Retrieving Jesus

A church member recently shared with me a Nov. 9th NY Times opinion piece by James Carroll entitled "Jesus and the Modern Man." A couple of quotes from it grabbed my attention. The first had been lifted out of the piece, reproduced in large print and so was unavoidable. "Retrieving the centrality of Christ can restore the simplicity of faith." The second struck me as I read the essay. It spoke of the current pope saying, "For this pope, the church exists for one reason only -- to carry the story of Jesus forward in history, and by doing that to make his presence real. Everything else is rubrics."

That such a thing needs to be said at all seems strange. Of courses the Church is about, above all else, Jesus. And yet, how easily he can slide from view in the day to day life of that institutional thing the Church -- whether denomination or congregation -- is tempted to become. Our theological statements would never say such a thing, but our practicalities often refute our stated theology. My own denomination's constitution speaks of the Church as "the body of Christ" and says it "is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life." (Book of Order F-1.0301) In reality, however, the Church will often seek to preserve its own life at all costs.

How easily the Church's mission becomes maintaining its structures and buildings, protecting its ways of doing church, or providing a religious product that is appealing to its "consumers." Nominally, at least, all these things can make some appeal to the person of Jesus, but practically, Jesus often disappears from view as congregations spend countless thousands of dollars to maintain facilities that sit vacant most of the time, argue incessantly about institutional details, or agonize over what new program might entice more participation. How easily we lose sight of Jesus as we become so focused on those "rubrics" that we forget who we are.

The 21st century is a time of great anxiety for most churches in America. Church participation has fallen precipitously; we have become less relevant culturally;, and many congregations have closed or will soon do so. In these anxious times churches often look for someone or something to bring them back. New pastors may be viewed like new head coaches who will be judged on how quickly they "turn things around." A slew of books, consultants, and organizations will show you new methods and programs that promise to increase worship attendance, build your youth program, or draw in those notoriously difficult to attract millennials. But what happens when, in the midst of all th is, we lose our focus on Jesus?

There is much to be learned from books, consultants, and organizations. Pastors have a key role to play in building congregational vitality. But absent Jesus, does it matter how successful our "rubrics" are? If the Church does not make Jesus known to the world, if we do not, in some way, incarnate Christ to and for the world, does anything else really matter very much?

"Retrieving the centrality of Christ can restore the simplicity of faith," says James Carroll. And within that simplicity can also be found the beauty of faith, the meaning of faith, and the relevance of faith. It may even be that the reason so many find the Church irrelevant to their lives is because those "rubrics" we devote so much time and energy to have nearly obscured Jesus.

And so, what might happen if we not only said but actually lived out this truth? "The Church exists for one reason only -- to carry the story of Jesus forward in history, and by doing that to make his presence real."

Faith, Works, and an Advent Swallowed by Christmas

Supposedly the great church reformer, Martin Luther, lobbied for removing several books from the New Testament. He thought they ran counter to his understanding of the gospel's focus on grace and faith. One of these was the Epistle of James, and a line from today's reading in that book surely bothered Luther.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

In the years and centuries since Luther, Christians, especially those of Protestant extraction, have created an often false dichotomy of "faith versus works." This has typically reduced faith to belief, creating a popular theology of "believing in Jesus" in order to get a ticket to heaven. Huge swaths of Jesus' teachings are dismissed, and we are left with what Brian McLaren aptly labels "a gospel of evacuation." Faith has little to do with earthly life. It is simply a cosmic insurance policy with premiums requiring mental assent to a certain doctrines.

I find myself thinking about faith and works and evacuations as the season of Advent draws close, as I begin looking at familiar prophetic passages about spears beaten into pruning hooks, good news offered to the oppressed, and release to the captives. These passages will likely make appearances in many congregations' worship during Advent, but our culture, and often the Church, has little use for Advent, other than as a warmup for Christmas.

Over the years, Christmas, originally a rather minor date on the Christian calendar, has largely swallowed Advent. The secular observance and commercialization of the holiday have certainly contributed to this. But so has a faith disconnected from living in ways that prepare for God's kingdom, lives that work for peace, for freeing the oppressed, and releasing the captives. When faith becomes about nothing more than believing a few things, what's to get ready for?

I'm glad James didn't get taken out of Protestant Bibles. It's a good reminder that faith is more than believing in God or Jesus. Luther knew that. After all, he was happy to leave in the Gospel of Matthew which ends with Jesus commanding those first disciples and the Church to go out and makes disciples of all peoples through baptism and by "teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." If you've not read it, Matthew has lots and lots of works commanded by Jesus.

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Sermon video: Doing the Impossible

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Doing the Impossible

Matthew 25:14-30

Doing the Impossible

James Sledge                                                                             November 16, 2014

Most congregations have a story or two about doing the impossible. There’s the congregation formed in the midst of the Great Depression, when everyone said it was a terrible time to try to start a church. But a group of people felt God’s call and saw the need for a congregation, and somehow, despite the difficult times and financial hardships, a congregation was born and thrived.

There’s the congregation that felt called to begin a comprehensive ministry to the poor in their community. They dreamed of converting an unused store near their church into a facility with job training, food pantry, health clinic, and after school tutoring. The rent on the building was well beyond the church’s small budget, and they did not have sufficient volunteers. But the church leadership decided to do it anyway, trusting that they would find the money and volunteers. And despite all the obstacles a new ministry was born and thrived.

There’s the famous story of the youth group at Spring Valley Presbyterian in Columbia, SC, gathered for a Super Bowl party. A seminary intern offered a prayer asking that as they enjoyed their Super Bowl festivities and food, they might be mindful of those who had nothing to eat. Some youth decided they wanted to do more than be mindful, but what could a youth group do in the face of a problem so big as hunger? Nonetheless they contacted other local youth groups, and at the next Super Bowl they collect nearly $6000 for hunger relief. The Souper Bowl of Caring was born and thrived. Since 1990 it has collected more than $100,000,000 for hunger, including over $8,000,000 this year alone.

There are countless such stories. Some who have been around at FCPC for a long time may well know some such stories from this congregation that I’ve not heard, and I’d love for you to share them with me.

Of course, there are plenty of times in plenty of congregations when someone said a provocative prayer or someone pointed out a pressing need, and nothing happened. There is much that works against doing the impossible. Fear of failing afflicts many of us, and churches can be particularly paralyzed by this fear. Money, of the lack thereof, often seems an insurmountable obstacle, and worries about money feed into the fear of failing. In our day, many congregations worry about surviving. Almost every US denomination is experiencing significant numerical decline, and the millennial generation is more disconnected from the church than any in recent history. A lot of church people are worried, and congregations worried about survival tend to get cautious and timid and rarely risk the impossible.

The congregation for whom Matthew writes his gospel was surely worried about survival. These were Jews who followed the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. But life as not all that easy for Jewish Christian in the latter part of the 1^st century.  The Romans had destroyed Jerusalem and its spectacular Temple a few years earlier. And while this did fulfill Jesus’ words about the Temple’s destruction, it also threw Judaism into turmoil.

The loss of the Temple put an end to priestly form of Judaism focused on sacrifices and offerings at the Temple. Rabbinical, synagogue Judaism, the movement begun by the reform minded Pharisees, became dominant. Trouble was, as rabbinical Judaism became the norm, the Jewish followers of Jesus, who also called the synagogue home, found themselves labeled heretics. They were told to keep quiet about Jesus if they wanted to remain members of the synagogue, and they did want to remain members there.

Sermon: Forsaking All Others

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Forsaking All Others

James Sledge                                                                                       November 9, 2014

Choose this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord, (Yahweh). So says Joshua in one of those signature lines from the Bible. Of course there are other options. Joshua even mentions a few: the gods their ancestors served back in Egypt or in the wilderness, or perhaps the gods of the people in the land where they now live.

Bob Dylan once put is slightly differently in song called “Gotta Serve Somebody.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

Choose this day whom you will serve is part of something called a covenant renewal ceremony. God had made a covenant with the people of Israel, and Joshua takes them through its history and what that means. Then, in something akin to the renewal of marriage vows, the people once more state their loyalty and fidelity to the God known as Yahweh, to God and God alone. In fact, they could well have used a line from the old, traditional wedding liturgy, “And forsaking all others, be faithful only to you…"

We have a covenant renewal ceremony in our worship today. We have one any time someone joins the church or is baptized, and it has its versions of Choose this day whom you will serve, put away the foreign gods that are among you, and “forsaking all others.”

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?

Choose this day whom you will serve. Forsaking all others, be faithful only to Christ. Put away the foreign gods that are among you. Of course that last one doesn’t really connect with us. Foreign gods, the god our ancestors served beyond the river or back in Egypt. What does any of that have to do with us and our lives?

Post-Election Theology

As on who can be labeled a "progressive Christian," I'm not among those celebrating yesterday's election results. I'll admit to a certain level of disappointment and even depression over the morning headlines, but I also think that we on the right, left, or middle tend to overstate the events of the moment.

Perhaps it arises from the immediacy of our culture, with information and results available instantly with the click of a mouse or finger to the touchscreen. Or perhaps it is simply human nature to imagine the good or bad things happening to me at this moment have tremendous significance because, after all, they are happening to me.

There certainly are long term trends in our world that concern me: the growing gap between rich and poor, the way campaign financing has become a big-money, free-for-all, or the seemingly unavoidable impact of climate change. But the realization that climate change is a near scientific certainty says very little about any particular weather event. Similarly, we may not want to draw overly large conclusions from any election.

So what conclusions to draw? For me such questions are always filtered through a theological lens. That means I wonder about the ways in which religion and faith enter into elections (often in ways that distort or undermine key tenets of that religion or faith). Even more, I wonder about what the curious twists and turns of politics say about the human condition, about the power of sin to distort us, and about the possibility of that power being broken or diminished.

We live in anxious times, and fear and anxiety seem to amplify the problem of sin. Fear tends to focus me more on me and mine, making it more difficult to consider the needs of the other. From a basic, Christian perspective, that moves me away from Jesus' command to love the other as much as I love myself. But if my ability to love others requires me to have enough excess for myself that there are leftovers, then I don't really love others as myself. Neither do I really trust God. Instead I must secure mine at the expense of the other. God will not provide, and so I must, a view often expressed in that non-biblical quote, "God helps those who help themselves." (Not only is this proverb, popularized by Ben Franklin, not to be found in the Bible, but it is quite contrary to the biblical witness.)

We "progressive Christians" like to think we are better at loving the other. After all we are willing to pay higher taxes to benefit those less fortunate than us and support a higher minimum wage even if it raises prices a bit at the store or restaurant. But even if it is true that we are better at one facet of following Jesus, I suspect that we are merely myopic in different ways from those Christians celebrating yesterday's election. I don't think we are any better at the more fundamental issue of trusting ourselves to God. And so we are just as prone as those with differing views to think the sky is falling when people who disagree with us get elected.

I'm not arguing for stoicism or passivity here. Rather I'm saying that if we come to politics or the big issues of the day from a Christian perspective, we cannot measure where things stand based simply on whether I am pleased with things at this moment. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was far from passive, but his dedication to his work was rooted in a deep faith and did not come and go based on the day's headlines. Dr. King could say, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," not because he was winning in the polls, but because he trusted in a God who is a God of justice.

That brings me back around to the question of how the the power of sin to distort and deceive us can be broken. And here I must confess to an all too typical, "progressive" problem: the tendency to think of progress as an almost entirely human enterprise. We have been prone to see Jesus as a philosopher and moral teacher divorced from his claims to be part of God's movement on the stage of history. We have been prone to embrace Christ's words on loving neighbor and lifting up the poor while ignoring and even disparaging his words on the power of God's Spirit at work in us and through us. We have imagined that the kingdom, that new day of God Jesus proclaimed, is about convincing everyone to agree with Jesus (and us). We have done far to much trusting in our powers of reason and persuasion rather than the power or God. But deep down, I know better.

And so while I am not all that happy this morning, while I do worry that there will be serious consequences from yesterday, ones that some who celebrate today will later regret, I do not despair. For I do not believe that the fate of the world or history finally and ultimately rests with us. If the Christian claim of resurrection means anything, it surely means that the very thing that seems to be the victory of forces opposed to God can become the means by which God's purposes are fulfilled.

But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews (think "good, church folks") and foolishness to Gentiles (think everyone else), but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and wisdom of God.  - 1 Corinthians 1:23-24

Sermon video: On Being Children and Saints

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: On Being Children and Saints

1 John 3:1-3

On Being Children and Saints

James Sledge                                                               November 2, 2014 – All Saints

Some of you may be familiar with the writings of Kathleen Norris who has authored books such as Amazing Grace, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, and The Cloister Walk. The title of that last one comes, at least in part, because Norris, a married Protestant, spent nine months as an oblate in a Benedictine monastery. The book as a chapter entitled, “The War on Metaphor.” In it Norris describes attending an event for a group of Protestant clergy, mostly Lutherans, where the poet Diane Glancy did a poetry reading. As a way of introduction, Glancy said she loved Christianity because “it was a blood religion.” The audience gasped in shock, says Norris, who goes on to say that Glancy shared how she appreciated the Christian faith’s relation to words and how words create the world we live in. But Norris worries that we Christians have lost our sense of the power of words, and especially of metaphor. She writes:

My experience with Diane (Glancy) and the clergy is one of many that confirms my suspicion that if you’re looking for a belief in the power of words to change things, to come alive and make a path for you to walk on, you’re better off with poets these days than with Christians. It’s ironic, because the scriptures of the Christian canon are full of strange metaphors that create their own reality—the “blood of the Lamb,” the “throne of grace,” the “sword of the Spirit”—and among the name for Jesus himself are “the Word” and “the Way.”

Poets believe in metaphor, and that alone sets them apart from many Christians, particularly people educated to be pastors and church workers. As one pastor of Spencer Memorial - by no means a conservative on theological or social issues - once said in a sermon, many Christians can no longer recognize that the most significant part of the first line of “Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war” is the word “as.”

…This metaphoric impoverishment strikes me as ironic, partly because I’m well aware, thanks to a friend who’s a Hebrew scholar, that for all the military metaphors employed in the Old Testament, the command that Israel receives most often is to sing. I also know that the Benedictines have lived peaceably for 1500 years with a Rule that is full of terminology, imagery, and metaphors borrowed from the Roman army. [1]

I’m inclined to think that our “metaphoric impoverishment,” as Norris calls it, extends to the terms “children of God” and “child of God.” In current usage, these are often little more than flowery ways of saying “human being.” Indeed to suggest that the terms do not apply equally to all people sounds almost fundamentalist.

I can appreciate why. Especially to our metaphorically impoverished ears, where words simply impart information, to apply “child of God” in a non-universal fashion, is to engage in the worst sort of exclusivism where some people matter and some do not, where some have value, and some do not. But “child of God” is no pedestrian label.

Relationship Problems

I suppose there are exceptions, but generally, even the best relationships go through rough spots. These rough spots may be dramatic blowups, but perhaps more often they are rather mundane. Things become routine and stale. There is a sense of going through the motions with little in the way of the dynamic, exciting feelings from a previous time.

I imagine that many couples experience this, but I'm talking about the human-divine relationship. To fall in love with God/Jesus, to feel the life changing rush of the Spirit, to have one's life completely reoriented is a remarkable experience as powerful and life changing as any romantic encounter. But as with romantic love, life with God can turn routine and stale. The animating spark of the Spirit can feel absent.

The Church has not always been of much help in such things. So often faith has been reduced to believing certain things, saying the right formula, adhering to some doctrine, or showing up on Sundays. In my own Presbyterian tradition there are strong currents of intellectualism that sometimes turn faith into more philosophical exercise rather than passionate relationship. I know people who can get very passionate about philosophy and such, but I'm not sure that qualifies as a relationship.

An oft stated bit of biblical wisdom says that among the psalms, those of lament are the most numerous. But you don't hear a lot of lament in the Church. You do hear it more frequently from poets and writers and pop songs celebrating and wrestling with the difficulties and pains of human relationships. Has the Church so domesticated and institutionalized this faith business that we no longer realize its fundamentally relational dynamic?

How do you handle it when a human relationship had gotten stale, stuck, rutted, or empty? Does it work in a similar manner with God? I wonder if our faith could learn a thing or two from our love lives.

October 19 sermon video: Not a Party Without You

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Hiding from God

I am currently on "study leave," one of the perks we pastors enjoy. My denomination requires that churches give their pastors at least two weeks of such leave on top of vacation. I often use this time to attend conferences or workshops, but this one is different. I had the free use of a beach condo, and so I packed up my books (or in this case my iPad with Kindle app) and headed to Myrtle Beach.

It's fairly quiet here in late October, but the weather has been lovely. I've been able to sit on the balcony in the warm sun as I read, looking up occasionally across the dunes to the water beyond. There are a few people on the beach, largely hidden by the dunes, but the pool right below me is deserted. There is almost nothing to distract me save an occasional dragonfly buzzing by. And so I've had to create my own distractions.

I have been getting a lot of reading done, but I've done less well with another piece of my time here. I told some folks I was coming here for "a time of study and personal retreat." For a pastor, the term "retreat" carries some significant spiritual connotations, the expectation that my time here would include some very deliberate time of drawing near to God. But it feels more like I've been hiding.

That thought didn't really occur to me until today. This morning was the first chilly one, and so I had been reading on the couch inside. At one point I got, refilled the coffee cup, then stepped out onto the small balcony for a moment. I stood there, leaning on the railing, and for some reason, the story of Elijah fleeing into the wilderness and ending up at Mt. Horeb came to mind. (If you're not familiar with it, the story begins at 1 Kings 19.)

In the story, Elijah is fresh off one of his greatest triumphs, but there is also a threat on his life. Considering all the wonders God had just done through Elijah on a different mountain, Mt. Carmel, it is a bit strange the Elijah falls into such a deep funk, but he does. He journeys into the wilderness, sits down, and asks to die. Eventually an angel provides food and prods him to travel to Horeb. There he finds shelter in a cave, but his depression seems little improved.

My own back story and situation have little in common with Elijah, but still the image of emerging from the cave struck me as I leaned on the balcony railing. There was no violent wind, no earthquake or fire. There wasn't even a "sound of sheer silence," what older translations rendered "a still, small voice." The sound of the waves was enough that no one would call it silent, but is was still. And I could not help but wonder if God didn't pose the same question to me long ago spoken to the prophet. "What are you doing here?"

What am I doing here? What am I up to? I'm on study leave, of course, but the question is bigger than that, just as it was for Elijah. I imagine it's the sort of question we are all meant to wrestle with at times. Perhaps we even need to be in a bad, depressed, uncertain, confused, or similar place for the question to have the required poignancy. Just what is it we are up to? And along with that, what are we supposed to be up to?

Elijah snaps out of his funk when God gives him work to do and sends him on his way. I suspect that God's "What are you doing here?" question is always connected to a calling, to what it is we're supposed to be doing. It's easy to imagine this being only for larger than life characters such as biblical prophets, but I'm convinced it's equally true for pastors and every other sort of regular person of faith. I wish God would be as obvious as in the Elijah story. Then again, maybe that's just the story's way of making its point clear. Maybe Elijah struggled to hear God a much as I do. After all, he got depressed enough to run away and want to die.

What are you doing here, James? And what are you doing, whoever and wherever you are? I think there is always a command that follows the question, a call to "Go." And somewhere in that "Go" is what it means to be fully alive.

Sermon: Not a Party Without You

Luke 15:1-2, 11-32

Not a Party Without You

James Sledge                                                   October 19, 2014 (Stewardship 3)

How many of you enjoy a good dinner party or a big cookout or a great wedding reception with lots of good food and drink? I like nothing better than a gathering of friends enjoying great food and good wine. I’ve been to a few such parties and gatherings where I’m tempted to sound like a commercial and say, “Life doesn’t get any better than this.”

Turns out Jesus thought much the same. When he wants to talk about the coming of God’s new day, he doesn’t use the image of prophets like Isaiah who spoke of a peaceable kingdom where “the wolf shall live with the lamb.”  Instead Jesus speaks of a great wedding banquet.

Wedding were the social occasions of Jesus’ day. They were often huge, lavish events that lasted for a week, and Jesus uses them as an image of the day that is to come. “People will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God,” says Jesus. The book of Revelation sounds a similar note as it moves to its joyful conclusion. “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

In the early church, worship included a meal where the Lord’s Supper was celebrated. The imagery is largely lost in our day, but the church gathered at table understood itself to be participating in a preview of the great banquet to come. We still proclaim, “This is the joyful feast,” even if our meager communion elements look little like a grand party.

If a sociologist who knew nothing of Christianity were to study American congregations, I wonder if she would ever conclude that our faith anticipates a grand, extravagant party. Christian faith in our country is so individualistic, about my salvation or my spirituality. People can be members in good standing at most churches with little sense of a joyful, community gathered for a feast. Many seem uninterested in joining a party.