Taking God to Task

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
     for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill
     of the scorn of those who are at ease,
     of the contempt of the proud.     Psalm 123:3-4

More than enough... I can imagine all sorts of situations that might prompt someone to cry out, "I've had more than enough." Most of us have probably felt this way at times. And then there are those unimaginable events that are hard to comprehend. Think of people in the Philippines at this moment with loved ones dead and missing, with all their possessions gone, with no food or safe water to be found. "Have mercy, God, have mercy. We cannot go on otherwise."

When the psalmist pleads for God to have mercy, I wonder what emotions were churning. Was there anger at God for allowing so much "more than enough?" Was there bewilderment that God was not doing anything to help? Clearly the psalmist looks longingly to God for something that has not been forthcoming. The psalmist knows God in some sense, and God is not acting like God's character would suggest.

When I read this psalm, I hear a cry for God to be God. God is a God of mercy who comes to those in distress, but that has not happened. Perhaps someone without the poetic sense of the psalmist would simply have cried, "Dammit, God! Act like God!"

No doubt some find it offensive to address God this way, but I have always thought that anger at God requires a significant amount of faith. It is hard to be angry with a notion of God or a general concept of goodness or morality. To be angry at God is to have expected God to behave in some manner. Perhaps this expectation was wrong (mine often are), rooted in a misunderstanding of God's nature, but even if we don't know God like we think we do, to know God at all is to expect God to be God. And when God does not, that is a moment of crisis.

Anger at least acknowledges that. Far worse is the sort of numb, resignation that cannot be upset by God. Then God may become little more than nostalgia, a childhood recollection of Santa Claus, a lingering warm feeling but not someone I expect anything from. If I do not get any wonderful presents for Christmas, I will not be the least bit disappointed in Santa. Is it the same if I find myself in a prolonged bought of spiritual dryness, if I cannot glimpse some sign of a renewed and reconciled creation, or if I despair that the world is horribly lost? Is my God as impotent as Santa?

O God, are you there in the Philippines? O God, are you there in the brokenness and hurts of so many? O God, show yourself. I implore you. Be God!

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Sermon video: Seeing Something New

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Seeing Something New

Luke 20:27-38

Seeing Something New

James Sledge                                                                           November 10, 2013

This may seem a stupid question, but why do people ask questions? Quite naturally people ask question when they are seeking information they do not have. If I’m lost and ask someone, “Can you tell me how to get to Rustico in Arlington?” I’m hoping that person knows something that I don’t. But very often, questions are not that simple.

Some questions are really looking for confirmation or validation, not information. Questions about whether or not a dress looks flattering or a completed project is well done may or may not be genuine. And then there are religious questions.

If someone comes up to me on the street and asks, “Is Jesus Christ your Lord and savior?” it’s certain that no simple exchange of information is about to take place. If I answer “No,” the questioner will not respond with a “Thank you,” and then walk off.

Some of the worst religious questions are those from people who disagree with you. Christians who fancy themselves smart and sophisticated will sometimes ask more fundamentalist friends questions designed to point out what uneducated dolts these friends actually are. Atheists will sometimes ask Christian friends questions about some facet of faith that seems particularly ridiculous to them. “Do you really believe Jesus did miracles like casting out evil spirits?” At least that question lets you know ahead of time that to answer “Yes” means you will get laughed at.

The Sadducees in our gospel ask just such a question to Jesus, a complex, trick question meant to make Jesus look foolish. Then they can laugh at this country rube of a rabbi.

It may help to know that the Sadducees were well-to-do elites with quite a bit of power and influence. Religiously they were rather conservative. Unlike the Pharisees, they held that only the books of Moses, the first five books in our Old Testament, were authoritative. And since there was no mention of resurrection in those books, they dismissed belief in resurrection the way some of us might laugh at the Rapture.

Their question is rooted in an old practice called levirate marriage. For ancient Hebrews, this was a kind of social safety net for widows. In a time when women were not full citizens, a widow without male children was terribly vulnerable. Requiring her brother-in-law to marry her not only provided a measure of protection for a widow, it also was a way of keeping the deceased brother’s lineage going.

And so this question about a widow with seven husbands. The actual scenario is perhaps implausible yet still possible. I wonder if the Sadducees could refrain from snickering as they sprung their little trap. Wouldn’t it be fun watching Jesus tie himself up in knots with this.

Interestingly the Sadducees, who do not believe in resurrection, seem to have a remarkably conventional notion of it. Resurrection is a lot like things are now, it’s just somewhere else and sometime else. It’s a view a lot of modern day Christians share: resurrection as an upgrade of sorts. There’s the Family Circus version of this with Grandpa in his white robe, looking down to check on Billy and his siblings. And there’s the Greek philosophical version of an immortal soul whose essence somehow persists.

But Jesus has no trouble navigating the Sadducees’ trap, in large part, because he does not have a conventional understanding of resurrection. It is part of something new, so new that it is almost unimaginable. It will not really fit into conventional notions of how things are.

Jesus’ comment about being “like angels” in the resurrection has nothing to do with people becoming angels when they die. In the Bible, angels are not former humans. They are an entirely different sort of creature, not at all like us. And that is precisely Jesus’ point. The hope of a new day that Jesus proclaims is not at all about an upgrade or progress or advancement. It is about something so new only eyes of faith can even begin to glimpse it.

Hearing Creation's Song

The view last evening from the church's fellowship hall.

 The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice;
     let the many coastlands be glad! Psalm 97:1

I wonder how many of us who grew up in the church give much thought to the oddity of lines like those in today's morning psalm. Can the earth rejoice? Can the coastlands have emotions? Seems a rather odd notion.

Earlier I read these words from famed naturalist John Muir, used by Brian McLaren in his book, Naked Spirituality.

Oh, these vast, calm measureless mountain days in whose light every thing seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God…. These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God’s beauty [that] the whole body seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfire or sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through all one’s flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure-glow not explainable…. A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.

Right now I am looking out my office window at the deep blue sky that emerged following the earlier rains. The parking lot is littered with leaves tossed about by the wind, and vivid fall colors fill the horizon. I'm fortunate I can see it. My office has three large windows, each with four, over-sized panes. However, all but two of those twelve pains are opaque, offering only a hint of the grandeur of God just outside. I wonder if those two panes by my desk were a later modification. The other panes seem older.

Who thought it a good idea to hide my view of creation behind gauzy opaqueness? It is a question easily asked of many sanctuaries. I've marveled at my share of beautiful sanctuaries and found them invitations into God's transcendence, so I mean them no disrespect. Still...

We Presbyterians can be overly head focused at times. Valuing the mind and intellect is not a problem in and of itself, but sometimes this focus makes us suspicious of emotions, of experience, of things we can not explain or control. ...like a rejoicing planet, a gladsome beach, or, for that matter, like God.

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Anxiety, Addiction, and Gratitude

Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
     make melody to our God on the lyre.   Psalm 147:7

Here in Virginia, I and many others are thrilled that election day has come and gone. No more campaign commercials; no more political signs cluttering the roadside; no more annoying robo-calls. I don't think such feelings are more prevalent in one political party or the other. Regardless of political leanings, it's good that the election is over.

The ads in Virginia's gubernatorial race were particularly nasty. I greatly preferred one candidate over the other, but I found many of my own candidate's ads to be cringe-worthy. Indeed commentators of all stripes wondered if either candidate had anything positive to say.

Like clockwork, Americans complain about all the negative attack ads that fill the airwaves in election seasons. No one likes them, yet they won't go away. The reason is obvious. Such ads work, and they work because most people tend to be motivated by fear.

John Calvin wrote that the motivation for the Christian life is gratitude. An awareness of the incredibly extravagant way in which God comes to us, embraces us, cares for us, and longs for us, no matter what we do to drive God away, issues forth in a new quality of life that wants, most of all, to offer unending thanks to God.

Most of us have witnessed this sort of behavior, if only occasionally. People who have fallen in love will exhibit this toward their lover, becoming remarkably extravagant in trying to make happy and please that person. Sometimes a child will react to an unexpected gift with exuberant gratitude, bursting with joy and lavishing hugs and thanks over and over on the gift giver. But both these examples are more the exception than rule.

Our world is largely motivated by anxiety, by worries and fears that we don't have enough: enough money, things, experiences, faith, happiness, security etc. By and large the entire advertising industry exists to create and feed such anxieties. And when you don't think you have enough, it is difficult to be grateful.

Even worship is impacted by this. The common complaint about not being fed in worship presumes that one goes to worship in order to get something. It sees worship as one more place designed to feed my consumerist appetite, to give me some more of those things I don't yet have in adequate supply.

Worship certainly does uplift and feed. But according to Jesus, this happens primarily when we approach it - and indeed all of life - from a pose of letting go rather than grasping. When Jesus insists that his followers practice self-denial, he isn't calling us to some sort of hermit-like asceticism. Rather he is telling us one of the counter-intuitive secrets to full life. Striving for enough, for more and more, is deadly addiction and not a path to life.

The medieval theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote, "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was “thank you,” that would be sufficient." Imagine such a notion, that gratitude itself is enough. Then all our worship and singing would truly be "with thanksgiving."

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Sermon video: Oh, I Wish That I Could Be...

Audios of sermons and worship are on the FCPC website.

What's in a Name?

No doubt because I've been re-reading Brian McLaren's Naked Spirituality, I was struck by all the mentions of God's name in today's psalms. Not only were there repeated occurrences of LORD, the NRSV translation's reverential way of rendering the divine name so that it isn't actually said, but there were repeated calls to bless God's name and to praise God's name. There's a lot of fascination with names when it comes to God.

Jesus picks this up in the prayer he teaches his disciples. Not only does he speak of God as Father, but he also says "hallowed by your name" Modern Christians have perhaps over-embraced the term father while, at the same time, losing much sense of reverence or  hallowing of the sacred, divine name.

I don't fall into that group that may have over-embraced "Father" as a way of naming God. I've likely never begun a prayer with "Father God..."I have a different faith problem with it comes to God and names. I've tended to focus on God's otherness and transcendence to the point that God becomes so distant as to be unknowable. If some Christians seem to get so familiar that they invoke God like a personal genie, God can become for me more conceptual than real.

I don't know that the psalmists were worried about that sort of problem when they got so focused on God's name, but still I think they are on to something important. When you know a person's name, you can call them by name, and my faith insists that God has a name that has been shared with us. It's a bit of a slippery name, one closely related to the verb "to be" and to the story of Moses and the burning bush where God, at one point, gives the divine name as "I am who I am," or perhaps "I will be who I will be." It's a name that the tradition is very hesitant to speak aloud, but the name is known nonetheless, and there is something remarkable about that.

Does your god have a name? Too often, I fear, my God remains nameless and therefore unapproachable and distant to a remarkable degree. I'm acutely aware of the problem of making God overly familiar, a personal buddy who likes all the things I like and hates all the things I hate. But my solution to that problem creates a different one: a God who is too remote even to encounter.

O God, Holy One, YHWH, I AM, let me know you by name, even if no single name will quite do. Then with the psalmist, "I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever."

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Sermon: Oh, I Wish That I Could Be...

Luke 6:20-31

Oh, I Wish That I Could Be…

James Sledge                                                               November 3, 2013 – All Saints

There’s an old Simon and Garfunkel song, based on an even older poem, that some of you may know. It’s called “Richard Corey,” and here are some of the lyrics.

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,

With political connections to spread his wealth around.

Born into society, a banker's only child,

He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

But I work in his factory

And I curse the life I'm living

And I curse my poverty

And I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be Richard Cory.

A second verse speaks of the luxurious, even decadent lifestyle Cory leads. And then the song closes with this verse.

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,

And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,

So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:

"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."

But I work in his factory

And I curse the life I'm living

And I curse my poverty

And I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be Richard Cory.

Who or what is it you wish you could be? Oh, I wish I could be richer, more beautiful, more accomplished, more athletic, more intelligent. Oh, I wish I could be more like so and so who seems to have it all. Oh I wish I had a better job. Oh, I wish I could get into such and such college. Oh, I wish I lived in such and such a town. Oh, I wish I had a better wardrobe. Oh, I wish I were thinner. I wish I were more popular. Oh, I wish…

What are your “Oh, I wish…” scenarios? What are those things, accomplishments, relationships, abilities, experiences, etc. that you think would make your life grand and wonderful, all you want and hope for it to be?

In our culture there are lots and lots of messages telling people that they don’t quite measure up, that they’d better work harder and smarter and longer or they will be down at the bottom, looking up at others and saying, “Oh, I wish…”

I saw a quote in The Washington Post the other day from a Dr. Richard Leahy, an anxiety specialist. He said, “The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The pressure to perform and measure up, to be accomplished in academics and sports and arts, to go to a good college, get a great job, and make lots of money seems to grow with each passing year. And it is only more intense in areas such as our DC metro region.

These sorts of cultural messages find their way into the church as well. I wish I had a deeper prayer life. Oh, I wish that I could find a spirituality that really worked for me. Oh, I wish my faith was more like so and so’s.

A lot of pastors and other church leaders have a hard time going to something at another church without looking at the bulletin boards and lists of activities and then fretting about whether or not our congregation measures up. There’s almost always something to feed our anxieties, some event or mission or accomplishment that looks impressive and makes us say to ourselves, “Oh, how I wish we could…”

Busyness, Suffering, and Idolatry

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
     from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation,
     my fortress; I shall never be shaken.     Psalm 62:1-2

For God alone... Hardly. All sorts of things compete with God for my attention. And I don't do much waiting in silence. As I write there is a stump grinder growling outside my office window. But I'm contributing to the lack of silence as well. I've got Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground playing on Spotify. (He died yesterday, if you haven't heard.)  I do turn the music off when I pray, but there's not much I can do about the stump grinder. Sometimes I feel the same about all the thoughts and anxieties that bounce around in my head.

Sometimes I'm amazed at how hard it is for me to get centered on God. And I work in a church. At least I have regular moments in my day that would seem tailor made to draw me toward God. I regularly reflect on scripture passages in order to create sermons. I look at hymns in planning worship. I teach a Bible study and I lead and participate in devotionals during staff and committee meetings. How different from many who worship and serve here. How much more difficult it must be for them to be attentive to God in the course of their day.

It seems to me that two very different pitfalls can emerge here, one for religious professionals and one for those living and/or working in more secular places. Spirituality and religiousness can become a job for me. They become part of a professional persona that gets divorced from the rest of my life, making it easy for me to stop being spiritual on my days off. But for others, spirituality can become a recreational activity, something only done after work or on days off. I wonder if either is all that satisfying.

My own Reformed/Presbyterian tradition has long been concerned with a rather antiquated sounding problem: idolatry. But even John Calvin all those centuries ago wasn't worried about little statues or anything of that sort. He was worried about how hard it is really to do the "for God alone" thing. Too many other things seem more inviting, convenient, and easier to manage. However, in my experience all these things end up disappointing us. In the long run, they end up failing to provide what we expected of them, contentment, happiness, meaning, or whatever it was we were hoping for.

The psalmist doesn't say so specifically, but I get the impression he or she is in the midst of some terrible difficulty. Perhaps all the things she had hoped have failed her, and she is now forced to wait for "God alone."

Many spiritual greats insist that suffering is the greatest teacher. For some weeks now, Father Richard Rohr's daily devotionals have all been on the following theme. "The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines." We don't like the sound of that. We do all we can to avoid it and to rescue our children from it. But in the end, our teacher finds us.

Have you ever noticed that when people are going through a terrible time of grief, such as the loss of a dear, loved one, they tend to keep themselves busy. In the face of death, dealing with all the arrangements that have to be made can provide a welcome diversion, providing a bit of needed cushioning from the shock. But if busyness is helpful at first, eventually we must let go of such shields. People who can't ever bring themselves to slow down and face their grief will rightfully provoke concerns on the part of friends and family.

Or course our culture can make it very difficult to slow down. Time that isn't "productive" is wasted. Even our vacations must be filled with activities. When we do sit down we pull out our smartphones and engage in a different sort of busyness. Many of us think of Sabbath as an archaic relic of history.

I don't wish suffering on anyone. The notion that all suffering is somehow therapeutic is simply wrong. But there are plenty of times when only suffering or great difficulty seems to turn me to God in any deep and meaningful way. Now if I were only a better student...

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Sermon video: Information or Good News?

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Information or Good News?

Luke 18:9-14

Information or Good News?

James Sledge                                                                                       October 27, 2013

When I first looked at the gospel reading appointed for today, the day when we make our financial commitments to God, I wondered if divine providence might be at work. Tithing figures prominently in many church stewardship campaigns, and I think it a central spiritual discipline. Yet in today’s parable, the tither doesn’t come off so well, even though he’s an ideal church  member, a regular worshipper who engages in significant spiritual disciplines and is serious about living an ethical, moral life. Where can we get some more folks like him? But Jesus holds him up as a bad example, saying that a sleazy tax collector is right in the eyes of God rather than this fellow most churches would love as a member.

If you’ve read very much in the gospels, you’ve surely noticed that the Pharisees have a hard time embracing Jesus. There’s been a tendency over the years to think of these Pharisees as evil, bad guys, but in reality, they were the dedicated church folk of their day. They were a reform movement with much in common with our Protestant reformers of 500 years ago. They opposed what they saw as corrupt, priestly Judaism and its focus on ritual and sacrifice. They urged believers to get back to the scriptures and follow them. Some of their teachings were very similar to those of Jesus. So why did they end up in conflict with him? Why didn’t his good news sound good to them?

____________________________________________________________________________

Some decades ago, I encountered an essay by the great southern writer, Walker Percy. “The Message in the Bottle” is part of a book by the same name containing essays about  language and the human condition. This particular essay describes a fellow who is shipwrecked on an island with no memories of his life before he washed up there. This island has a quite advanced society, and the castaway is welcomed and cared for. He goes to school, gets married, has a family, and becomes a contributing member of society. Being a curious and educated fellow, he is intrigued by the large number of bottles he discovers washing up on the shore, each with a single, one sentence message corked inside.

These messages say all sorts of things. “Lead melts at 330 degrees. 2 + 2 = 4… The British are coming… The market for eggs in Bora Bora [a neighboring island] is very good… The pressure of a gas is a function of heat and volume… A war party is approaching from Bora Bora… Truth is beauty,”[1] and so on.

This scenario forms the basis of a long discussion about language and how we understand and make sense of all the information we receive. Percy discusses various ways we might classify and organize these messages, and how we might judge what’s true, important, or significant. But he says that many such schemes may not work for our castaway because they fail to acknowledge the difference between “a piece of knowledge and a piece of news.”

Oct. 20 Sermon video: Committed to God's New Day

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.