Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Monday, October 22, 2018
Sermon: Beloved and Invited to New Life
Mark 10:35-45
Beloved and Invited to New Life
James Sledge October
21, 2018
I
read an column in The Washington Post
the other day entitled, “As Jesus said, nice guys finish last.” It quoted a
tweet from Jerry Falwell, Jr., president at Liberty University. “Conservatives
& Christians need to stop electing ‘nice guys’. They might make great
Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at
every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps
& many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!”[1]
The
column went on to note that it is hardly a new thing for religious folks to want
powerful politicians to support their agenda. For much of European and American
history, faith and power have had something of a symbiotic relationship. Rulers
made sure that the population participated in the faith, and the faith gave
spiritual blessing to the ruler.
This
sort of deal almost always ends up compromising and cheapening the faith. In
our American experience, Christianity ended up being used to buttress slavery,
sanction the genocide of Native Americans, and support imperialism in Africa
and Asia. More recently, evangelical leaders were singing the president’s
praises on the very day that thousands of migrant children were moved, under
the cover of darkness, to a detention facility in Texas.
This last event prompted The Washington Post columnist to write,
“This is disturbing and discrediting. How can anyone supposedly steeped in the
teachings of Jesus be so unaffected by them? The question immediately turns
against the questioner. In a hundred less visible ways, how can I be so
unaffected by them?”[2]
_____________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Sermon: Fake Questions and Kingdom Ways
Mark 10:2-16
Fake Questions and Kingdom Ways
James Sledge October
7, 2018
I
don’t think we’ve done it here during my time as pastor, but both of my
previous congregations did a stewardship program called the “Grow One
Challenge.” This challenge was based on the fact that very few church members
tithe. Never mind how often a pastor calls for the offering with “Let us bring
our tithes and offerings…” statistics show that tithers are as rare as liberal
Republicans.
And
so the “Grow One Challenge” is a plan both to help church members move toward
the biblical notion of the tithe, giving the first ten percent, the first
fruits, to God. Recognizing that the typical Presbyterian gives something
closer to two percent, this challenge knew that asking people to jump from one
or two percent to ten was an impossible task. And so people were encouraged to
grow one, one percentage point that is, toward the tithe. The pledge cards
accompanying the program even had little charts on the back that would help you
do the math.
The
program seemed to work pretty well. We had some pretty big jumps in giving when
we first used it. But I also had a rather experience. It happened in both
churches and it happened repeatedly. People
asked me, “Am I supposed give ten percent of my income before or after taxes?” They
almost always grinned as they asked.
I
don’t think there was ever I time where this was a real question. They weren’t
filling out their pledge card and wanting to know if it was this amount or
that. More often it was just a joke, but sometimes it was a way of muddying the
waters, of charting loopholes.
The
Pharisees in our scripture aren’t making a joke, but they may well be grinning.
Their question is not a real one. They already know what the law says. They’re
merely hoping Jesus’ answer will make some folks angry. There were
disagreements in Jesus’ day, not about whether divorce was legal, but about
valid reasons for it. The Pharisees hope Jesus will come down on one side and
upset those on the other.
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Sermon: Getting Our Mojo Back
Mark 9:30-37
Getting Our Mojo Back
September 23, 2018 James
Sledge
I
spent much of my childhood and youth in Charlotte, NC, back in the days when TV
had a total of six or seven channels. Of these, the CBS affiliate dominated the
local market and also owned the largest radio station. It had a number of high
profile, charity events each year, but the one I recall the most vividly was an
annual on air blood drive.
They
advertised it heavily. Corporate sponsors provided food, refreshments, and
gifts. Radio and TV personalities worked the event. CBS sent in stars from
various shows, and all during the day they would have live broadcasts interviewing
donors, talking about how easy is was, how almost painless it was.
The
event was always a huge success with more than a thousand people donating
blood. The Red Cross blood bank would be as full as it ever got, but this blood
drive never seemed to convert many into regular donors. Year after year, most
of those interviewed were first time donors, and year after year, it wasn’t
long before the Red Cross was making pleas to the public about critically short
blood supplies. The gifts, glitz, celebrities, and chance to be on TV drew in
lots of people, but when it was all over, they went back to old patterns, ones
that didn’t include giving blood.
A
similar pattern showed up in the early Jesus movement. The gospels report huge
crowds coming out to see this miracle working, charismatic,
teacher-prophet-messiah. But by and large, the crowds saw the show, perhaps got
a healing, and then went home to their old lives.
The
early reflected this. It was a small movement, and you see that in the New
Testament. In his letters, the Apostle Paul deals with questions about what parts
of normal, civic participation are out of bounds for followers of Jesus,
questions that arise because the Christians are a tiny minority. So too some of
the gospels address communities struggling to remain faithful when doing so may
get them ostracized from polite society.
We
tend to think of the Bible as a public book, but the individual components of
the New Testament – which didn’t really exist as we know it for a few hundred
years after Jesus – were not understood that way. They were not used to spread
the Christian message but to help existing Christian communities deal with
issues that they faced. The books that would become the New Testament weren’t
for the masses, but for the dedicated few.
It’s
easy to see why the early Jesus movement tended to be small. While Jesus might
have made a big splash and attracted a lot of gawkers, people hoping for a
healing, or a political messiah to take on the Romans, many of Jesus’ teachings
were not real crowd pleasers. The teachings we heard this morning are no exception.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Sermon: Answering (and Living) the Jesus Question
Mark 8:27-38
Answering (and Living) the Jesus Question
James Sledge September
16, 2018
The
other day I stopped into the grocery store to grab a couple of items. As I looked
for them, I happened down an aisle that was filled with Halloween candy and
paraphernalia. I shouldn’t have been
surprised – it’s September after all, but I was. It was one of those sultry,
ninety degree days, and it didn’t feel anything like fall.
But
fall is almost here, which means the election is just around the corner. I’ve
been something of a political junkie for much of my life, but I confess that
I’ve grown tired of it. I don’t want to see all the political ads. I don’t want
to see candidates who wrap themselves in a Christian mantle while spouting
hatred and intolerance and outright racist ideas. I especially don’t want to
watch another round of church leaders doing irreparable damage to the image of
the faith by insisting that candidates who show not the tiniest inclination to
follow the teachings of Jesus are somehow God’s candidate. Wake me when it’s
over.
Of
course then the Christmas shopping season will be almost upon us, complete with
culture war skirmishes. Some of the same folks who touted God’s candidates will
insist that we “put Christ back in Christmas,” and they’ll get angry if someone
says “Happy Holidays.” Sigh… Wake me when it’s over.
It’s
amazing all the ways that Jesus or Christ or God or Christian faith gets
invoked to support all manner of things. There are churches that celebrate the
Second Amendment in worship and encourage members to bring their guns. There
are churches that loudly proclaim, “God Hates Fags.” There are churches that
say Donald Trump is God’s man in the White House, and there are churches that
stage protests against Donald Trump. There are churches that see same sex relationships
as an abomination and sin, and there are churches that marry same sex couples.
And all these churches, at least all that call themselves Christian, claim
Christ in some way.
When
people insist that we put Christ back in Christmas, which one do they mean? Is
it the one who blesses same sex marriages? Is it the one who says to love your
enemy and not to resist the one who strikes you? Or is it a different Christ? How
many of them are there? Sometimes it seems that we Christians have been given
the answer to the question, but we’re not at all sure what that answer means.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Sermon: Tribalism Meets God's Love and Grace
Mark 7:24-37
Tribalism Meets God’s Love and Grace
James Sledge September
9, 2018
A
great deal has been written and discussed of late on how tribal we’ve become in
America. I read something the other day following the death of John McCain that
said although Senator McCain was widely admired, he had become something of a
political pariah in his home state of Arizona. All three Republican candidates
in the recent Arizona senate primary either distanced themselves from McCain or
outright disparaged him.
McCain’s
hostility to President Trump is certainly one reason for this, but tribalism is
involved as well. Tribalism draws very clear us and them boundaries and tends
to view “them” as the enemy. Someone like McCain, who would work with members
of the other party and even work against his own party when his principles
required it, looks very suspicious to those who view the world from a tribal
perspective.
We
humans seem to have an innate tendency towards tribalism. We may not be born
racists or homophobes or sexists or elitists or any other sort of ists, but we
seek comfort and security and purpose by coalescing into groups with others who
are like us in some way. It starts at a very young age. School children often
form cliques that can be hostile and cruel to those who don’t fit into their
group.
This
is not a recent phenomenon. In Jesus’ day there were numerous divisions and
groups. The Pharisees were a reform movement centered on synagogue and
following scripture, opposed to what they saw as the corrupt, priestly Judaism of
the Jerusalem Temple. The Essenes withdraw entirely into their own, separatist
community in reaction to perceived Temple corruption and a world too accommodating
to Greco-Roman culture. Then there was the Jewish – Gentile divide, the biggest
tribal division of Jesus’ day.
These
divisions are different than those of our day, and some may strike us as odd.
But they functioned much the same as the divisions we hardly notice. We gather
here for worship each week and frequently hear Paul’s words that say, There
is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer
male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus. But we hardly
represent the diversity and inclusiveness these words suggest. We’re not a
representative sampling of America or even our immediate community. We’re
whiter, wealthier, more liberal, more likely to be cultural elitists, and so
on.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Sunday, September 2, 2018
Sermon: Stained by the World
James 1:17-27
Stained by the World
James Sledge September
2, 2018
There
was an article in The Washington Post recently
entitled, “Are rich people more likely
to lie, cheat, steal? Science explains the world of Manafort and Gates.”[1]
If you followed Paul Manafort’s recent trial, you know about the $15,000
ostrich and python jackets, the exorbitant lifestyle and the lengths he was
willing to go to maintain that lifestyle.
And of course Manafort is but one example in a
litany of cases involving insider trading, misuse of campaign contributions,
and so on. According to the Post article,
a growing body of scientific evidence finds that wealth, power, and privilege “makes
you feel like you’re above the law… allows you to treat others like they don’t
exist.”
Among the scientific studies was one where researchers
watched four-way stop intersections. Expensive cars were significantly less
likely to wait their turn than older and cheaper cars. The same researchers
sent pedestrians into crosswalks and observed which cars obeyed the law and
stopped when someone was in the crosswalk. Every single one of the older,
cheaper cars stopped, but only half of the expensive cars did.
Drawing on many different research studies the Post article said, “That research has
shown the rich cheat more on
their taxes. They cheat more on their romantic
partners. The wealthy and better-educated are more likely to
shoplift. They are more likely to cheat at
games of chance. They are often less
empathetic. In studies
of charitable giving, it is often the
lower-income households that donate higher
proportions of their income than middle-class and many
upper-income folk.”
This sort of research is relatively new, and so
there is a lot it cannot say about why or how this all works. But the evidence
is pretty compelling that being wealthy and/or powerful has a tendency to make
you an awful person. And perhaps that’s exactly the sort of thing our scripture
is worried about when it to keep oneself
unstained by the world.
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