Sermon video: Hard Truths

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Hard Truths

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Hard Truths

James Sledge                                                                  September 22, 2019

One would have to have been asleep for the last decade or so to be unaware of our nation’s epidemic of gun violence. While I was on sabbatical during July and August, I was often without internet or TV. Even so, I could not avoid reports on the carnage that took place during that brief time. In the span of barely more than a month, shootings in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio, and Odessa and Midland, Texas, left 44 people dead and 88 wounded.

The term “mass shooting” has no precise definition, but according to a Wikipedia article, there have been 297 mass shootings this year in America, killing 335 people and leaving 1219 more wounded. Seven occurred at a school or university and two in worship spaces, and I’m sure these statistics aren’t already out of date.

In, nearly 40,000 Americans died from gunshot wounds. About 24,000 of those were suicides, a number that is sickening all by itself. And of course that means that 16,000 people were killed by someone else. This last number alone amounts for more than forty people killed every single day.

Perhaps you are already familiar with these numbers, but I share them with you this morning to help explain why I reacted the way I did to our scripture reading. Before I ever did any of the things we preachers are supposed to do for writing a sermon – look at the original Greek or Hebrew, do word studies on important terms, consult various commentaries, and so on – I quickly glanced at the different passages listed for this Sunday. As I skimmed our passage from Jeremiah, I was suddenly caught up by the final verse. O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!

The slain of my poor people… Every night on the news, more people are added to the list. Of course the prophet Jeremiah is not talking about gun violence in America, but surely he would use the very same words if he were alive today.

Sermon video: Ready to Party

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Ready to Party

Luke 15:1-10

Ready to Party

James Sledge                                                                                       September 15, 2019

I suppose it is a nearly universal experience, wondering if you made the cut. Did I get the job? Did I make the team? Did I get into the sorority or fraternity? Did I get accepted into my top college? Did I get invited to the big party? I’m sure you can think of other examples.

This experience seems to be woven into the very fabric of nature. Evolution is driven by the “survival of the fittest.” And it is hard not to hear value judgements in terms such as “the fittest” or “successful predator.” They are the better species.

These sort of value judgments make their way into popular thought. People experiencing poverty or homelessness are often assumed to have failed in some way. They’ve not worked hard enough or failed to apply themselves. Their predicament is similar to not making the team, landing a good job, or getting into a good college. It is the result of some failure to be good enough, to try hard enough, to be smart enough, and so on.

Religion picks it up, too. The so-called Protestant work ethic grew from the idea that hard work which bore financial success was a sign of God’s favor. At the very least this implies that poverty is a sign of God’s disfavor.

Surely each of us is shaped in some way by living in a world where such ideas are so prevalent. How can we not feel that we have failed to measure up in some way when we don’t get that top job, get rejected by that college, or don’t make the requisite income?

And for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, the pressures to measure up, to get into a top school, climb the career ladder, be rich enough, pretty enough, and so on, seem to have intensified in recent decades. Such pressures feed worries and anxieties, driving everything from overscheduled kids to workers who don’t use their vacation time.

If you’re well versed in the teachings of Jesus, you might think that Christians wouldn’t buy into such thinking. But Christian faith gets practiced and lived out in human, religious institutions. And we humans are prone to think that God’s value judgments are not so different from ours.

And so religion too often looks like one more version of measuring up. Am I good enough? Do I believe the correct things? Have I done what is required for God to love me?

This takes many different forms. For some, believing that Jesus is their personal Lord and Savior guarantees them a ticket to heaven. For others, certain prayer or meditation practices must be learned well enough to provide the promised spiritual fulfillment. For still others, religion becomes a way to spiritualize the correct political beliefs, be they conservative or liberal.

Sabbatical Journal 12

I'm still on sabbatical, but I've been home for a while now, enough time that my trip feels a long time ago. I've not yet reentered the rhythms of the work world, but I have easily slid back into the the rhythms of modern life with all its luxuries and accoutrements. I have a comfortable bed, my own bathroom and shower just steps away, and endless channels and streaming choices on the television. I can check email, social media, or the news any time I want. I have food and drink of all sorts that I can pair with watching TV, and I will no doubt quickly regain the ten plus pounds that disappeared somewhere along the way on my trip.

As easily as I've fallen back into watching too much TV, eating too much, and checking my phone too much. A great deal of the time during my trip I had poor or no internet. I kept up with the news, but not like I do now. And I felt much less stressed. I watched almost no television, and I can't say that I missed it at all. Only rarely could I access social media, and that was just fine.

Sleeping in a tent with only battery powered light, I went to sleep soon after it got dark and got up soon after it got light. I ate less and slept more. My days seemed full and busy even though I had none of the entertainment and distractions that I do now. My sense of what I needed, of what was necessary, shifted dramatically. Granted, it lasted for less than two months, but I think there are long-term impacts.

Even though I have easily resumed old rhythms, there are wants, longings, and desires that so far have remained dormant. Like most Americans, I have been heavily indoctrinated into our consumer culture. But it seems to have a little less of a grip on me these days. I have no way of knowing how long this might last, but I am more content, more satisfied in some ways.

My experience runs counter to the American narrative that says happiness, contentment, fulfillment,  are achieved by acquiring more. But for me, the motorcycle sabbatical made clear how little of that more I actually needed. I don't mean to idealize the trip. There were elements of it that were completely unsustainable and ways in which it was made possible by the modern world we live in. Still, it seems to have rewired me on some level.

The church I serve has been doing a great deal of praying and seeking God's guidance for who and what we are called to be as a congregation.One element of this process was the development of what many would call a vision statement that says our church is called to "Gather those who fear they are not enough, so we may experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as God's beloved." That fear of not being enough was something that bubbled up in conversations with our members, and I think it reflects that American narrative about acquiring more. It is worry, anxiety about never quite getting there, whether "there" is understood in terms of money, accomplishment, influence, success, or something else.

Our congregation has felt a call to help people experience something different from that narrative about needing to acquire more. But exactly how does one experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as God's beloved? Most people cannot take a motorcycle sabbatical or some other such thing that might dramatically alter the typical rhythms of life.

During my sabbatical absence, the various ministry teams of our congregations have been grappling with just how we will invite ourselves and other into a new way of life as God's beloved. And I look forward to returning as we seek to put into practice God's call to gather those who fear they're not enough.

Sabbatical Journal 11

(The LORD) gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when they cry. - Psalm 147:9

While looking around at the exhibits in the visitors' center at Yosemite National Park, I came upon one on pikas and climate change. For some reason I've always been enchanted by pikas, small, alpine mammals that are cousins of rabbits. (If you've never seen the video of the pika singing Freddie Mercury, google it.)

Being alpine creatures, pikas cannot tolerate hot weather, and the exhibit explained how, during the heat of summer, pikas must retreat into their burrows to cool down from time to time. Warming temperatures are not only forcing pikas to ever higher elevations, but the exhibit worried that the need to spend increasing time cooling in their burrows would mean pikas would not be able to forage enough food for the winter.

I wonder what God thinks about starving pikas. People often speak on the things that are bothering God at the moment. God is disturbed because prayer has been "taken out of schools." God is upset by the secularization of our culture. Recently there was new coverage of a NJ mayor who inveighed  during a township committee meeting that a law requiring school curriculum to instruct on the political, economic, and social contributions of LGBT people was "an affront to Almighty God."

There is a post I see every so often on Facebook that notes the certainties of some Christians about God being furious over same sex marriages or some other hot button social issue and then wonders why God wasn't similarly upset by the centuries long enslavement, torture, rape, murder, separation of families and more of people of color by Christians in this country.

If Christians are going to speculate on what God is angry or upset about, wouldn't you expect the list to be very similar to the things that Jesus got upset about? Yet in my estimation, those Christians who are most certain about what is infuriating God rarely seem to share much from Jesus' list.

I have to think that those things that so bothered Jesus still upset God. Jesus spoke of visiting prisoners and feeding the hungry, of good news for the poor and oppressed, and of wealth as a curse. If God gets upset that the same things that upset Jesus, why doesn't God make that upset clear? Why doesn't intervene on behalf of the poor and weak?

I don't have good answers to such questions. If I were God I'd be making late night visits to lots of politicians to spur them into action on the climate, healthcare, and income disparity. But I'm not God and God clearly has other plans.

If Jesus is our best picture of God, then we have met a God who suffers for us, or perhaps because of us. In Jesus, the innocent suffers for the sins of the guilty. It is a pattern that repeats all to often in our world. Immigrant children do not deserve to be in separated from parents and housed under atrocious conditions. Children born into poverty do not deserve to have limited educational opportunities and substandard healthcare. And pikas did nothing to cause climate change.

Too often Christians have spoken of the cross as a magic formula where Jesus suffers for us. But what if the cross is more about God's solidarity with those who suffer? God enters into the suffering of those at the bottom, suffering inflicted by the powerful. In the gospels stories, Jesus' suffering and death isn't brought on by immorality or failing to follow the rules. It is brought on by an unholy alliance of imperial power and organized religion, both of whom fear a God aligned with the least and the lost. That is no less true today.

If Jesus is the image of the invisible God, then I can only imagine that God weeps over children in detention centers and over starving pikas. But God rarely seems to act, at least not in ways that are apparent to me. Perhaps God expects those who claim to walk in the way of Jesus to act, to side with the weak and vulnerable in ways that infuriate the comfortable and powerful. Perhaps God weeps most of all for a church that so often worships wealth and desires power.

Sabbatical Journal 10

At nearly every national park I visited on my sabbatical there were countless signs warning visitors about the fragility of that park's ecosystem and pleading with them to stay on the marked trails. Arches National Park may have had the most such signs. Many of them pointed out that the the black, crusty surface on the sandy soil was actually a living part of the ecosystem, one that took many years to recover when someone walked across it.

Despite all this signage, I don't think a day went by that I did not see park visitors ignoring the warnings. Sometimes they were allowing children to play in areas that were clearly marked off limits. Other times people were trying to get closer to some object than was permitted. Most often, someone was trying to get the perfect photo or selfie, fragile ecosystem be damned.

In the first of two different creation stories in the book of Genesis, God creates humans beings, both male and female, blesses them and says, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing, that moves upon the earth." Too often, humans seem to have heard these words to say, "The earth is yours to do with as you like," but that is not at all what God said.

Recall that the earth and everything in it is called "good" by its Creator. While some subduing may be needed to survive, it is not about overcoming anything bad. More critically, the command to "have dominion over" the world's creatures, to act in some way as lords over creation, must surely be understood through the example of lordship given by God and, most especially for Christians, by the lordship of Jesus.

God has dominion over humankind but people are never viewed as assets to be used by God. God may become frustrated and angry at humans for their wayward behavior, but God never uses humans for amusement or simply because God can. God's dominion is always tinged with love and paternal concern.

In Jesus, we see God's dominion most fully, a lordship that gives itself for those under that dominion. And yet we humans often seek power because it allows us to do what we want, to get out way. This impulse seems no less evident among those who call themselves Christian. In America, money is power, and almost all of us chase after it to varying degrees. Having money allows one to be in charge of more, to be lord of more, and such lordship is most often used in very self-centered ways.

Those with wealth move into areas with better schools, leaving those with less to struggle in school systems without adequate resources. The growing wealth divide in America is but one example of lordship that works almost solely for the lords, a sort of lordship too often seen in our destruction of the environment, and a sort of lordship that looks nothing like that modeled by the one we Christians claim to follow.

As the summer begins to draw to a close, many churches will begin to think and talk about stewardship. While this often turns out to be little more that church fundraising, stewardship is about how it is we exercise dominion over what we have. But because the prevailing models of dominion in our culture are "getting what I want" ones rather than Christ-like models, the term stewardship has come to describe attempts to pry enough money from members' pockets to keep the place running.

I am fortunate to have dominion over more areas of my life than many others do. I am relatively secure financially and have a significant amount of freedom and autonomy in my work and private life. But the crucial question for me, and for many others, is how am I exercising that dominion? Does my use of money and power and freedom look anything like the way of Jesus? Or does it look just like the ways of a broken world?

Sabbatical Journal 9

I’ve just arrived in Kings Canyon National Park which abuts Sequoia National park and actually has some of the largest sequoias within its bounds. Capturing one of those huge trees on camera is difficult. A good filmmaker can do it, perhaps, but the grand scale doesn’t seem to come through in my pictures and videos.

I was previously in Grand Canyon National Park, the same difficulty is even more pronounced there. With a helicopter and specialized cameras and lenses perhaps I would do better, but when I was standing there looking at the endless vista I said to myself, “You really can’t fully appreciate this without being here.”

Faith may well be a similar sort of thing. You can learn a great deal about it and gather all sorts of helpful information about it, but it’s not the same thing as experiencing it. I’ve often used a quote about Mainline churches that came from someone at the Alban Institute, perhaps Roy Oswald but I don’t really remember. He said, “People come to us seeking an experience of God and we give them information about God.”

Of course part of the problem is that we cannot manufacture the experience. True experience of God is wild and unmanageable, not unlike experiencing a stunning sunset in the Grand Canyon. America’s national parks provide incredible access where wild experiences can be had, but even here there are no guarantees or control. Haze might obscure a great canyon view or clouds might blot out any stunning sunset. But the parks do what they can to give you the best possible shot at experiencing the grandeur nature has to offer.

What is the analog for the church and experiencing God? As with weather in the park, there is much we cannot control, but how do we best point people to the correct spot at the right time with some hints at what to look for and then get out of the way so they can experience it?

Sabbatical Journal 8

Once I got moving again, I’ve not done much writing. Some of that is the result of getting into a hectic schedule again. Getting from one place to the next then hiking till I’m exhausted in order to see everything. I can’t say that I’m not enjoying it though, and I haven’t a lot of profound thoughts about my journey.

I have become very comfortable with being alone. On a few occasions I’ve told myself a joke. I hope that’s not a sign of any sort of deeper problem. And there was no one else to tell. I’ve even gotten used to social media aloneness. WiFi and decent cell service have been hard to come by, and so I’ve not shared pictures on Instagram and such in a number of days. (When I get WiFi again, should I go back and catch up on my pictures or just not worry about it?) Fortunately I’ve been able to get enough texts through to let my wife know I’m alive.

I would have thought that I’d be feeling lonely by now and craving conversation with someone. I’ve had some nice conversations here and there but not because I sought them out. They just happened. Maybe my true religious calling is as a hermit, a modern-day, desert father. But I’d want to make sure it was in a cooler type desert, at least at night. I can’t sleep when it’s really hot, and I’m assuming that desert fathers don’t have air conditioning. I know my tent doesn’t.

Another surprise is that I don’t really miss eating they way I do at home. I tend to eat a good breakfast and supper and then nibble and graze the rest of the time, right up until bedtime. But I can’t carry very much food on the motorcycle and there isn’t a pantry with crackers and snacks to munch on all evening long. 

That I’ve hardly noticed the lack of snacks makes me wonder about all that eating at home. I’ve not felt hungry without all the snacking, although I have lost a good deal of weight. Some people might be delighted but my wife thinks I’m too thin already.

If, for some reason, I were trying to lose weight, I would be feeling hungry all the time. But here I am losing more weight than I should, and I feel no pangs of hunger at all. What does that say about the things that motivate and drive us?

There’s a line at the end of Voltaire’s Candide (It’s been forever since I read it so I’m not sure I can quote it.) where Candide says, “But we must tend out garden.” It seems I’ve been so busy tending my garden that the things that typically clamor for my attention have a hard time getting through. 

This garden tending is a different sort of busyness than usually occupies my life. Modern people tend to live hectic lives and then seek solace in “leisure time.” But what if that’s not how it works. What if we just need to tend out garden?

Sabbatical Journal 7

One of the things I’ve been doing while at Ghost Ranch is taking an art class. There were many to choose from. I selected stone carving, in part because it explicitly said it was for beginners, and in part because I was not expected to bring an easel or brushes and such. (I have no room for such things on my motorcycle.

It has been an enjoyable experience. We’ve been “carving” — actually rasping and filing for the most part — soft stones such as alabaster or soapstone. I’ve been able to produce a couple of passable little sculptures of animals somewhat reminiscent of Zuni fetishes. And I’m not at all the artistic type.

I discovered that I enjoyed some parts of the process much more than the others. I found the initial process of taking a rock and rasping it down into a small slab that was smooth on all sides to be most gratifying. It was stress releasing and required no major skill and not all that much elbow grease. And it was fascinating to see a rock become a canvas, waiting for the artist to begin work.

I also enjoyed the early process of began to form the rough shape of an animal. It was very satisfying to see an idea began to take shape, to the general contours of some creature clearly becoming visible.

Bringing that rough shape into final form proved to be less enjoyable. The stone that easily allowed a basic shape to emerge seemed less cooperative permitting the final product to look anything like the original vision. In truth this step simply requires more skill and finesse. Nonetheless, this was at times satisfying but more often frustrating.

Along with the need for skill and finesse, I also seem to prefer more conceptual work to detail work. I have a tendency to get bored and want to move on. Detail work often takes the most attention and concentration, and it can feel confining to me.

I suppose the world needs both good conceptual people and good detail people. If you are both, so much the better, thought that seems not to be the case with me.

Sabbatical Journal 6

Combining my stays at Christ in the Desert and Ghost Ranch, I will have been in the same general locale for almost 8 days come Saturday. It is nice to settle for a while, especially when it comes to setting up and taking down camp. Packing everything up on a motorcycle is not the same as throwing things in the trunk. Every item must be folded and situated just so to get it all into the hard cases on my bike.

That said, I’ll be ready to start moving again when Saturday arrives. As much as I’m enjoying Ghost Ranch, and even though I’m not exactly sure what it is I’m looking for, I feel certain that I won’t find it here. If anything, this has felt like a respite from the searching. I might well have felt differently had I spent nearly a week at Christ in the Desert, but Ghost Ranch has a certain church camp/retreat familiarity to it, something I know well. I just spent a lovely lunch chatting with a retired couple from Florida. But he’s an elder in his church and we ending up talking about issues in his presbytery.

As to what it is I’m looking for, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. As best I can figure, there are a number of parts to it. One thing is simple energy. I’m just beginning to realize how burnt out I’d become. Even sermon writing, one of the things I most enjoy, had become difficult, largely duty and chore. Perhaps the varied perspectives of travel to unfamiliar places will help with that. Maybe that’s why I’m ready to move again.

Another thing I think I’m looking for is something a bit more than simple energy. It is a sense of spiritual energy or vitality. It’s the old, “Where is God in all this?” question. God seems to get lost in the routines, the day to day busyness, the meetings, the things that have to get done. Many people probably do not expect spiritual energy to be found within their work, so my experience is probably typical for lots of folks. But for over 20 years, I have found ordained, professional ministry to be spiritually life-giving. Not every moment of it, but on balance. Is that something that can be found on the road?

A thought just occurred to me as I write. My own loss of spiritual energy has largely coincided with the increasingly polarized political climate in our country. At the same time, the congregation I currently serve is populated largely by liberal or progressive Christians. And while that might seem to be a better “fit” for me than my previous congregations, I sometimes wonder.

My previous congregations were more of a mixed bag politically. We were not unified by our political leanings, and so we had to find our unity in following Jesus. This could have a down side if the only things we could agree on were vapid acts of charity or nice worship services. But at times it had a real up side. We didn’t really operate with any assumptions that our actions and stances would be liberal or conservative, and sometimes that allowed people who didn’t agree with each other politically to work together in good faith to figure out what God wanted of us. 

I wonder if congregations that are fairly monolithic politically, whether liberal or conservative, lose something in the process. They may avoid internal squabbles about current hot-button political or social issues, but might we mistake our politics for our faith at some point. Surely that is not a ticket to spiritual energy and vitality. And are there any answers for this out here on the road? 

Sabbatical Journal 5

I am not much familiar with chanting, as in Gregorian Chant. I do recall when recordings of monks chanting became popular for a bit some years back, and so I have heard it, but it isn’t something I typically listen to. I’ve was immersed in it for nearly two days at the monastery, however, and I have a new appreciation for it.

That is not to say it is likely to replace the Indie music that populates my playlist. My appreciation is for its use as a foundation for worship and prayer. If you’re not familiar, this sort of music uses a somewhat different sort of musical notation and it utilizes no harmonies. Those of us who were guest at the monastery were invited to participate in the chanting, but were also reminded that the purpose was to sing in one voice. No voice should be heard over any other, and the monks had much training in this. (In other words, sing quietly so we didn’t mess it up.)

There were some hymns that were sung along with with a Kyrie, Sanctus, and so on. But by far most of the singing chanted psalms and a few other scripture passages. For the psalms, the singing went back and forth from side to side. The left side sang two lines then the right side until the piece was complete. It was in the moments when I was on the non-singing side that I got the fullest sense of the “one voice” concept. Listening and not singing myself, I could hear the absolutely beautiful, pure sound of a single voice made up of many monks and a few of the guests. It was stunning to behold.

I think it was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who once wrote that all congregational singing should be in unison. He was not speaking of the chanting but of good old hymns like “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Still, my recollection is that he was arguing for something similar to what the monks were seeking, a single voice lifted in worship to God.

I don’t recall the nuances of his argument so I won’t guess at them here. And I don’t know that I would never want to hear harmonies when we sing at church. But I do think that the singing of harmonies easily moves from worship to performance, and performance tends to be more about us, which only reinforces backwards notions of worship already so prevalent. (Think of the popular notion that worship is supposed to “feed” the worshiper.)

I suspect that the monks have much to teach us about worship. But we live in such different worlds and cultures, I wonder if they can be translated to where we can understand.