Church Newsletter for Advent

Our congregation produces a quarterly newsletter. Here is my upcoming piece for the Winter edition.

Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

As I write this it is a beautiful, autumn day. Some trees still cling to brightly colored leaves. Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, but one of my neighbors already has up his Christmas lights. And we’ve had the first salvo in the annual “War on Christmas” silliness, thanks to those atheists at Starbucks who removed the snowflakes, those ancient symbols of Christ’s birth, from their seasonal cups.

I’m not much bothered by early Christmas decorations, or by what retailers put on their cups or store decorations. I’m not offended if the stores are already playing Christmas music. Surprised and amused, perhaps, but not much more. I do, however, sometimes lament the loss of Advent. I don’t suppose that stores or malls ever did Advent, but I do miss it when it fades away in churches.

The Presbyterian Book of Common Worship has a liturgy for lighting the Advent candle on the four Sundays prior to Christmas. It begins, “We light this candle as a sign of the coming light of Christ. Advent means coming. We are preparing ourselves for the days when…” What follows is a list of that grows longer each week and speaks of swords beaten into plowshares, nations no longer learning war, wolves making peace with lambs, the desert blooming, and a young woman who bears a child named “God with us.”

“Advent means coming.” It’s a coming that is not of our making. We can prepare. We can work to make it more visible, but only God can bring the promise. That means that Advent is also about waiting.

I am not very good at waiting. I’m impatient and sometimes impulsive. I’m even worse at waiting for God. I am very much a product of our culture that values busyness and productivity. But God’s ways are very different from mine, and over the years I’ve discovered that a deep experience of God requires prayer and stillness and silence and waiting.

Advent requires waiting. It is an active, expectant sort of waiting, but it is waiting nonetheless. Yet too often we rush toward Christmas, trying to manufacture joy and cheer, trying to make Advent into one long and extended Christmas celebration.

I’m not suggesting that we should be dour and somber until Christmas Eve, or that we hold all the Christmas carols in reserve until that day. (I would prefer we not pack up the carols so quickly after Christmas.)  I do, however, think it important to cultivate the spiritual disciplines of waiting and of preparing for what God will do. Expectant and faithful waiting that trusts in God’s promises is crucial to living as the body of Christ in Advent and throughout the year.

Some years ago John Buchanan, then pastor at Fourth Presbyterian in Chicago and editor of The Christian Century, wrote a piece entitled “Deepening Darkness.” In it he described the busyness of the holidays on the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue where the church sits. “The sidewalks are filled with shoppers. Buses arrive daily from the suburbs and nearby states, disgorge their shoppers in the morning and pick them up, exhausted and heavily laden, in the evening. We sit in the middle of it all with the somber purple color and sing hymns in a minor key.” (The Christian Century, 11-28-2006)

I wonder what sort of witness a faithful observance of Advent might offer to our busy, hectic and anxious world.

Grace, peace, a blessed Advent, and a Joyous Christmas,

Sermon video: Bad Ole Moabites and Wrestling with Scripture

Audios of sermons and worship on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Bad Ole Moabites and Wrestling with Scripture

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Bad Ole Moabites and Wrestling with Scripture

James Sledge                                                                                       November 8, 2015

The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy shows Moses reminding Israel, just prior to their entering the land of promise, of all the covenantal requirements and obligations of the Law. Moses will not enter the land with them, and this is his final act before handing leadership of Israel over to Joshua. Here is part of what he says. “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted…”

Now if you’re worried that I’ve gotten confused about the scripture readings for today, let me assure you that this has everything to do with Ruth. But to make that clear, we probably need to go back to the beginning of her and Naomi’s story.

As the story opens, there is a famine in Israel causing Naomi, her husband, and two sons to flee their homeland. They become refugees, not so different from Syrian refugees in our day. They are in danger and at the mercy of those they encounter. And in the case of Naomi’s family, they end up in the land of those bad ole Moabites Moses warned them about.

The story doesn’t share any details of what happen when Naomi’s clan arrives in Moab. But clearly they are allowed to settle there. They are able to make a life, and when her husband dies, Naomi’s family is sufficiently a part of the community that her sons are welcomed to marry two of the local girls, Orpah and Ruth.

But then the situation changes dramatically. Naomi’s two sons die. I’m not sure we modern people can fully appreciate what a dire situation this is. As a widow without male children, Naomi was in grave jeopardy. She was too old to be married again, and she had no one to provide for her. As a woman, she could not inherit or own property. With no husband, no sons, and no grandsons, her husband’s lineage was at an end, and she was powerless and destitute.

Then Naomi learns that the famine in Israel has abated. This does not offer much hope, but it is all she has. She heads back hoping some relatives or friends will take pity on her. She may still be destitute, but it seems the best chance she has. And so she starts out for home, her daughters-in-law accompanying her. But Naomi knows this is not a good idea.

Naomi has no way to provide for herself, much less for Orpah and Ruth. They are still relatively young. If they return to their own families, perhaps they will care for them, even find new husbands for them. Orpah and Ruth protest. They want to remain with Naomi. But she insists, and finally Orpah relents and leaves, weeping as she goes.

But Ruth will not leave. She casts her lot with Naomi, and they return to the land of Judah and to poverty. Ruth is now the refugee, dependent on the hospitality of strangers. She tries to help Naomi by gleaning, picking up the grain that gets dropped during the harvest.

The story of Ruth is one of several in the Old Testament where God’s name is mentioned and invoked but God does not seem to be an actor in the story. Which is not to say that God is not at work. Ruth goes to glean in the fields and by “chance,” ends up in the field of Boaz, a relative of her long dead father-in-law.

Boaz does not recognize this refugee gleaning in his field, and so he asks who she is. No one seems to know her name. She’s just a refugee, after all. They tell him, She is the Moabite who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. I’m not sure why they need to say she’s a Moabite from Moab. That’s like saying, “I’m an American from America.” But it does make perfectly clear that she is one of those bad ole Moabites.

When Naomi and her family fled to Moab, their survival depended largely on whether they encountered hostility or hospitality there. Now Naomi and Ruth’s survival depend largely on whether Ruth encounters hostility or hospitality from the people of Judah, and especially from Boaz. God’s providence has steered Ruth to the field belonging to a relative of Naomi’s husband, but we know nothing of him or what he thinks about hungry refugees or bad ole Moabites. At least we don’t until he gives his workers special instructions to look after Ruth, praises her for her care of Naomi, and gives her food and drink.

Sermon: Miraculously Healed by Jesus

Mark 10:46-25

Miraculously Healed by Jesus

James Sledge                                                                                       October 25, 2015

I came across a story recently that’s a bit lame, or worse than that, but I think I’ll share it anyway. A farmer lived along a quiet, county road, but over the years, it became a busy highway, and the speeding cars began to kill more and more of the farmer’s free-range chickens.

He called the local sheriff to complain. “You’ve got to do something to slow these cars down,” he said. “They’re driving like mad men.” The sheriff wasn’t sure there was much he could do, but after repeated calls from the farmer then he agreed to put up a sign that might make people more attentive. It said, “SLOW: SCHOOL CROSSING.”

But a few days later the farmer called to say that the sign hadn’t worked at all. If anything, the drivers seem to have sped up. So the sheriff tried a slightly different tactic, installing a sign that said “SLOW: CHILDREN AT PLAY.” And the cars went even faster.

Finally, the exasperated farmer asked if he could put up his own sign. The sheriff was tired of the farmer calling every day, so he agreed, and the calls stopped. Eventually the sheriff decided to call and check on things. The farmer said he hadn’t lost a chicken since he put up his sign. The sheriff had to see this, so he drove out to the farm where he saw a piece of plywood with spray-painted wording that said, “NUDIST COLONY: Go slow and watch out for the chicks!”[1]     …I told you it was bad.

I told this story, lame as it is, to raise the issue of what it takes to get folks to slow down and pay attention. We live in a fast paced world where we are often busy and overscheduled. It’s a threat to our mental health and overall well-being, and that of our children. Even more, it is a huge threat to a relationship with God, to getting to know Jesus, because that requires stopping, waiting, silence, and attentiveness on our part.

But lest you think this a peculiarly modern problem, the people in our gospel reading also seem unable to slow down enough to see what truly is important. Jesus has just passed through Jericho. Jerusalem is not very far away, and the very next episode in Mark’s gospel is Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city of David. Jesus is picking up something of an entourage. He, his disciples, and a large crowd are all headed down the road when a blind beggar begins to cry out. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

The beggar’s name is Bartimaeus… or perhaps not. Our story says he is Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, but Bartimeaus means son of Timaeus. I’m suspicious that Mark’s gospel gives us the original Aramaic and then its translation. This blind beggar is insignificant enough that no one remembers his name, only that of his father.

An unnamed, blind beggar is hardly important enough to warrant stopping, especially for this procession headed to big events in Jerusalem. “We’ve got to keep moving. Be quiet!” blind beggar. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

Our readings says, Many sternly ordered him to be quiet. Many? Many of the disciples? Many in the crowd? Many of both? The last time anyone spoke in this stern manner it was the disciples trying to chase away those bringing children to Jesus. Unimportant children, now an unimportant, blind beggar. “Shoo, get away. No time for you.”

In one of those wonderful ironies of Scripture, the blind man sees what the crowd and disciples cannot. Jesus came for people such as this blind beggar, and he came to help people see. Jesus heals the beggar’s blindness with little difficulty. But the harder work of healing his followers’ blindness continues and won’t come to full fruition until after the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Sermon video: Radically Dissimilar Hearts

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Peace, Unity, and Purity... and Other Impossible Combinations

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
    righteousness and peace will kiss each other. 
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
    and righteousness will look down from the sky.  

Psalm 85:10-11

I've always loved these lines from Psalm 85, one of today's evening psalms. The psalm itself is a plea for God to restore, a prayer based in knowledge of God's nature and character. And so, even in the midst of difficult circumstances, the psalmists hopes for the wondrous day when "righteousness and peace will kiss each other."

God is often seen as having contradictory, almost incompatible attributes. God is a God of justice, who will not tolerate wickedness. God is a God of mercy and forgiveness, who in Jesus is a friend of sinners and tax collectors. A lot of people prefer one or the other of these images, and this, in part, accounts for some of the wildly different versions of Christianity floating around.

The psalmist is aware of both images, asking earlier in his prayer, "Will you be angry with us forever?" Presumably there is some reason for God to be angry. Israel has not lived as God has commanded. They in some way deserve the judgment they are experiencing, and yet the psalmist can cry out, "Grant us your salvation."

The psalmist hopes for righteousness and peace to kiss, but just how compatible are such things? Righteousness is about doing things correctly, about abiding by God's law. Does the psalmist simply mean that peace will emerge when people live rightly, or is there a hope that God's justice and love can coexist?

When Presbyterian elders, deacons, and pastors are ordained, one of the vows we make is to further the "peace, unity, and purity of the Church." It sounds lovely, but it is remarkably difficult to put into practice. Purity, like righteousness, is about doing things correctly, about living according to God's will. Peace and unity often seem to require some negotiating and compromise with purity. In the end, many congregations end up leaning one way of the other, some focused more on holy living and others focused more on loving each other and getting along. I'm not sure that either move looks very much like the psalmist's dream of a day when "righteousness and peace will kiss one another."

Perhaps we humans can never fully reconcile righteousness and peace, judgment and forgiveness, but does that mean God is bound by our limitation on this? People of faith speak of imaging God, of being the body of Christ. Surely that means that we are to move toward what God is like rather expecting God to be like us.

I suspect that most people who are serious about faith have a pretty good idea which image of God they prefer. And that means we already know about that side of God that unnerves us, that image of God we need to learn to embrace, even kiss.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon: Radically Dissimilar Hearts

Mark 10:35-45

Radically Dissimilar Hearts

James Sledge                                                                                       October 18, 2015

Our gospel reading this morning would probably benefit from a bit of context. It takes place shortly after Jesus’ encounter with a rich man who works hard to keep God’s commandments yet feels there must be something more. But Jesus’ call to sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and become a disciple, is too much.

Then Jesus and his followers hit the road again, headed to Jerusalem. The disciples don’t come off all that well in Mark’s gospel, repeatedly misunderstanding what Jesus teaches. But that is not to say that they are total idiots. They have clearly begun to grasp that danger lies ahead. The gospel says that as Jesus walks ahead of them, They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. To these amazed and frightened followers, Jesus explains for a third and final time what will happen to him in just over a week.

Then James and John come to see him. Their request seems the epitome of the disciples’ cluelessness. James and John, along with Peter, form Jesus’ inner circle, a privileged trio who’ve seen things the others have not. Now they take advantage of this. They appear to realize there is something unseemly in their request, but they make it anyway.

But perhaps this is not merely arrogance or an attempt to turn their inside connection into special favors. What if this is simply two terrified followers trying to save their own skin? They’ve started to understand that this trip to Jerusalem is not going to end well. Jesus is not going to overthrow the Romans. In fact he keeps saying people will kill him. In some ways it’s amazing that the disciples stay with him as he leads them toward Jerusalem and the cross.

Maybe because they’ve followed him this far, they decide to see it through. Maybe because he keeps talking about rising again, they hope there might be something beyond the horrible events that await. If there really is something after Jerusalem, maybe they can be part of it. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

"The Other" and Christian Witness

"All things are lawful,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other. 

1 Corinthians 10:23-24

I read on The Washington Post website today where Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey suggested that devout Christians "should think about getting a handgun permit." This was in reaction to the shooting at an Oregon community college where the shooter seemed to target Christians.

I can understand why Christians who already are worried about the faith's place in our culture would be further unnerved by an act of violence aimed specifically at Christians (an experience other faiths know all too well). But I wonder what sort of Christian witness would be given if a gunman walked into a crowded venue and all the Christians whipped out their pistols and mowed him down.

St. Augustine long ago wrote that Christians might engage in violence and even deadly force to save another, but never to save themselves. His thought led to what is usually called "just war" theory, the idea that there are times when violence is required of those who follow the Christ who gives his own life and tells his followers to emulate him. But in such thinking, violence can never be for mere self preservation. It must be done in an act of loving the other. Just war or violence is an agonized choice to injure one in order to save others.

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Americans have a tendency to understand freedom in terms of a lack of restraints on what I want to do. I'm all for this sort of freedom - up to a point - but that is not the sort of freedom Paul or Jesus speak of in the New Testament. For them, freedom releases us from an overly selfish or narrow viewpoint, allowing us to love others more fully. Jesus goes so far as to include the enemy in the orbit of one's love and concern. This sort of freedom allows people to become Christ-like, living for God and others more than self.

You can see that in Paul's words from today's epistle. Paul's Corinthian congregation has embraced their new freedom in Christ, but they've misunderstood it in libertine and individualistic ways. Paul corrects them and reminds them that their freedom is always in service to "the other."

The American Church and body politic would both do well to listen to Paul. Both have become overly individualistic, concerned narrowly for self and those who agree with me. Add in the climate of fear which seem so pervasive these days, and "the other" is more likely to become the object of my derision or much worse than the one whose good I seek.

In the Greek language used to write the New Testament, the word translated "witness" is the root of our word "martyr." The connection of these two terms came from the way many early heroes of the faith, including its founder, maintained their faith even in the face of death. Surely there was the occasional Christian of that time who chose to pull out his sword and make a stand, but not one of them is lifted up in the Bible or early Church writings.

I do wish that someone had been able to stop the Oregon shooter. (We need genuine dialogue about the best ways to prevents such acts in the future, but unfortunately we are largely divided into political camps who spout talking points at one another.) But I will not be encouraging anyone to buy a weapon for self-defense. Christians are called to be the body of Christ, and for the life of me, I cannot picture the Jesus we meet in the Bible packing a gun.

Click to learn more about the lectionary. 

Sermon video: No Tokens Required

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: No Tokens Required

Mark 10:2-16

No Tokens Required

James Sledge                                                                                       October 4, 2015

If you go into our church parlor, you will find a few items from this congregation’s history displayed there. There’s an old pulpit Bible and a curio cabinet with an old hymnal, more Bibles, old photos, and other artifacts. Young congregations tend not to have such displays, but those that have been around long enough often have a history display somewhere.

I once visited an old church with an elaborate display going back to colonial days. And in one corner of this mini-museum, on a curio shelf, were some communion tokens.

If you’ve never heard of such things, they are just what the name implies, tokens that gained a person admission to the Lord’s Supper. They were used back in the days of very infrequent communion, and you got one after elders from the Session (our church governing council) visited and quizzed you about your understanding of the faith. John Calvin suggested such a practice to ensure that people correctly understood the sacrament. He worried about what he saw as magical or superstitious beliefs about the Lord’s Supper.

Calvin may have understood these tokens as a kind of impromptu communicants’ class rather than a gauge of personal worthiness, but even if he did, you can be sure that people were denied tokens for reasons other than insufficient understanding of Reformed theology. Inevitably, the elders made character judgments about church members and denied tokens to those who didn’t measure up.

Use of these tokens largely disappeared in the 1800s, but it’s interesting to wonder about what sort of moral failing would have prevented people receiving one. Could a young, unmarried woman with a child get one? How about those who were divorced? What about drinking or carousing or dancing? Tokens were done on a church by church basis, so there was likely a good deal of variety from place to place. Nonetheless I feel confident that there were plenty of congregations that would not have welcomed divorced folks to the table.

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“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” When the gospel of Mark wants to take up an entirely new topic, the writer will often change locales, but he tells us about people bringing little children to Jesus with no break at all from the teachings on marriage. Curious.

Jesus has just finished talking about how relationships would work if people’s hearts weren’t out of whack, when the disciples demonstrate, for the umpteenth time, that they still don’t get this kingdom thing. Turn back one page in Mark’s gospel and you’ll hear Jesus saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” He has already said that children in some way exemplify what it means to be highly valued in the kingdom’s way of viewing things, but these disciples are fairly slow learners, like disciples in every age.

This seems to be the only place in Mark’s gospel where we’re explicitly told that Jesus got mad at his followers, “indignant” our translation says. Surely there is some significance here. Surely we are being told to pay attention.

Not again!

It happened again today - a shooting at a school. Current reports say 10 may have been killed at an Oregon community college in the 145th school shooting since Sandy Hook. Such a number - 145 - should make even the most ardent gun collector or avid shooter say, "Something is terribly wrong."

Recently some of my "friends" on Facebook have shared a pro-gun post that talks about how Switzerland encourages gun ownership, having one of the higher rates of gun ownership in the world, and yet has one of the lower murder rates. What the post conveniently leaves out is how regulated this ownership is, with required classes and registration. There is even a regulatory process one must follow to buy ammunition, with certain types banned. But those who tout Switzerland as an example of why it is good to own guns usually insist that any regulation or registration regarding guns infringes on their rights.

Obsessing about "my rights" is a popular American pastime, one not restricted to any political persuasion. But in the case of rights related to guns, my Facebook "friends" who seem obsessed with such rights are very often the same "friends" who regularly share posts encouraging people to "share this picture of Jesus" or do some other act that confirms their faith. Yet the Jesus of whom they speak calls his followers to willingly let go of their own good, their own rights, for the sake of others.

I never cease to be amazed at the human capacity to link personal preferences, beliefs, biases, etc. to one's faith, even when the founder of that faith speaks in ways completely counter to such preferences, beliefs, and so on. And so Jesus, the pacifist Messiah ends up being pro-military, pro-self defense, and pro-gun. The Christ who speaks of wealth and greed as huge barriers to life in God's coming kingdom ends up wanting you to be successful and rich. And the Jesus who calls on a rich man to sell all he has and give the proceeds to the poor would never ask that of me.

Almost all people who call themselves Christian have ways of distorting faith to make it line up with their wants and desires. It is a sin where we all need to repent. But right now, at this point in our life together as Americans, there is a terrible and pressing need for gun enthusiasts who call themselves Christian to repent and say, I am willing to deny myself, to give up my rights, to do whatever it takes to safeguard the lives of school children and innocents everywhere.

Either that, or stop with the Jesus Facebook posts.

What Me Worry?

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. " 

Matthew 6:25

I wonder if telling someone not to worry has ever stopped that person from worrying. Jesus clearly thinks that worrying is a problem for living the life he teached, the way he calls Christians to walk. Yet we Christians sure do a lot of worrying. (We're also accomplished at fear, another thing that runs counter to the way of Jesus.)

Not that we have no reasons for worrying. Most American denominations are experiencing significant numerical decline. Congregations worry about budgets and where to cut if this year's stewardship campaign disappoints. Sports leagues and a plethora of other activities are scheduled at times once reserved for church activities. Who wouldn't worry?

Right this moment I'm doing a mental inventory of the big items on my worry list. They are a mix of the personal and the professional, which in my case has to do with church. I have the run of the mill concerns shared with many others. Is there enough money for everything? Did we pay too much for our house? Will we get enough when it comes time to sell it? Will the crazies in Congress cause another sequestration and accidentally send the economy over the edge, and the DC area housing market with it? What will this mean when it finally comes time to retire?

On the professional/church front, our stewardship campaign is just starting, and I'd be lying if I said I had no worries regarding it. Like many churches, we are disproportionately dependent on a handful of bigger givers. What if one moves or simply decides to give a lot less? And will we find the right person to fill that open staff position? And what will happen to the program if we don't? In the meantime, am I doing what I should be, or am I going about things all wrong? Do I need to learn some new trick or get a lot better at some facet of my ministry if things are to go well? There is plenty to worry about.

At the same time, I wonder how many of my worries have even the tiniest thing to do with Jesus or the the new day (kingdom) he calls people to be a part of. Jesus taught his followers to pray for "daily bread" so the sort of security he promises may have little to do with getting a good return on my housing "investment." Actually, when I reflect on Jesus' priorities, it does often help with my worries. As I think more about a different set of priorities from those that sometimes drive me, it often has a calming effect

But what about church? Church is all about Jesus, all about God's new day, and so if I'm worried about Church then my worries are of a deeper and more troubling sort (with a personal, financial component added in because the church writes my paycheck). Except that the Church is often about all manner of things having little to do with Jesus or God's new day. 

Yesterday during worship, Kerry, one of the elders who serve as the spiritual leaders of our congregation, gave a wonderful, brief "stewardship moment." In it she shared a quote from Pope Francis.  “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security."

Very often my worries about Church are worries about security. They are not concerns over how faithful we are being to Christ's call, or worries about whether Jesus wants us to do this as opposed to that. Buildings and classes and music programs and youth group may be related to our call to be Christ in and for the world, but they also can easily become things that distract us from that work. They can be the very things that keep us focused on our own security rather than our call to risky work out on the streets.

I suspect that church professionals such as myself can be especially prone to such temptations. I also suspect that many of us are good at absolving ourselves and blaming our congregations for this problem.  I wonder what might happen if pastors and congregations could together listen to Jesus, stop worrying for a moment, and take a good look at our priorities. If we discovered we were worrying about a lot of the wrong things, what might change?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.