Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Sermon: Faithful Witnesses
Acts 1:6-14
Faithful Witnesses
James Sledge May
26,2020
“Lord, is this the time when you
will restore the kingdom to Israel?” It seems like it would be a good
time. Jesus had been raised from the dead a little over a month earlier. He’d
been hanging out with the disciples, talking more with them about the kingdom
of God, and telling them to stay in Jerusalem awaiting the promise of the Father… waiting
to be
baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Something big was about to happen.
Maybe now God was going to straighten things out, set the world right. And by
the time the two volume set of Luke-Acts gets written, likely over fifty years later,
the world looked like it needed even more straightening out. The Romans had
completely destroyed the city of Jerusalem, its magnificent temple totally
obliterated. Jews and Christians alike had fled to various parts of the
Mediterranean world.
By that time, the break between
Judaism and Christianity was pretty much complete. Christians were no longer a
sect within Judaism, and so they no longer enjoyed the special religious
exemption that Rome gave to the Jews for being an ancient religion. And then
there was the problem with that basic faith statement, “Jesus is Lord.” Rome
said Caesar was Lord, that the emperor was a god. Christians were clearly
trouble makers, a threat to the social fabric that held the empire together.
Lord, this would be a really good
time to restore the kingdom, to straighten things out, to make life easier for
the faithful. It’s a mess, God. Do something! But Jesus answers, “It
is not for you to know the times and periods that the Father has set… But you
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my
witnesses…”
Fast forward nearly two thousand
years, and it’s not hard to sympathize with those early disciples. Lord, this
would be a really good time to do something. Many scientists are worried that
we are perilously close to a tipping point on climate change, if it isn’t
already too late. COVID-19 is decimating communities, sending countless people
into poverty, and exposing our broken healthcare system. The partisan divide in
our country has become so extreme that even the pandemic cannot overcome it,
and wearing a mask in public, a simple act of loving one’s neighbor, has
somehow been politicized.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Sermon: Learning to Love Back
John 14:15-21
Learning to Love Back
James Sledge May
17, 2020
For
those who’ve never read her, Lamott is a novelist who may be better known for
her bestselling writings on faith. These contain a mixture of her often strange
personal story, wry wit and humor, and sometimes irreverent thoughts on how faith
has helped her navigate it all.
With
a little effort I found the quote I had recalled in one of her books. She was
discussing her then fourteen year-old son, Sam, and the struggles of raising a
teenager as a single mom who is a recovering addict. She spoke of Sam’s
religious sensibilities, how he believes that Jesus is true, how he prays, even
prays with his mom at bedtime on occasions. But he hates church, even the
quirky little Presbyterian congregation Lamott belongs to. She writes:
Then why do I
make him go? Because I want him to. We live in bewildering, drastic times, and
a little spiritual guidance never killed anyone. I think it’s a fair compromise
that every other week he has to come to the place that has been the tap for me:
I want him to see the people who loved me when I felt most unlovable, who have
loved him since I first told them that I was pregnant, even though he might not
want to be with them. I want him to see their faces. He gets the most valuable
things I know through osmosis.
Also, he has no
job, no car, no income. He needs to stay in my good graces.
While he lives in my house, he
has to do things my way. And there are worse things for kids than to have to
spend time with people who love God. Teenagers who do not go to church are
adored by God, but they don’t get to meet people who love God back. Learning to
love back is the hardest part of being alive.[1]
I
think she’s right. We’re all born needing to be loved. The desire for it is
innate. Infants and young children who do not receive love struggle to thrive.
But we are not born knowing how to love in return, to love back, and many of us
never learn to do it all that well. The world is full of people who always take
a lot more love than they give. Countless marriages and relationships fall
apart because the balance of giving and receiving love gets so badly out of
whack, because so many of us have not learned well that hardest part of being
alive.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Sermon: Easter Life
Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10
Easter Life
James Sledge May
3, 2020
Most
of you have likely seen news reports about churches that insist on having
in-person worship during this time of stay at home. I saw a newscast where a
reporter interviewed members as they drove away from one such worship service. A
woman said that she wasn’t worried about catching the virus because, “I’m
covered in the blood of Jesus.”
The
reporter asked her several more questions, and she seemed happy to talk with
him. But her answer to nearly every question ended, “I’m covered in the blood
of Jesus.”
If
you’re like me and didn’t grow up singing hymns such as “Nothing but the Blood
of Jesus” or “Precious, Precious Blood of Jesus,” you may not be familiar with
this graphic, formulaic notion of how Jesus’ death saves and protects people. But our own hymnal can also be formulaic, if
not so graphic. On Easter Sunday we sang, “But the pains which he endured… our
salvation have procured.”
I’m
not sure why religious formulas are so popular. A friend remarked about the
“tendency for faith to degrade into magic” when he shared a Washington Post article about a Virginia
pastor who died from COVID-19 despite his certainty that God would protect him.
I suppose that magic has a certain appeal over the difficulties, nuances, and
messiness of biblical faith. Believe this and you are saved. Say this and all
will be well. Abracadabra.
But
if Christian faith were formulas and magic, the Bible would be a pamphlet, not over
a thousand pages of stories, poems, letters, teachings, sayings, etc. Jesus
wouldn’t have spoken in parables and vivid metaphors. He would have just given
us the magic words. Abracadabra.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Sermon: On Our Way to Emmaus
Luke 24:13-35
On Our Way to Emmaus
James Sledge April
26, 2020
On
the day of that very first Easter, two disciples headed to the village of
Emmaus. No one knows exactly where that is. Various places have been suggested,
but none is certain. Maybe it’s just as well.
In
our day, Emmaus has become a metaphorical destination, one associated with
spiritual awakenings. You can find spiritual retreats described as Emmaus
walks, and there is an intense, three day retreat for spiritual renewal and
formation called Walk to Emmaus, a Protestant adaptation of the Catholic
Cursillo movement.
But
in Luke’s gospel, I don’t know that Emmaus is really a destination at all. It
may simply be a place to spend the night on the way somewhere else. A stop on
the way to some place that isn’t Jerusalem, that isn’t about pain and betrayal
and loss.
Those
disciples aren’t on a spiritual journey. They’re on a journey away from the
cross and the grave. Their hopes have been dashed. They’re shocked and stunned,
still grieving their loss. They don’t
know what they need but they know it isn’t in Jerusalem.
Some
of you know that I’m one of many mourning the death from COVID-19 of singer-songwriter
John Prine. A line from one of his songs that I’ve played a lot lately could
easily have been uttered by these two disciples headed for anywhere but
Jerusalem. “Just give me one thing that I can hold on to. To believe in this
living is just a hard way to go.”[1]
Curiously,
these two disciples have already heard the report from women who visited the graveyard
early that morning. They heard of an empty tomb and angels who said Jesus was
alive, but it had not mattered. I don’t know if that was simply about men not
believing women or if their sense of grief and loss was so overwhelming nothing
could break through. Whatever it was, they were headed to Emmaus, to anywhere
but Jerusalem.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Love Your Neighbor. Wear Your Mask
I went for a run this morning along one of the many trails we are blessed to have in the DC area. I was far from alone. There were a good many people out walking, running, biking, roller blading, etc. I was not surprised by the numbers, but I was a little surprised at how few of them were wearing masks.
I’m sure the reasons for this were varied. They are a little inconvenient. I find them especially annoying for running. They interfere with my breathing (though perhaps this simulates altitude training?). But I’ve read of one study showing how the slipstream effect causes runners to leave a trail of droplets floating 30 feet in their wake. For cyclists, it’s 60 feet. So I wear the mask. I would hate to unknowingly infect someone else.
I imagine there are still those who don’t yet understand that masks are not for protecting you but for protecting others. However I see people online proudly broadcasting their refusal to wear a mask, couching it in terms of personal freedom that won’t be taken from them. Curiously, some of these same people claim to be conservative Christians, yet there is something profoundly un-Christlike about elevating one’s personal freedom above the good of the other.
Jesus is clear that following him involves self denial. He is just as clear that loving God is inseparable from loving your neighbor as yourself. To declare, “My neighbor be damned; I’m not wearing any mask,” seems fundamentally at odds with the core of the Christian life.
If anything, wearing a mask in these days of pandemic is a relatively easy and painless way to embody love of neighbor, to enflesh Jesus’ call to faithful discipleship. Do good. Love your neighbor. Wear your mask.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Monday, April 13, 2020
Easter sermon: Unfinished Business
Matthew 28:1-10
Unfinished Business
James Sledge April
12, 2020, Easter
“Unfinished business lingers in
every graveyard—broken promises, betrayals, countless secrets left to perish
with the departed.”[1] That
quote really resonated with me when I first read it years ago. I suspect that
it is true for most people. There’s always something that should have been said
but wasn’t, a conflict that wasn’t resolved, a wound that still festers, a
chance for reconciliation lost.
I once heard about a woman who could not get
past the unfinished business with her late husband. After his death she learned
of a terrible betrayal by him, and it poisoned all her memories of their life
together. She was able to move on only after following her pastor’s suggestion
of going to the cemetery to have it out with her husband. I presume that he remained
silent for this “conversation,” but through it she was able to deal with some
of her hurt and anger, some of the unfinished business from her husband’s death.
In a Jerusalem graveyard all those
centuries ago, unfinished business lingered. The followers of Jesus were left
to contemplate how they had abandoned him in his hour of need, deserting him
when he was arrested. For Peter, that included cursing and swearing that he did
not even know Jesus. Peter had wept bitter tears afterward, but they had not
washed away the horrible memory.
And then there was their
disappointment and anger at Jesus. How could he have let this happen? He put up
no fight at all. Maybe he was not who they thought he was, who they hoped he
was.
Perhaps all this unfinished
business is the reason that only two women go to the tomb that first Easter
morning. For others, memories of abandonment, desertion, denial, failure,
disappointment were too fresh, too raw. Visits to the tomb would have to wait.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
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