexuality, this might seem a strange place to draw such a line, but given its hot-button status in our society, perhaps this in unavoidable.  Regardless, many believe that you have or haven't abandoned the Bible based on where you come down on this topic.

Given that none of us fully embrace Jesus' call to follow him, that all of us are implicated in things that Jesus and the Bible explicitly condemn, perhaps all of us would do well to consider how it is we go about determining where lines in the sand should be drawn.  What is it that makes us want to drawn ours here rather than there?

I'm not arguing for no lines.  If we have no clear way of saying, "This is what a disciple of Jesus looks like," then we end up with Christian faith so vague and nondescript as to be meaningless.  And indeed this is a problem for mainline congregations in a post Christendom world.  There sometimes isn't enough distinct and meaningful about joining us for folks not already in the habit to bother. 

So then, if we need lines, where shall we put them?  I think this is a critical question facing mainline congregations.  How are we to define ourselves?  What is it that identifies us as followers of Jesus?  Who decides which issues are crucial and which are less important?  There's no avoiding an engagement with the culture here.  Think back to the Church and slavery, the Church and the problems of industrialization 100 years ago, or the Church and the Civil Rights movement.  The Church could not avoid those issues, and it cannot avoid engagement in the issues of our day.  But how do we know when such issues demand lines in the sand?

What informs where you place your lines?  How do you decide what is non-negotiable and what is optional?  Did you inherit lines that you need to reevaluate?  Or could you use a few lines to guide you in your faith walk?  How do you finish this sentence?  If you're going to get serious about following Jesus, you really need to... 

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Salt, Light, and Introverted Congregations

For a variety of reasons, Christian faith in America tends to be a private and personal thing.  Faith is what we believe, and that can be safely tucked away in our brain somewhere.  In the faith understanding I grew up with, you can be a faithful Christian if you go to church on Sunday and abide by societal norms for morality.  So, in essence, if people don't check the church parking lot on Sundays, nothing about your faith would distinguish you from anyone else who functioned as a good citizen.

Jesus clearly didn't anticipate such a development.  In the "Sermon on the Mount," a portion of which shows up in today's gospel, Jesus refers to us as salt and light.  The obvious idea is that we impact the world we live in.  And given that the world does not yet look all that much like the Kingdom of God, Jesus fully expected that our impacting the world around us would cause problems, that we would be persecuted like prophets of old.

It's worth noting that prophets generally were not persecuted for what they believed.  The people who persecuted them were fellow members of their faith, fellow worshipers of Yahweh.  They were persecuted because they insisted that being God's people demanded that they live differently than they were doing.  The prophets insisted that they could not claim to be God's people while exploiting the poor, worrying about their personal fortunes more than God's commands, and so on.

I regularly hear the term "introverted" used to describe church congregations.  Often this happens in the context of not doing evangelism.  But I think the issue is much larger, going well beyond our not telling others about our faith.  Our introversion thinks that we can be "good Christians" without being noticed.  It thinks we can blend in with the prevailing culture, acting no different from anyone else beyond believing in Jesus and going to worship on occasion. 

I sometimes think that the demise of Christendom, of a culture that enforces some basic Christians practices, is a huge gift to the Church Jesus envisions.  When the culture stopped being overtly Christian, being a good citizen could no longer be synonymous with being a follower of Jesus.  This has been bad news for the institutional church, hurting attendance on Sunday and shrinking the collections in offering plates.  But it does force us to re-define ourselves.  If we aren't simply good citizens who believe a few peculiar things, then who are we?

Increasingly, non-church folk who decide to do some spiritual exploring, who visit congregations wondering if there is anything significant going on there, are embracing or rejecting Christian faith according to the answers they see us giving to such questions.  If they drop by on Sunday, and nothing they see or hear suggests that the worshipers are any different from the other, non-church folks they know, why would they bother to become a part of such an enterprise?

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God on Our Terms

Today's story in Exodus, where the Israelites make a golden calf and Moses shatters the two tablets written by God's own hand, might be considered a "primitive" story.  God's behavior is very human-like, and Yahweh threatens to wipe out the Israelites in a fit of anger.  Fortunately Moses begs for God to remember the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "And Yahweh changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people."

But if the story contains some "primitive" notions of God, it also speaks directly to issues that impact faith communities in our day, although people often seem to miss this.  They read the story as an account of fickle Israelites turning from God the moment God isn't there for them.  In the standard telling, the Israelites trade Yahweh, the living God, for a golden calf.  But I think this misunderstands the events.

After Aaron has created the calf and an altar to go with it, he declares, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to Yahweh."  To Yahweh.  Not to some invented god, but to Yahweh.  The Israelites seem less interested in replacing Yahweh than in making God more reliable and available.  This unpictureable Yahweh is a bit too slippery.  They want a god who is available on demand.  They need manageable access to God.  Moses has been their only source of access, and he's gone missing.  They need something that can't run off on them.

It is the perennial religious problem.  We want God on our terms, available on demand, amenable to our requests, sympathetic to our agendas.  We aren't "primitive" enough to cast golden calves, but we have more "sophisticated" methods for creating a god who does as we wish.  And so our idols are more sophisticated, but they are idols nonetheless.

What methods do you use to get God on your side, to make sure God agrees with you, to keep God in your camp?  And more importantly, what methods do you have for letting God shatter your idols?  How are we to open ourselves to God's transforming presence that breaks through our idolatries and recreates us more and more in the image of Jesus?

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Sermon audio - Following Along Behind

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Sermon - Following Along Behind

John 10:11-18

Following Along Behind

James Sledge                                                                          April 29, 2012

When I was in seminary, I had the opportunity to take a three week trip to the Middle East and Greece.  It was a remarkable experience, and I got to see all sorts of wonderful historical, archeological, and religious sites.  There was much on the trip that was memorable, but one of the more vivid memories for me was not one of these sites but something I saw along the way.

I'm not sure which site we were headed to or coming from.  I think maybe it was the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  Our group was on a charter bus, and we were driving along a winding road through the undulating hills of the region. 

As I looked out my window, I spotted something moving across the rocky terrain, headed down into a valley.  Focusing on it, I realized that it was a young Palestinian boy.  He looked to be around twelve years old, and he was walking along a well-worn path.  And right behind him, in a single fill line, followed twelve or fifteen sheep.  He was not even looking back at them.  He simply walked along the path, and the sheep walked right along behind.  It looked a little like a teacher leading a group of elementary students to the cafeteria.

I've since learned that this is fairly typical of Middle Eastern shepherding practices, both nowadays and in biblical times.  I suppose that my notions of herding were shaped by cowboy scenes with huge numbers of cattle being driven.  But with sheep, in biblical lands at least, it is a more relational activity.  The sheep learn to trust the shepherd, and so they will follow where he or she leads.  I could not hear anything as I gazed out the bus window that day, but I suppose that the young boy must have called his little flock and then headed down that trail with them following along behind.                       

"I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me."  This is one of a number of I AM sayings in the gospel of John.

What Does God Do?

If I sit down beside a stranger on an airline, and if we decide to introduce ourselves to each other, invariably one of us will ask, "So what do you do?"  It's a standard get-to-know-someone question.  It's relatively safe and non-controversial.  And it also a good question because what people "do" says a great deal about who they are.  We acknowledge as much when we ask young children, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  Even though we may say "be" we aren't asking about their existential status.  We expect them to answer with a vocation or occupation.  "I'm going to be a firefighter."

We tend to draw a significant part of our self-identity from what we do: our work, our hobbies, our studies, our volunteer activities, etc.  However, in my own perception of growing up Christian, that identity had more to do with what I believed than anything I did.

In today's reading from Exodus, God shows up to give the Israelites the "10 Commandments."  This isn't the tablets that many associate with these commandments.  This is simply God speaking directly to the people.  God does not generally speak directly to people in the Bible, and so an introduction is necessary.  "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."  Who are you and what do you do?  "I'm Yahweh, and I free people from bondage."

There's been a great deal of talk in recent years about the "practices" that form individuals and communities into people of faith.  In some congregations, what had been called "Christian Education" is starting to be referred to as "Christian Formation."  The shift, in part, speaks of a move beyond what I know or believe, a move that also speaks of what I do.

Jesus certainly did plenty of teaching, but he also did lots of healing and feeding and such.  And he told his followers lots of things the were to do.  Jesus talked a great deal about the Kingdom drawing near, and this Kingdom was not a hope for heaven.  It is a transformed world that operates by different rules, a place where things get done for the sake of the neighbor, the weak and oppressed, rather than self or for those with influence and power.  It is a new sort of world where life has been completely reorganized around the practice of neighborliness.

So what do you do?  I think Jesus is God's fullest answer to that question.  And if we are going to slap the label "Christian" on ourselves or our society or our country, then surely our answer to "What do you do?" needs to look a bit like God's answer.

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Surprised by God

In today's gospel, Jesus comes out to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  John, who has been telling people to get ready, to change their ways in anticipation of the new thing that is coming, is caught off guard by the manner in which this new thing arrives.  He does not want to baptize Jesus.  It does not make sense to him.

Given how surprised John is by the situation, how at odds it is with what he expects, he comes around quite easily.  Jesus says one sentence to John.  "Then he consented."  John sure seemed open to the unexpected, to being surprised by God.

In his devotion for today, Fr. Richard Rohr writes,

The truth comes from the edges of society. Jesus’ reality is affirmed and announced on the margins, where people are ready to understand and to ask new questions. The establishment at the center is seldom ready for the truth because it's got too much to protect; it has bought into the system. As Walter Brueggeman says, “the home of hope is hurt.”

 As I am learning the ropes in a new, larger congregation (Are pastors ever "called" to smaller congregations?), a church with more programs, activities, and resources, I am acutely aware of how difficult it can be to be surprised by God.  Surely God is already located in all those things we've been doing all this time.  Surely God would not act in ways that threaten any of those ways we're so invested in. 

If "the truth comes from the edges," how do we who are heavily invested in the center hear its voice?

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Leadership, the Spirit, and Permission

A strange mix of voices has combined to speak to me this day.  In today's staff meeting we did a lectio divina exercise where I was drawn to this phrase from today's Colossians reading, "worthy of the Lord."  As I transition into my new role as pastor here, this seemed to be reminding me that my work is for God.  The tasks of ministry must be in service to Christ's call to follow him.

At the very same time I found myself reflecting on a blog from Diana Butler Bass in light of an Exodus reading from earlier this week. In that passage, Jethro advises his son-in-law Moses to select elders to help him in his work guiding and leading the people of Israel.  The conclusion of that blog, "Granting Permission: an Act of Trust" read,

   Permission-granting trust is a very biblical thing, and is the heart of a church awakened to being God’s presence in the world. In the Gospels, Jesus awakened his followers to God’s mission of compassion and spiritual transformation when he sent the Twelve into Galilee’s villages and towns. When Jesus sent the disciples on that first mission, he did not give them a list of rules. Instead, he instructed them in some practices, and gave the disciples “power and authority” to enact the good news themselves. He gave them permission to heal, teach, and preach. There were no rules and many risks. Jesus trusted his friends to do the work of God’s reign.
   The Great Awakening for which we long begins with the sort of radical trust that grants permission go beyond the rules and to do the works of the Kingdom. We can fully expect that not everything we do will succeed, but we can be sure that we will have embarked on an adventure of faith into the world. And we will come to discover, as the disciples did, that being sent to the do the Spirit’s work is much more rewarding than staying at home hoping religious rules will save us.

As a pastor, someone with specialized training in theology, Bible, and worship, I often find it difficult to turn loose.  Some of this may simply be my being a control freak, but some is a worry about things being done correctly.  In many congregations the pastor may be the only person with any theological training, and those learnings need to be considered.  But at the very same time, it cannot possibly be that the Spirit works only through the pastor.   How much of my clinging to control is a failure to trust the work of the Spirit?

There is no avoiding a congregation taking on some of the personality of its pastor, but it always bears remembering that it is Christ's Church, not mine.  No trying to keep the wind of the Spirit boxed up in the pastor's study.  Doors and windows open; let the Spirit blow through the congregation.

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O Lord, It's Hard To Be Humble

Humility is not much valued in our culture.  We do appreciate it if a sports star or a CEO isn't too pretentious, but we know that they didn't get where they are simply by slogging away at their jobs.  Rarely do people achieve such status without some degree of self promotion, without getting people to "Look at me!"

"Look at me" is modeled for us all the time.  Watch the six o'clock news and you're likely to hear, "Only on News Channel 10..."  The entire advertising industry is about "Look at me!"  Voices all around us clamor constantly for our attention shouting, "Look at me, look at me!"

Churches get involved as well.  I just set up a Facebook page and Facebook group for this congregation.  Social media is an important way for churches to get their message out.  But in the process we may simply add our voice to that cacophony screaming, "Look at me!"

Today's epistle reading says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."  I wonder if I really believe that.  I suppose I could just ignore this message.  After all is comes from a seldom read letter, one that sometimes seems out of touch with Jesus' core message.  ("Wives, submit to your husbands" is in here.)  Problem is,  "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble," resonates perfectly with Jesus' message.  It's not very different from Jesus' own, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."  And Jesus also says, "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

It seems to me that part of the difficulty embracing Jesus' way of thinking comes from the way we've pigeon-holed Christian faith into our way of doing things.  We've failed to recognize what a radical idea Jesus' "kingdom of God" is.  Or perhaps we have realized how radical it is and simply rejected it.  After all, we're reasonably convinced that success, power, privilege, prestige, wealth, and so on are things that we achieve by hard work, that we earn in some way.  But the Kingdom has all this socialist sounding talk of lifting up the lowly and dragging down the powerful.  Consider Mary's song in Luke.  "He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and set the rich away empty."  Sounds like "class warfare" to me.

The problem with grace is that you can't deserve it and you can't earn it.  It pays no attention to status and does not respond to "Look at me!"  Grace does not fit well into the rules that govern the world we live in, which is probably why Christian faith so often gets reduced to the issue of one's status after death.  I'll get into heaven by grace.  Everything else is up to me, except maybe God will bail me out of jam now and then if I'm a good little boy.

Today's gospel features John the Baptist saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."(Employing typical Jewish deference, Matthew's gospel says "kingdom of heaven" rather than "of God.")  Jesus quotes John exactly when he begins his ministry.  Both the Baptist and Jesus insist that God's reign is coming, and we need to change our ways to fit its.  Nothing about going to heaven here.  It's about God's will being done on earth.  It's about our world starting to mirror heaven. 

But our world doesn't dare trust grace.  We know that "God helps those who help themselves." (Not from the Bible, by the way.)  And we don't really want our world to look like heaven.  Then we wouldn't get to run it anymore.

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Sermon audio - Concrete Faith

Sermon - Concrete Faith

Luke 24:36b-48; 1 John 3:1-7

Concrete Faith

April 22, 2012                                                                               James Sledge

I don’t know about here in Northern Virginia, but in the Carolinas where I grew up, it was common for church congregations to hold “homecomings.”  That’s the church version of a family reunion.  Invitations are sent out to old members who have moved away and a big picnic is held after the service.  The congregation in Raleigh, NC that I served right out of seminary had not done homecomings.  But when we celebrated our 50^th anniversary during my time there, people enjoyed the festivities so much that they decided to hold annual homecomings. 

Homecomings often feature former pastors coming back to preach, and so a few years after leaving the Raleigh congregation I was invited back to be the quest preacher.  I would like to think it an honor to receive such an invitation.  But in fact, all the pastors who served before me except one were dead.  And he was elderly and in poor health.  And so I got the job mostly by default.

It’s something of a peculiar thing to preach for a congregation you used to serve, especially on a day when they are celebrating their heritage.  There is no avoiding a certain amount of reminiscing.  You can’t help speaking about the things that give a congregation its unique character, its personality.  And when I began thinking of the things that made that church in Raleigh the particular church that it was, I realized that most of the things that came to my mind were tangible, concrete things.  Some of those things were really concrete, the buildings and structures.  But they were also the concrete things that had been done by members over the years, the programs that were started, the special services that were held, the mission activities that were planned and implemented, and so on.

It’s the same for this congregation.  When I first learned that Falls Church was looking for a pastor, I went online and read a document your PNC (pastor nominating committee) had written.  It described some of the concrete things that give this congregation its identity.

No Time for Love

It's a perpetual problem for married couples.  The intensity and passion they felt for each other early in the relationship gradually wanes.  As time goes on, the routines of daily life often push the relationship further and further to the side.  The demands of work, children, and more come to dominate, and it is not unusual for couples to live with one another without actually doing much loving.  They may get along fine and be reasonably content, but things undertaken or done in order to love the other may become fewer and fewer.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."  So says Jesus to his disciples shortly before his arrest and execution.  In John's gospel, Jesus speaks of this a great deal.  He clearly expects that loving one another will dominate the activity of his followers.  And so it seems safe to presume it should dominate the activity of the Church.  But there are so many other things that need to be taken care of, that have to be managed to keep congregations running.

I have to confess that after a little over a week as the new pastor at Falls Church Presbyterian, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the tasks of running the church.  Nothing alarming about this.  It is to be expected when there is so much to learn: programs and activities, lots of names, office procedures and equipment, ways of doing things, and so on.  But just as with couples, where the routines of life sometimes push the relationship to the side, the routines of church can do the same.

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."  Jesus gave us other commands, but I sometimes think that if we really were serious about loving, most of those would take care of themselves.  So... how do I make sure that the busyness of church doesn't draw me away from the main business of loving?

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