Sermon: Fearless Living and Nominal Christians

Matthew 21:23-32

Fearless Living and Nominal Christians

James Sledge                                                                                       October 1, 2017

I’ve had the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture twice since it opened a year ago. I know that many of you have been, and I hope all of you will take the time to see it at some point. On both my visits there I was struck by a quote etched into the glass covering one of the displays.

It’s by Olaudah Equiano who, along with his sister, was kidnapped as a child in Africa and sold as a slave in America.. Equiano gained his freedom prior to the American Revolution, left the colonies, and settled in London. There he wrote his memoir and became something of a celebrity and important figure in the British abolitionist movement.

He had become a Christian while still in the colonies, but he must have struggled to reconcile his faith with what he had seen done by Christian slave owners.  In 1789 he said, “O, ye nominal Christians! Might not an African ask you—Learned you this from your God who says to you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you?”

In the little research I’ve done, I found nothing to suggest that Equiano ever abandoned his Christian faith, but his lament is commonly echoed by those in our day who have given up on the church. They see little difference in those inside the church and outside it, other than the claim of faith. Like Equiano, they might ask what exactly we learned from our God, from this Christ we say is or Lord, our Master.

This problem of faith existing more in name than in action is apparently nothing new. Jesus addresses it in this morning’s gospel reading. He is teaching in the temple on the day after his big, parade-like entry into Jerusalem. Jesus had caused a ruckus then by coming to the Temple, driving out those selling animals for sacrifice, and turning over the tables used to exchange foreign, profane coins into those that didn’t violate the commandment on images and could be used for offerings. Now Jesus is back, no doubt attracting the same sort of sick and poor and sinners and riff raff he always does, and the leaders approach him.

“What gives you the right to do all this?” they ask. But Jesus doesn’t answer their question. Instead, he asks them about what authority they do recognize. “Answer that, says” Jesus, “and I’ll tell you where my authority comes from. Did the baptism of John comes from God?”

 They do not recognize John the Baptist as having divine sanction, but they are unwilling to say so publically. So Jesus moves on, telling a parable of two sons told by their father to work in the vineyard and then asking, “Which of the two did the will of  his father?”

Sermon video: Imagining a New Reality

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Absurd Love - Absurd Community.

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Imagining a New Reality

Matthew 20:1-16

Imagining a New Reality

James Sledge                                                                           September 24, 2017

I was still in elementary school Elvis Presley’s movie career ended, but his movies ran on television regularity when I was growing up, and I probably saw most of them. I can’t say that I recall very much about them. Elvis didn’t really make cinematic masterpieces, but there is one that made a bit of an impression on me.

I don’t remember the name of the movie or the larger story line, but I do remember a court hearing where an unscrupulous child welfare worker tries to take away the adopted children in an odd, extended family where Elvis is a adult son. Most vividly I recall two, young, twin boys among these adopted children. I didn’t remember their names, but thanks to the internet, I now know they were Eddy and Teddy.

In a recurring gag, these boys have to share a candy bar. I could have this backwards, but we’ll say Eddy would always break the bar in half, but not actually in half. One piece was always significantly larger. Naturally Teddy noticed this inequity and complained about it. At which point Eddy would bite the extra length off and hold the two pieces up again, satisfying Teddy that he was now getting an equal share. Near the movie’s end, Teddy figures out he’s being scammed. And during the court hearing, when Eddy pulls the trick yet again, Teddy grabs the two pieces from him, bites off the extra length himself, and hands one of the now equal parts back to Eddy, with the judge as an astounded, sole observer.

Now I have my doubts that any real child would have taken as long as Teddy to figure things out. In my experience, issues of fairness are pretty high on children’s radar from an early age. “That’s not fair,” is a common childhood lament, and most parents have to deal with the “fairness” issue from time to time.

Did you ever wonder why children become so concerned over whether or not a sibling of friend got a bigger slice of cake or a bit more ice cream? If I have a tasty slice of cake, why does it really matter if anyone else’s slice is a little larger? Why is this a fairness issue?

Sermon: Absurd Love - Absurd Community

Matthew 18:21-35

Absurd Love – Absurd Community

James Sledge                                                                           September 17, 2017

The problem of needing to know more about a scripture passage’s context in order to understand it has showed up so frequently of late that I wonder if we don’t need a Bible version of that real estate adage, “What are the three most important things in real estate? Location, location, location.” Except our answer would be “Context, context, context.”

Take today’s reading. It’s not a stand-alone parable. Our verses are the final lesson in a larger set of teachings, the last big teaching moment Jesus has with his disciples prior to Jerusalem and the cross. That says something about their importance. And because Matthew uses private moments with the disciples for Jesus to speak directly to the Church, that says something about how important these words are for us.

There is an interesting ebb and flow in these teachings. They start with Jesus saying that we must become like children to be part of God’s kingdom, that those who are humble like a child are called greatest in the kingdom. Jesus then shifts from actual children to “little ones,” a phrase that speaks of those new to faith. Here the emphasis is about how terrible it is to cause a little one to stumble, and about the great lengths we must be willing to go to avoid stumbling ourselves. Jesus goes on to say how important these “little ones” are to God, telling the parable of a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to find the single lost one.

Jesus then shifts gears, insisting that this community also be a place that holds its members accountable. He lays out a method for confronting those who sin. Meet privately first. If that doesn’t work, a few members should speak to the person. If that fails the entire congregation gets involved, and finally, the offender is to be cast out.

It is in this context of holding community members accountable that Peter speaks in our reading this morning. Quite likely Peter is thinking of the elaborate process Jesus has described of confronting offenders alone, then with a few members, then before the congregation. Perhaps Peter has in mind some difficult folks he worries will abuse this process. They’ll cause trouble and resist correction until they’re on the verge of being thrown out. But later they’ll go back to their old ways, and the process would start over again. Surely there have to be some limits to this. “Is seven times enough, Jesus?”

Mixed Feelings

Like most Americans born prior to the early 1990s, I can recall where I was and what I was doing when I first heard that an airliner had struck one of the twin towers in New York City. Now comes another 9/11, and people are remembering. My Facebook feed is filled with posts of pictures labeled "Never Forget," tributes to first responders and those who died, and calls for God to bless America.

I must confess that I experience mixed emotions as I remember. Some 9/11 memories are horrific and terrifying, but they are not the cause of my mixed feelings. It is important to remember failures and sufferings in order to prevent their happening again. My jumbled feelings are more about what happened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Take the frequent refrain of "God Bless America." I hope God does bless America, but in a 9/11 context that request often seems to include an unspoken corollary. "And curse our enemies." We might well expect God to be against those who commit horrendous acts of terror, but that's different from God being pro USA. As a verse from this morning's psalm says,
         The LORD is good to all,
             and his compassion is over all that he has made. (Ps. 145:9)
The God becomes a flag-draped, star-spangled God, we have abandoned the God of Jesus, of the Bible, and embraced a tribal idol.

On a more positive note, many recall the days after 9/11 and wistfully remember the pause in the bitter partisanship that has come to dominate American politics and life. For a brief moment, the shared crisis overcame division. In similar fashion, the desire to help recent hurricane victims can momentarily bring disparate folks together in common cause for good.

Our coming together post 9/11 did feel good, but it had an element not found in response to natural disasters, an enemy. Having a common enemy can be tremendous unifying force. Osama bin Laden was as much the enemy of Democrats as he was of Republicans, of liberal as conservatives, and the threat he posed dwarfed the enmity between political parties, making it seem trivial for a time.

Sometimes we humans seem to need enemies. They provide an "against" by which to define our group, and enemies are often a more powerful, unifying force than anything our group is "for." Fear is a powerful motivator, and enemies merit fear. But fear is also a great manipulative tool, especially when used to inflate a true enemy or even to create one where none exists.

Following 9/11, some felt the need to make an enemy out of all Islam. It made things simpler, neater, and for Christians it had the added benefit of making our group the "good guys" and theirs the evil enemy. Creating such an enemy proved so compelling that many embraced the idea despite a complete lack of logic of facts to support it.

Enemies, especially those deemed mortal enemies, lose their humanity to some degree. Their deaths become necessary, even a good thing to be celebrated. When all of Islam becomes the enemy, the death of civilians ceases to matter so much. The same thing happened with Nazis and Japanese during WWII. Wholesale slaughter of civilians was seen as acceptable.

I wonder if Jesus' commands us to love our enemies because he wants to undermine our ability, our apparent need and desire, to demonize "the other." If we took Jesus seriously and truly saw our enemy as another neighbor to love, how might things look different? Put another way, if America actually were a Christian nation, how might our post-9/11 response have been different?

And so, on 9/11, I will engage in somber remembrance and reflection. I will mourn for those who died, for those who continue to die from terrorist attacks, and for the many more civilians who have become "collateral damage" in our war on terror. I will hope for lessons learned that may prevent future 9/11s, and I will pray for peace in the world. And I will wonder if the world, or Christians for that matter, will ever actually embrace the way of Jesus.

Sermon: Wearing Jesus

Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

Wearing Jesus

James Sledge                                                                                       September 10, 2017

The first church I served as a pastor was in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was part of New Hope presbytery, and I served on the presbytery’s mission committee. One of the issues facing us was a call to participate in a boycott of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company.

The cucumber growers in eastern North Carolina used immigrants in the “quest worker” program to harvest the crops Mt. Olive used to make pickles. These migrant workers moved from place to place, following the harvest seasons up the coast. The wages were low, and the conditions in the camps that the growers provided were often appalling. But the workers had little recourse other than to return to their home country.

The boycott emerged through the efforts of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, or FLOC. They wanted to Mt. Olive to buy only from growers who paid a decent wage and provided minimal working and living conditions. But Mt. Olive said they couldn’t do that. They did not buy cucumbers directly from the growers. In a system that seemed to serve little purpose other than to provide for such an excuse, growers sold cucumbers to grading stations that in turn sold to Mt. Olive. They could then say, we don’t deal directly with any growers. How can we tell them what to do?

And so FLOC called for a boycott. The National Council of Churches, which many mainline denominations belong to, got on board, and so New Hope Presbytery’s mission committee met with representatives from FLOC, Mt. Olive, and others in order to make a recommendation to the presbytery about whether or not to join the boycott.

We held a Saturday event in the town of Mt. Olive, at Mt. Olive Presbyterian Church, where various folks spoke for or against the boycott. One of the stronger voices against was the pastor at Mt. Olive Presbyterian. Pickle company managers and executives were faithful members there, and their pledges kept the church going. This, he claimed, meant the church had no right to criticize their employer. The denomination, he said, had no business judging their employer or them. They were people of faith who supported their church. What right did the church have to turn around and criticize their means of earning a living?

The presbytery didn’t agree and ended up supporting an, ultimately, successful boycott. But Americans often do view faith as a private matter of the heart, not open to judgment, even from the church. This idea showed up in last year’s presidential election. Pope Francis commented on a proposed border wall, "A person who thinks only about building walls... and not of building bridges, is not Christian.” Candidate Trump fired back. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith,”[1]

I suspect a lot of Americans, even ones who don’t like President Trump, tend to agree, but Jesus and the Apostle Paul do not. Jesus makes clear in today’s verses that the faith community should confront members who live contrary to his teachings. It is to be done as kindly as possible, seeking reconciliation and restoration, but it must be done. Previously, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that calling him Lord does not matter if you don’t do God’s will. “By their fruits you will know them,” he says. That raises an interesting question. What is it that Christians are known for?

Sermon video: Jesus Is Lord, But I Have Others

Audios of sermons and worship are available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Trusting God with Our Stories

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Justice in Our Hearts And Souls

I marched in the Minsters March for Justice yesterday in Wasthington, D.C. I nearly didn't. It had popped up on my social media, but so did a lot of other marches and events. Plus this one had Al Sharpton's name attached to it, and I'm not a huge fan. Fortunately, someone reminded me of the event yesterday after worship, and that got me to thinking about why I has so easily forgotten it.

Strange how easy it is to think God only works through people I like, who agree with me, share my politics, or don't rub me the wrong way. I also wonder if I didn't appreciate an excuse to forget the event. Pastors getting mixed up in events deemed "political" can have a downside. It's safer to stay at church, to confine my "witness" to the pulpit. Unfortunately, my own sermon yesterday called me out on this. In it I wondered if I would have been one of those white, moderates Martin Luther King was so disappointed in, quoting from his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." So when someone at fellowship time after worship asked if I as going...

I'm glad I went. There was a diverse group of Jews and Christians of various sorts. I did not notice any Muslims, but a Sihk spoke from the podium. Martin Luther King III led us as we walked from his father's memorial to the US Justice Department, tying up traffic and inconveniencing a couple of Segue tours.

As we gathered in front of the Justice Department, I noticed the inscription high up over the building's entrance. "Justice in the life of the state is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens." (Thanks to Mary Ward Logsdon for reminding me that the quote is from Plato.) And I found myself wondering about the hearts and souls of people in our country today.

The Bible calls us to "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." These words from the prophet Amos follow immediately on words on how God hates the people's worship, their claims of faith. Let me see justice and righteousness, says God. (Righteousness is one of the religious sounding words that may confuse people, but it simply means things set right, judged by the standards of God.)

I often find it odd that so many Christians, those who say they follow Jesus, are so concerned with matters of right belief but largely unconcerned with matters of justice and righteousness. Jesus stood firmly in the tradition of prophets like Amos, and his most basic proclamation was of God's approaching kingdom, the day when justice and righteousness would envelope the earth. Jesus even teaches us to pray for that day when the kingdom arrives, when God's "will is done on earth as in heaven."

Yesterday's march reminded me how badly the Church has lost its way on this, but it also showed me how many people long for the Church to hear Jesus' call, to love neighbor, to reach out to the least of these, to work for justice and righteousness, to do these and more even if it is hard or costly or dangerous. That is what it means to take up the cross.

The Church in modern America lost its way in part because it went along with notions of faith as a private, personal thing, divorced from matters of justice, lifting up the poor, and revealing God's love to the world. But that is not to minimize the significance of faith as a heart matter, to ignore the need for internal conversion. Justice needs to reside in hearts and souls. Love needs to cast out hate and fear. As the Apostle Paul would say, the old self needs to die and be replaced by a new creation in Christ. And that's not so much about getting one's ticket punched for heaven as it is about living a new life now, one that shows the world God's new day of justice and righteousness and love and hope.

One of the morning psalms today is 146, and it picks up on both the internal trust and hope of faith, along with what it is we hope and trust for, that Christ calls us to work for.

   Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
          whose hope is in the LORD their God,
   who made heaven and earth,
          the sea, and all that is in them;
   who keeps faith forever;
          who executes justice for the oppressed;
          who gives food to the hungry.
   The LORD sets the prisoners free;
          the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
   The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
          the LORD loves the righteous.
   The LORD watches over the strangers;
          he upholds the orphan and the widow,
          but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

I'm indebted to yesterday's march, and yes, to Al Sharpton, for helping me to experience that connection between faith and hope and justice in the heart and the work Christ calls me, calls the Church to do.

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Sermon video: Seeing the Face of God.

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Jesus Is Lord, But I Have Others

Exodus 1:8-2:10

Jesus is Lord, But I Have Others

James Sledge                                                                                       August 27, 2017

In one of his letters to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul tries to straighten out some confusion there. The Corinthians were enamored with being spiritual and saw speaking in tongues as the proof that a person had the Holy Spirit. But Paul flatly rejects that idea. Writes Paul, No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

I’m not so sure. Anyone can speak those words. All manner of people do while acting completely contrary to Jesus’ teachings. White supremacists profess him. Jesus knew this sort of thing would happen and said, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father I heaven.”

But Paul isn’t talking about mouthing the words. He’s talking about a risky, subversive statement, one counter to another statement of Paul’s day, “Caesar is Lord.” Roman emperors were called “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Augustus, emperor when Jesus was born, was called “savior of the world, son of God, bringer of peace.”

To say “Jesus is Lord,” to call him Savior, Son of God, Prince of Peace, and lots of other things early Christians called Jesus, was to say “Not Caesar, but Jesus.” We might be able to say “Jesus is Lord” with little thought as to what it means or requires of us, but not so when Paul wrote, No one can say, Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

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You’ve noticed the banner I hung I hung behind me, one of many in the back of our sanctuary representing the faith statements of our denomination. This one goes with the Theological Declaration of Barmen, written by Lutheran and Reformed Christians in 1930s Germany who said “Jesus is Lord of all,” and our ultimate loyalty and allegiance is to him, not the nation, not the Nazis, not Adolf Hitler. It was a dangerous, subversive statement, not unlike when the first Christians said “Jesus is Lord.”