Sermon video: Joined to God's Blessedness

 

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Sermon: Joined to God's Blessedness

 Exodus 20:1-20
Joined to God’s Blessedness

James Sledge                                                                                       October 4, 2020

From time to time the 10 Commandments take the stage in America’s culture wars. Some
municipality posts the Commandments in the hall where they meet or some judge insists on displaying them at the courthouse, only to have such moves declared unconstitutional.

Public displays of the 10 Commandments have always struck me as a rather odd choice of battles by conservative Christians. Such Christians often dismiss much of Old Testament law as being superseded by Jesus and a new covenant. But I suppose putting up sayings from Jesus such as “Blessed are the poor… Love your enemy… Turn the other cheek… Do not judge so that you may not be judged…” don’t quite set the right tone.

Placing the Commandments in court houses is sometimes justified with the claim that they form the basis for our civil laws, which makes me wonder if these folks ever actually read the commandments. Only three of them, those against murder, theft, and false witness, actually correspond to our civil laws, and the need for such laws is so obvious we don’t need God to tell us. Cultures that never heard of the 10 Commandments outlaw murder and theft.

Then there’s the fact that our culture and our economy depend on violating some of these commandments. We are a 24/7 culture that puts little value on stillness and rest, the heart of the command to keep Sabbath. Factories run 24/7 because it’s more efficient. Stores and restaurants stay open 24/7, and advertise that fact proudly. And even most who do attempt to keep Sabbath still expect stores, movies, gas stations, and places to eat to stay open for them.

And if we subvert Sabbath with our 24/7 culture, we’ve actually made coveting a cornerstone of our economy. Every day we are bombarded with advertising designed to make us covet, to want things that others have and we don’t. Our economy depends on convincing enough of us that we need more and more, that if our neighbor has newer and better stuff, we should want it. And we should be willing to go into debt, stress constantly about money, work more hours, and out compete our neighbor so that we can have it.

Of course the 10 Commandments were never intended as generic, common sense rules to govern a well-run society. Yes, a few such rules are there, but the central purpose of the commandments is to create a radically different, alternative community, one that looks very different from the world, one that has much in common with kingdom Jesus proclaims.

This radically alternative community is perhaps best seen in those opening commands about other gods, idols, and misusing God’s name. These commands do not form the basis for any civil law. Rather, they stand in opposition to the distorted cultures we humans devise.

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Sermon video: Holy Remembering

 

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Sermon: Holy Remembering

 Philippians 2:1-13
Holy Remembering

James Sledge                                                                           September 27, 2020

 Quotes from Mohandas Gandhi, who led a non-violent campaign against British rule in India, often
show up on social media, although revelations of racist attitudes toward Blacks have damaged his reputation recently. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”  And though it’s not certain that he actually said it, I’m struck by this one. “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

The quote from Paul and the one from Gandhi seem incompatible. If Christians have the mind of Christ then how could we be so unlike Christ. Yet there is a ring of truth to the Gandhi quote. Too often, Christians do look very little like Jesus. Too often, no one would look at us and think they had caught a glimpse of Jesus, even though that’s what it means to wear the name “Christian.”

When you meet people from another country or culture, especially if it’s a place you’ve never been, you are likely to draw some conclusions about the country or culture from the people you meet. The reverse is true when Americans travel abroad. The way American tourists act in foreign countries gives people an impression of what America is like. 

Gandhi was not Christian but lived in a country that had been ruled by Christians for centuries. What he saw did not impress him. But he also read about Jesus from the Bible, and he was impressed with Jesus.

Gandhi is hardly the only one to encounter Christians who were nothing like Christ. One has to wonder how the Africans brought to America as slaves ever saw Jesus in those who brutalized them and regarded them as property like cows or sheep. How was it that so many slaves embraced faith in a Jesus whose mind was so rarely on display in their “Christian” oppressors? Sometimes I find it nothing short of amazing that anything even resembling the way of Jesus has survived, given how often Christians look nothing like Jesus.

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

Sermon video: Christ Working through Us

 

 

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Sermon video: Empowered to Do the Impossible

 

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Sermon: Christ Working through Us

 Philippians 1:21-30
Christ Working Through Us
James Sledge                                                                                       September 20, 2020

Following our worship this morning, we will hold a congregational meeting where we will elect a Congregational Nominating Committee or CNC. That CNC will nominate new elders and deacons to be elected by the congregation early next year.

If you’ve ever served on a nominating committee, you know it can be a difficult task. Most every CNC I’ve ever been a part of has dealt with the frustration of being turned down by people they think would make excellent elders or deacons. Inevitably there are more meetings to come up with more names. The whole point of a CNC is to prayerful discern those whom God is calling to lead the congregation, but some years it begins to feel like just filling slots. “Surely there is someone who will do this.”

People have many reasons for saying “No” to a nominating committee. Many are busy and feel like they already have too much on their plates. Often times they say they might consider it the next year. Some people don’t feel they are qualified, doubting that they have enough faith, enough knowledge of the Bible, or enough leadership qualities. Some aren’t sure their personal beliefs line up with Presbyterian doctrines. Others give no reason at all.

In the Bible, when God calls someone, they typically turn down the job as well. But God rarely takes “No” for an answer, and ends up convincing the person, often against their better judgment, to say “Yes.” Nominating Committees are rarely so persuasive. They’re also not God which means they are never 100% sure that God is calling any particular person. For that reason, Presbyterians say that a genuine call has three parts: the individual’s own sense of God’s call, the requisite gifts for the work, and the faith community’s confirming the call.

Empowered to Do the Impossible

 Matthew 18:21-35
Empowered to Do the Impossible

James Sledge                                                                                       September 13, 2020

Two young children are playing together in a park. Their mothers sit nearby, drinking coffee and chatting with one another. The toddlers are regular playmates and usually get along well, but of course there is the occasional scuffle that their moms have to break up.

That happened on this particular day. One child had a toy the other wanted. “Let me have it,” and “No! I had it first” escalated to grabbing, a brief tug-o-war, and then shoving. Finally one child shoved the other to the ground and made off with the prize, leaving his friend crying in defeat. By then, all the fussing had attracted their mothers’ attention so that they witness the shoving and final victory.

The moms rush over, each grabbing her child by the hand, fussing at them and demanding they apologize to each other. Neither wanted to do any such thing, but they had learned that the moms would eventually win this battle. And so, begrudgingly, not looking directly at each other and not meaning it at all, both uttered, “I’m sorry.” But the moment their moms’ gazes were diverted, they stuck their tongues out at each other.

Even if the moms had seen that, they might not have said anything. We don’t really expect small children fully to understand apologies and forgiveness. We just hope that with enough repetition such practices will take hold over time.

As we grow up and become adults, we do get better. Often we are genuinely sorry when we hurt someone, and we know that forgiveness is necessary for relationships to work. But saying you’re sorry can be hard, and we live in a day when people regularly offer apologies that don’t sound much like apologies. “I’m sorry if anyone was offended by what I said.”

Real forgiveness can be equally hard. I suspect that most all of us nurse a grudge now and then. There is someone, maybe several someones, who rubs us the wrong way, who’s done something to us that we just can’t let go of, who’s hurt us too many times to be forgiven again. That may make Jesus’ words a little unnerving.

Jesus says we must forgive seventy-seven times, or it could be seventy times seven; either translation is possible. Even more disturbing, Jesus says we must forgive from the heart. Nothing forced or done just because you’re supposed to. No “Okay, I guess I’ll forgive you,” but genuine, heartfelt forgiveness, even to that person who has hurt us one too many times.

There is a famous and perhaps true story about the German poet Heinrich Heine on his deathbed. Supposedly an attendant priest promised Heine that God would forgive him. To which Heine quipped, “Of course God will forgive me; that’s his job.”

While probably not be as flippant as Heine, many Christians seem to share this sentiment that God is in the forgiveness business and more or less has to forgive. Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to such easy, assumed forgiveness as “cheap grace,” and I wonder if cheap grace notions of forgiveness may cause us to misread what Jesus says to us today.

That and the fact that our reading is ripped out of context. I’ve mentioned many times the problems inherent in chopping up scripture into manageable bits for reading on Sundays, and today’s passage is a perfect example.

When Peter comes to Jesus and asks how often he should forgive a church member who sins against him, he is responding to words Jesus has just spoken that aren’t part of our reading. “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. ¹⁶But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

This puts a whole different spin on what Jesus says in our reading today about forgiving seventy-seven times from the heart. This is not a generic command simply to forgive. Rather it is one component of the radically different community Jesus expects the Church to be, a community of unlimited forgiveness, but also of real accountability.

That latter part is almost completely absent in most of American Christianity. In America, faith is generally considered a private thing between me and God. But Jesus doesn’t think that. For that matter, neither do the official statements of our denomination which include a long list of responsibilities for church members such as participation in worship and ministry, studying scripture, contributing money, time, and talents, working for peace and justice in the world, praying for one another, demonstrating a new quality of life, and more.

Along with these, the responsibilities of a congregation’s Session include, and I’m just going to quote this one, “reviewing the roll of active members at least annually and counseling with those who have neglected the responsibilities of membership.”[1] In my  twenty some years of pastoral ministry, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Session do that one.

In my sermon last week, I wondered if we hadn’t lost something when the metaphor of church as a family fell out of favor. Again this week, I’m wondering if the example of family, at least a healthy, loving, well-adjusted family, might not be instructive for what a church community should look like.

In healthy families, membership in the family is never in question. No matter how badly someone messes up, love remains. The parents of murderers visit them in prison. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t expectations about behavior and consequences when those are ignored or willfully violated. The parent who never corrects or disciplines a child has a misguided sense of love.

I wonder what it might take, and what it might look like, to become the sort of community Jesus envisions the church to be. What would it mean to be a congregation where all were welcome, where being a part of the community had nothing to do with being good enough or accomplished enough, but at the very same time there were clear expectations that everyone would engage in work and study and ministry that deepened their faith, that helped them become more committed disciples, and helped give the world a glimpse of the new day Jesus envisioned when he spoke of the Kingdom? And where there was correction, even loving discipline, when people failed to do so.

Perhaps that seems a fantasy, even more difficult that forgiving from the heart over and over and over, seventy times seven. But then again, the scriptures insist that the Holy Spirit can empower the church to do miraculous, even impossible things.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

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[1] Book of Order, G-3.0201c

Sermon video: Laws, Rules, and Who We Truly Are

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Sermon: Laws, Rules, and Who We Truly Are

Romans 13:8-10

Laws, Rules, and Who We Truly Are

James Sledge                                                                                       September 6, 2020

I hope I haven’t told this too many times, but there’s an old joke about an engaged couple who are killed just days before their wedding. On arriving in heaven they say to St. Peter, “We were supposed to get married this weekend. Is it possible to get married in heaven?”

Peter thought for a moment and said, “I suppose so. I’ll get right back to you.”

A year later, Peter came to the couple and said, “Everything’s worked out. We’re ready for your wedding.”

 “That’s great,” they replied, “but you know, we’ve had a year to think about this, and we were just wondering. If things don’t work out, is it possible to get a divorce in heaven?”

Peter rolled his eyes and said, “It took me a whole year to find a minister in this place. Now you want me to find a lawyer!?”

Long ago, when ministers were held in high regard, this joke might not have worked. But between Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Jim Bakker, pedophile priests, and evangelical leaders more interested in political power than Jesus’ teachings, pastors are fair game now.

Lawyers, on the other hand, have been the butt of jokes for centuries. Shakespeare had characters in his plays speak ill of them. Obviously many lawyers are good and decent folk who conduct themselves with integrity, but a number of factors cause people to dislike them. Some view them as helping criminals, or as money hungry “ambulance chasers.” It doesn’t help that lots of politicians are lawyers. Then there is simply the nature of laws themselves.

Sermon video: Consumers, Faith, and God's Call

Videos of sermon and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Consumers, Faith, and God's Call

Exodus 3:1-15; (Matthew 16:21-28)

Consumers, Faith, and God’s Call

James Sledge                                                                                                   August 30, 2020

I don’t suppose I need to tell anyone that we live in an age when many people see no necessary link between what they hold to be true and what evidence, facts, or logic might seem to dictate. This is not entirely new. The quip, “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts,” has apparently been around since before I was born.

However, the idea that people can simply choose the truth that suits them has reached new heights in our day. I’m not sure there was ever a prior moment in American history when the term “alternative facts” would have been offered as a serious answer to any question.

The notion that I can have whatever truth suits me is not without serious, even dangerous consequences. Many continue to insist that climate change in not a problem despite overwhelming scientific evidence. And choosing one’s own truth need not be partisan, I know my share of liberals who embrace the most absurd conspiracy theories while insisting that the complete lack of supporting evidence is the result of some plot to keep that information hidden.

But I don’t bring any of this up to lament the state of rational discourse in our day. I’m more interested in how we got here and how it impacts our spiritual lives. I doubt there is a definitive answer as to how we found this