Sunday, June 5, 2016
Sermon: Getting To Know God
1 Kings 17:8-24
Getting to Know God
James Sledge June
5, 2016
What
does it mean to be the Church? Ask a hundred people and you might get a hundred
different answers. No doubt there would be a lot of overlap, but there would
probably be a good deal of variety and disagreement.
What
if I instead asked, What does it mean to be the body of Christ? It’s just a
different version of the original question, but I suspect that it shifts the
answers somewhat.
Thinking
of the Church as the living body of Christ reminds us that we’re called to respond
to situations and events and people in the same way that Jesus would. I always
thought those old, “What Would Jesus Do?” wristbands were hokey, but they did
capture a truth about Church, that we are called to see things as Jesus did and
respond as he did. And because Jesus is the human face of God, that means to
see and respond as God does.
Of course, a deep knowledge and
understanding of Jesus, of God, especially since there’re no gospel stories about
whether to raise the minimum wage, provide universal health care, or about how
many Syrian refugees to take in. Yet a lot of us Christians – and this is true for
liberals, conservatives, and everywhere in between – tend to picture Jesus
lining up neatly with what we think are our best and noblest and most deeply held
convictions. We may even have a few supporting Bible verses, but our images of
Jesus are very often constructed on an incredibly small about of data.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Sermon: Limping between Gods
1 Kings 18:20-39
Limping between Gods
James Sledge May
29, 2016
If
you were among the participants in the weekday Bible study on the book of
Revelation, you may recall that it is a badly misunderstood work. It does not
predict the end of the world. It is not meant to be frightening but to encourage
people who were already frightened, who lived in a time when it was difficult, even
dangerous, to be Christians.
Revelation
is addressed to seven churches in what is today Turkey. Each church’s strengths
or weaknesses are mentioned, their need to hold fast to their faith or to deal
with some problem. But the seventh is addressed differently. “I
know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold
or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to
spit you out of my mouth.”
The
writer of Revelation seems to have a special disdain for the church at
Laodicea. Embrace the faith or don’t. None of this half in, half out business. And
in their lukewarm ways, the Laodiceans seem to mirror the Israelites in this
morning’s Old Testament reading.
Like
Revelation, Old Testament books such as 1 Kings are also misunderstood, if for
different reasons. They tend to be viewed as historical works, reports of “what
happened,” but 1 Kings is primarily theological reflection. It seeks to
understand how God’s chosen people, rescued from slavery in Egypt and brought
into the land of promise, could have ended up with Jerusalem and its Temple
destroyed, the Ark of the Covenant gone, people carried off into exile in
Babylon. And even when they finally returned home, there was no return to the
glory days of King David. They were an unimportant, insignificant speck in some
other nations’s empire. How could that be?
The
writers and editors of 1 Kings look back over Israel’s history in an effort to give an answer. And so
while they do tell a history, questions of “what happened?” are always
secondary to questions of “Why?”
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Sermon: Waiting and Praying
Acts 2:1-21
Waiting and Praying
James Sledge May
15, 2016 – Pentecost
Imagine
for a moment that some significant challenge faces your department at work, a
group you’re a part of, maybe even your church congregation. Maybe your
company’s sales have been hurt by online shopping. Maybe an organization you
belong to wants to find a new way of fundraising, but doesn’t know where to
start. Maybe your congregation is worried about Millennials not going to church
and wonders how to respond.
Regardless
of what sort of challenge it is you imagine or actually face, what are some of
ways you might go about meeting the challenge? Perhaps form a task force or ad hoc
committee? Maybe hire a consultant? Perhaps give the congregation an online
survey to provide data for strategic planning.
In
the weeks following the very first Easter, the little congregation of Jesus
followers faced huge challenges. Many of the 120 or so of them still weren’t
entirely sure what the resurrection meant. They had asked Jesus if he was going
to restore Israel to power, but he said such things were not for them to know.
They were, however, responsible for being his witnesses throughout all the
world. Quite the challenge for a little congregation of 120.
Almost
none of them had any leadership experience. Many of them had lived in the same
place their entire lives. What did they know about going into all the world? Time
to form a task force or hire a church growth expert. But they don’t do any of
those things. In fact, by my typical way of thinking, they don’t do much of anything.
They wait, and they pray.
Over
the years, first as an elder on a church session and later as a pastor, I’ve
had numerous opportunities to be a part of church or presbytery committees and
councils dealing with problems large and small. And though it pains me to say
it, I’ve often found myself frustrated by others in these groups who wanted to
stop, to wait, to pray.
By
nature I tend to be impatient. On top of that, I’m the product of a culture
that values production, efficiency, and accomplishment. And it is hard to be
productive or efficient or accomplish anything when you are waiting, when you
are praying. Yet the explosion of the Christian faith all over the
Mediterranean world, surely one of the great accomplishments of history, happened
only after waiting and praying. The work was not something that little
congregation could do by itself. It could only happen with the power of God,
the Holy Spirit working through them, a story that begins at Pentecost.
Monday, May 9, 2016
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Sermon: A Way of Deliverance and Liberation
Acts 16:16-34
A Way of Deliverance and Liberation
James Sledge May
8, 2016
If
you were in worship last week, you heard Diane preach about when Lydia met the
Apostle Paul at Philippi. Paul had gone out from the city on the Sabbath,
looking for a place of prayer. There he met Lydia, and she and all her
household were baptized. She then opened her home to Paul, and presumably he
and his companions stayed with her during their time in Philippi.
If
you were in worship last week, or on any number of other occasions when Diane
preached, you heard her close our worship by speaking of Christians as a people
sent into the world. She charged us to go out into the world saying, “Consider
that wherever you go this week, God is sending you there.”
I
wonder if Paul discovered something about this sort of sending in the events of
our scripture for today. The story is really a part of that reading from last
week were Lydia met Paul and on beyond today’s passage. The story begins when a
vision convinced Paul he was sent to Macedonia and its leading city, Philippi. Initially,
the story played out along the lines Paul likely expected. He probably set up
shop in the city to ply his trade, traditionally thought to be tentmaker, where
he would talk to those he met in the marketplace.
On
the Sabbath, Paul had gone out to find that place of prayer. There along the
river just outside the city, Paul spoke to the worshipers he found there. Lydia
was moved by the Spirit, the Church gained a new convert, and Lydia opened her
home to Paul.
But then, on another day, Paul headed to the
same place of prayer where he had met Lydia and met someone else. More to the
point, an unnamed slave girls seems to have met him. The story says that she
had a spirit of divination, and because of this possession, she recognizes
Paul’s connection to God. She senses the Holy Spirit in him, and begins to
follow Paul and his companions around, announcing, “These men are slaves of the Most
High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation,” or “deliverance” or
even “liberation.”
Perhaps
Paul enjoyed the attention at first, especially when he learned about her how
people paid her owners (literally “her lords”) for oracles she would speak.
Surely her words would confer a bit of prestige on Paul with the locals. But
after days of this, Paul was getting more and more annoyed. Curiously, Paul
never seems to consider that he might be sent to this slave girl, to proclaim
to her a way of deliverance or liberation. Yet when Paul can stand her no more,
he heals her in a fit of pique. “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to
come out of her.” And immediately it was so.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
By Their Fruits
Interestingly, both readings conclude their respective gospels. But if Luke ends with Jesus telling the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit, followed by his ascension, Matthew concludes with Jesus sending the disciples out via what is often called "The Great Commission." These words are often cited as a call to evangelism, but such evangelism frequently strikes me as paying scant attention to the content of Jesus' commission.
A great deal of evangelism in America has focused on "accepting Jesus," and on "believing in him." There are certainly New Testament passages that seem to emphasize faith or belief, but this Great Commission in Matthew is not one of them. There is nothing here about believing and being saved. Instead Jesus says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." The emphasis is on making disciples, something done by baptizing and by teaching people "to obey everything that I have commanded you."
This call to obedience is how Jesus urges his followers to build his Church. That won't happen from signing up believers or adherents, but by making disciples or followers. And those commandments Jesus says these new disciple must obey include all that fun stuff about loving enemies, not retaliating against those who injure you, not swearing oaths on Bibles or anything else, the impossibility of serving wealth and God, not judging others, denying oneself, forgiving others over and over and over. And the list goes on and one.
Within all those commands, Jesus speaks more than once about a trees and their fruit. Trees, and people it seems, are known by the quality of their fruits. Consider the things the church in America is known for. The list is a mixed bag. It includes feeding the hungry, volunteering at homeless shelters, doing beautiful and uplifting worship, operating health clinics, settling refugee families, and more. But it also includes very public fights over everything from sanctuary carpet colors and worship songs to questions about whether to ordain women or gays. It includes preachers calling for violence against Muslims and carrying concealed weapons for self-defense. (See Jesus' command about "all who take the sword...") It includes "bathroom bills," disingenuously labeled "religious freedom bills," and every manner of discrimination and hate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
If you were able to take a poll of all non-Christians in America, asking them what "fruits" they associated with Christianity and the Church, I wonder which sort of fruits would top the list. My fear is that they would not be sort Jesus taught. That suggests to me that we need to re-embrace the Great Commission. I'm not talking about trying to "evangelize" people. Our fruits are already publicly proclaiming our faith, for better or worse. I'm talking about seriously embracing Jesus' call to teach each other to "obey everything" he has commanded. If we did that, we'd never have to convince anyone about Jesus.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Anxiety, Gap Year, and Sabbath
(Total aside: Why do reputable publications such as The Washington Post have a "Comments" section accompanying their articles on this or any topic? They seem to serve no real purpose other than empowering trolls. And the fact that we currently have a presidential candidate who sounds like a comment section come to life only adds to my concern about a fourth estate that has lost its vocational bearings. But enough venting for now.)
Gap year, or at least the term, was unknown to me until recently. I suppose there have long been students who chose to hike across Europe or work for a year prior to college, but my admittedly scant knowledge on gap years suggests this is a bit different. The sort of gap year engaged in by well-off suburbanites is likely not available to those of more modest means. Then again, the very idea seems a response to the over-scheduled, overly competitive, enrichment filled lives of many well-off, suburbanite youth.
The church I serve sits in a community that epitomizes well-off suburbia. My own children were grown prior to my arrival here, but here seems an only slightly amplified version of where they went to high school. That means that it feels slightly more tense and anxious . The pressures to measure up, excel, get into a good school, etc. are more intensified in this tense region surrounding our nation's capital.
Enter the gap year. In some versions, such years are no doubt as over-scheduled and competitive and enrichment-filled as was middle and high school. But at a more fundamental level, surely the gap year is an attempt to take a break from all that, from all the activity and competition and anxiety.
Understood thus, a gap year strikes me as a version of Sabbath. Because Sabbath became so connected to worship, a great many people, whether or not they are church-goers, seem unaware that Sabbath was originally about rest rather than worship. It was a command to stop, to cease. And it applied to everyone, even one's farm animals. If ever there was a piece of anti-anxiety legislation, surely the Fourth Commandment is one. (or Third Commandment, depending on your tradition).
I've told the following story so many times I've likely shared it here, but I'm an over-sharer when it comes to good stories. I heard this one from a colleague who related her experience attending some sort of ecumenical, clergy gathering. As with other other lines of work, pastors will "talk shop" when you put them together. On this occasion they began discussing what day each took off, a peculiar concern for pastors who typically "work" on Sunday.
As those gathered debated the relative merits of Friday versus Monday, one pastor objected to the very topic itself. "I never take a day off," he said. "The devil never takes a day off!"
To which my colleague replied, "But God does." (If you don't get her retort, read the first Creation story from the Bible's opening, Genesis 1:1-2:4.)
I've never fully understood it, but religious people can be remarkably anxious. Especially for Christians, who claim that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God and God's love, such anxiousness seems totally at odds with our faith. If God is indeed sovereign, as we Calvinists love to claim, then how could the world possibly spin out of control just because I took the day off? Never mind what the devil does or doesn't do.
The notion of Sabbath insists that life, in all its intended abundance, cannot occur in a state of constant anxiety. God commands a "gap day" for each week to break our tendency to pursue endless cycles of anxiety. Our culture has become particularly practiced at this. We have learned to quantify almost everything, and then we are able to worry about whether or not we have enough. Inevitably, we need more. We need more money, more power, better grades, more efficiency, more experiences, more accomplishments, more fitness, more sleep, more, more, more.
My old running watch recently broke and needed to be replaced. The old one told me basic info runners like to know: how far I've gone, my pace, and my heart rate. But the new watch does so much more. It has functions popularized by Fitbits and can track my steps and my sleep. If I wear it all night, it tells me not only how many hours of sleep I got but also how many of those hours were "deep sleep." And it color codes both to let me know when I'm deficient, where I need more. Now I can add anxiety about sleep to my others.
There is much in the world over which to be anxious. Neither I nor the Bible advocate a "What me worry?" attitude toward life. But our worries and anxieties are definitely something we need less of and not more. So where do we find our break, our gap, our Sabbath?
Most of us cannot manage a gap year, but we can cultivate practices of cessation, of stopping, of not measuring or marking anything. We can cultivate the spiritual practice of rest, of simply being, of Sabbath. Call it whatever you like, but what many of us need in our lives is to take a break from our culture's dominant focus on consumerism and acquisition. We desperately need a gap in such activities. God has said so from the beginning.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Sermon: Transformed by Love
John 13:31-35
Transformed by Love
James Sledge April
24, 2016
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another.” But
exactly how new is this commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself is in
the Old Testament book of Leviticus. And haven’t parents been trying to get
siblings to love one another since the beginning of time? Isn’t a mom yelling,
“Why can’t you two just get along?” an exasperated version of “Love one another!”?
At
first glance, this command to love one another also seems a lot less noble, a
lot less impressive than some of Jesus’ other commands such as, “Love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Now that’s an
extraordinary accomplishment, surely something much more difficult than loving
those around you, than loving one another.
Then
again, “one another” presumably refers to those we spend a lot of time with,
those who have ample opportunities to annoy us, hurt us, disagree with us, get
under out skin, and disappoint us. And if our enemy is nameless and faceless,
some group way over there, they may not stir our emotions nearly so much as
that family member we can’t abide, or that member of the congregation who seems
to go out of his or her way to be difficult and cause trouble
There’s
an old Peanuts cartoon that I think captures this well. (I’ve updated the
language a bit.) Lucy has told Linus that he can’t be a doctor because he
doesn’t love humankind. Linus yells back, “I love humankind… It’s people I
can’t stand!!”
Humanity…
nameless, faceless others in general, even some who are enemies, perhaps we can
love them on principle. But those people that we encounter on a regular basis,
who irritate and annoy and cause us all manner of problems… that’s another
matter entirely. “Love one another,” may not sound all that noble or
impressive, but doing it isn’t very easy.
That
doesn’t really make it a new commandment though. What is new about love
one another?
Monday, April 18, 2016
Strange Blessings
These Beatitudes (from the Latin for "blessing") have suffered from a fair amount of trivializing over the years. They frequently get referred to as the "Be Happy Attitudes," as though Jesus was here offering some tips for self-improvement or success. But any self help guru who suggested mourning, anguished longing for the world to be set right, or persecution as a prescription for happiness would not last long in that role.
Jesus/God clearly has different priorities than most of us do. Jesus has little interest in possessions, and he regularly invites people to leave what they have behind and follow him. Many of the things we call blessings involve acquisition and getting, but Jesus says that the path to life goes through giving, self-denial, and concern for "the other."
My own Calvinist tradition is largely responsible for the so-called "Protestant work ethic." In its origins it equated hard work and success with signs that you were a member of God's "elect." Yet Jesus' beatitudes speak of God's favor being on people most of us would not list as paragons of success. And in Luke's gospel, a similar set of beatitudes says, "Blessed are you who are poor..." And it later adds, "But woe to you who are rich..." The same pattern follows for those who are "hungry" and those who are "full." Not sure how that fits into a hard work + success = God's blessing.
Our culture often blames those who are poor for their fate. They are presumed to be lazy or without initiative. Yet God seems to be quite taken with the poor. It's a theme that recurs regularly in Old and New Testaments. Whether that poverty is spiritual or literal, God looks with favor on those who are too often despised for their "failings." And I'm pretty sure that Jesus' teachings are encouraging us see things more from God's point of view.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Monday, April 11, 2016
Left to Our Own Devices
The context for my wondering is a secular mindset in a secular age. The stories of the Bible, of Jesus, of healings and miracles do not sit easily in our world. I'm not Thomas Jefferson, taking a razor and carefully removing all the miracle stories associated with Jesus in order to produce a pure collection of Jesus' teachings without foolish superstitions about demons and evil spirits and healings and exorcisms. But I do struggle with miracles. When I hear of a televangelist or other religious figure offering healings or other miracles, I assume he or she is a con and a fraud.
But do such secular assumptions create problems for following Jesus? Is there a change of mind, a repentance required of me and those like me if I am to be properly oriented for following Jesus?
I'm unsure of the exact connection, but the rise of a secular worldview seems to parallel the development of individualism. In its best forms this has encouraged everyone to recognize his or her own intrinsic value and worth. In its worst forms it has transformed us into free agents, each of us responsible for self alone, no overriding loyalties, allegiances, debts, or commitments. If one is wealthy, it is because she had done well for herself. If one is poor, it is because he has done poorly.
The message of Jesus certainly seems compatible with notions of intrinsic value and worth for every individual. But it seems totally at odds with being free agents. In the alternative community Jesus proclaims, there are profound commitments and obligations to the neighbor, to the other. And Jesus expands the neighborhood to include outsiders and enemies. It is a worldview that allows Jesus to die for the sake of others, even for enemies.
But central to Jesus' proclamation is the certainty that the power of God to transform, the bring life out of death, to make all things new, is active and at work in the world. God is shaping things, bending the arc of history toward particular outcomes. And if the power of God is at work in the world, then surely miracles must at least be a possibility.
Possibility and control are two very different things, and I suspect that much modern skepticism around religious miracles has roots in issues of control. Think of televangelists who offer healing for a donation or, more commonly, the notion of being healed if you pray hard enough or have sufficient faith. This is less about the power of God moving in surprising and life giving ways and more about formulas to harness such power. And one thing the Bible makes clear over and over is that the God of Jacob, the God we meet in Jesus, will not be harnessed. The God of Sinai and of the cross is radically wild and free.
But if God will not be harnessed, what does it mean to follow this Jesus who could trust his very life to the power of God to make new and give life? Surly it requires, at the very least, being open to the power of God at work in the world. And I'm not always open to such things.
Very often the Christian faith practiced by Presbyterians and other Mainline/Oldline denominations can be a mix of "believing in Jesus" and trying to follow some of his teachings (at least those we like). But this often includes no expectation that anything other than our own devices are involved. We're not inclined to claim any ability to control the power of God. We seem to think that only power involved is the power we possess. At least I often seem to operate from such a point of view.
And that is why I'm wondering about repentance, about a change of mind.
Click to learn more about the lectionary.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Sermon: The Story Continues
John 21:1-19
The Story Continues
James Sledge April
10, 2016
When
I go to the movies, I’m one of those people who sit there as the credits roll.
I’m not sure why. Sometimes I’m actually looking for something such as song
that was in the movie. Other times it’s just what I do. And every once in a
while, something pops up after the credits, a blooper from the filming, an
epilogue, a teaser about a sequel.
Something
similar happens in today’s gospel reading, though given the way we use
scripture in worship, reading a few paragraphs each Sunday morning, it’s easy
to miss such things. But go back a page or so and you’ll see it. John has told
us of the empty tomb and the risen Jesus speaking to Mary Magdalene early on
Easter morning. Then we read of Jesus appearing that night to the disciples,
and then appearing again when Thomas, who missed the previous appearance, is
present.
Then
the gospel seems to conclude saying, Now Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are
written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of
God, and through believing you may have life in his name. The End. Let
the credits roll.
If
you’d been listening to an audio version of John’s gospel in the car, you might
well turn it off at thispoint. You might leave during the credits and
completely miss our reading for today. Jesus reappears, after the credits, after
the gospel is over, after the story has been told.
This reappearance has sparked much
discussion as to why. Had some problem arisen in the congregation for whom John
is originally written? Might some of them have thought that Peter was unfit to
be a leader because of denying Jesus on the night of his arrest? Had a
different author attached this new ending? Scholars debate such questions
endlessly, and they are interesting questions. But I wonder if they miss a
bigger point.
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)