Sermon: Leaving Where We Are

Mark 1:14-20
Leaving Where We Are

James Sledge                                                                                      January 24, 2021

 I used to do a bit of fly fishing, and I sometimes go shrimping with a casting net when I’m at the beach. Maybe some of you do a bit of fishing now and then. I bring this up because our gospel reading seems to speak of Jesus’ first disciples, Simon, Andrew, James, and John, repenting of fishing. Why would they need to repent of fishing?

Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”  And the very first action associated with this call to repent and believe is inviting some fisherman to follow him. And immediately they (repented) and followed him. I know. It doesn’t actually say they repented, but that is what happened. They turned away from what they had been doing – fishing – left their nets, their boat, their father, and went with Jesus. There might not be anything evil or sinful about fishing, but they walked away from it, something that may well have been the only way of life they had ever known.

The word “repent” is not a word often used in general conversation. It’s not a word used often in Presbyterian churches other than when it shows up in the Bible. The word has taken on an almost totally religious sense and a negative one at that. “Repent!” comes from a bony fingered street preacher who’s pointing at someone he thinks will go to hell otherwise.  Repent has come to mean, “Stop being bad, and start being good” or, more frequently, “Stop not believing in Jesus and start believing.” But in the Bible, while the word does mean to stop one thing and start another, it does not always follow that the thing is bad.

There is some repenting in our Old Testament reading. You might think I’m talking about the people of Nineveh who heard of God’s judgment against them. But in the verses we read, the one who repents is God. Bible translators are a bit queasy about saying God repented, and so they write, And God changed his mind… But “repented” is the literal translation.

I suspect that when we hear Jesus say, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news,” we assume it isn’t addressed to us. We already believe the good news, so we’re done. But that misses the fact that Jesus calls us to do more than believe. He calls us to follow him, and repenting is part of that. 

Sermon video: A Holy Wind

 

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: A Holy Wind

 Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-1
A Holy Wind

James Sledge                                                                                     January 10, 2021

Baptism of Jesus, Bazile Castera 

Mural in Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral, 

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

from Art in the Christian Tradition, 

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

My wife and I have not had the best luck with wind since we came to Falls Church. I can think of a couple of times when winds knocked the power out and it stayed off long enough that we lost the entire contents of the refrigerator. And the terrible derecho that came through Northern Virginia in 2012 struck the evening before the moving truck arrived at the church manse with all our stuff from Columbus, OH. The movers unloaded on a sweltering July day into a house without AC. It was out for most of the week that followed. Fond memories.

This past week, and ill wind blew through Washington, DC, bringing sights I had never imagined, a wind that embodied fear, hate, racism, and privilege. And this wind was driven, in part, by the voice and tweets of our president.

The wind blows and things change, sometimes in terrifying ways. But the wind also blows in our Old Testament reading this morning. Those of you who learned the Genesis creation account some years ago may recall it differently. Previous Bible translations said something like In the beginning… the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. But in the newer translation we heard this morning, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Sermon video: Unexpected, Embodied Love

 

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Sermon video: Joining Mary in Her "Yes"

 

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Unexpected, Embodied Love

 John 1:1-18
Unexpected, Embodied Love

January 3, 2021                                                                                         James Sledge

 During our long pandemic, streaming shows and movies has become an even more popular pastime. People are watching The Crown or The Queen’s Gambit, or catching up on movies or shows they’ve missed or re-watching ones they loved.

Even though I’ve not done much binging myself, I did do a little thinking about what really good movies I wouldn’t mind going back and watching again. I enjoy movies that a purely fun. I’ve seen Independence Day more times than I can count. But when I say really good movies, I’m speaking of ones that wrestled with some major issue, that were poignant, that moved me or troubled me in some way. Movies such as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Lion King, To Kill a Mockingbird, Spotlight, and Saving Private Ryan, although I’m not sure I want to watch the Normandy landing part of that one again.

One movie that both moved and troubled me, perhaps because of its religious themes, was the 1995 film, Dead Man Walking. For those who never saw it, the movie revolves primarily around two characters, Matthew, a death row inmate played by Sean Penn, and Sister Helen, a nun played by Susan Sarandon. Matthew is despicable man with no sense of guilt for his crimes, no concern or sympathy for his victims. He is a walking poster-boy for the death penalty and seems to have absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Sister Helen is not blind to this. In fact she is quite repulsed by Matthew. Yet she feels compelled to keep coming to see him, to try and somehow reach him, to find the image of God somewhere underneath all the evil and hate and viciousness.

Matthew realizes Sister Helen’s religious motivations, and so he toys with her, seeing how much he can shock and infuriate her, testing the limits of her faith convictions. At times she considers not returning, but she always comes back.

Somewhere along the way, Sister Helen’s presence starts to become a comfort to Matthew. He’s not really sure why, but he misses her when she isn’t there. He’s upset when he is unable to see her for any length of time. At the same time he still mistreats her, and seems to try to drive her off. It is as if her presence brings him both comfort and pain. 

Sermon: Joining Mary in Her Yes

 Luke 1:26-38
Joining Mary in Her “Yes”
James Sledge                                                                                       December 20, 2020

Annunciation to Mary, stained glass, Cathédrale de Chartres
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

There’s a banking commercial where a spokesperson walks through the bank, holding up his phone and says, “With a top rated app that lets you deposit checks and transfer money anytime, anywhere, banking with (our bank) is like the easiest decision in the history of decisions. Kind of like…” and the scene then shifts to an outdoor basketball court.

Two children are choosing players for their teams. Opposite them are four possible teammates to choose from: three children about their size, along with college and NBA great, Charles Barkley. The little girl who chooses first takes, not surprisingly, Sir Charles, who proceeds to celebrate saying “Yes! I still got it.” And looking down at the boy next him continues, “I told you she’d pick me first!” as the boy looks disgusted.

When I was a kid, we called this “choosing up sides.” It was a familiar ritual in the PE classes and playground gatherings of my youth. Basketball, softball, football, and more; two captains took turns picking teammates. It was great to be picked first, awful to be last.

Even if choosing up sides wasn’t part of your childhood experience, we’ve all dealt with versions of it. High school students take SATs and ACTs, send out applications to colleges and universities, then wait to see if they get chosen. Those graduating from college interview with employers and hope they get chosen. A supervisor position opens up at the plant and some of the workers apply and wait to see if they get chosen.

These adult choosing rituals may be a little more sophisticated than their playground cousin. For the most part they don’t include the public humiliation of being chosen last, but they still function in much the same way, trying to pick the best person available. 

This process is deeply ingrained into American culture. Traditionally, we are strong believers in meritocracy, in people being able to become and do all they are able to. We have little use for the rigid class systems of some other societies, where no matter how hard someone works, she can never advance beyond the status into which she was born.

Our system often serves us well, but it also shapes our understanding of what it means to be chosen. Whether it’s being able to shoot a basketball, close more big deals, design better software, and on and on, in our minds, being chosen means being judged superior or preferable to some other possible choice. 

And so we come to our gospel reading where the angel Gabriel shows up to say God has chosen Mary. “Greetings, favored one!”  Now we Protestants have never been quite sure what to do with Mary. A distaste for Roman Catholic practices of venerating, even praying to Mary has often led to dismissing her as much as possible. “She  had a baby, and she was a mom, nothing more,” said the men who ran the church.

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Sermon video: The Grass Withers... BUT

 

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Upside Down World

 

 Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website. 

Sermon: Upside Down World

The Visitation, Jesus MAFA, Cameroon, 1973

Luke 1:46b-55
Upside Down World

James Sledge       December 13, 2020 – Advent 2

Many years ago, in the early 1960s, a small, rental car company begin to run what many consider the best advertising campaign of all time. Some of you no doubt remember this campaign from what was then called Avis Rent-A-Car. In various print and television ads, Avis proudly announced, “We’re number 2. We try harder.” The idea was that because they were number  2 behind Hertz, they had to work harder for your business.

The campaign was a huge success, and Avis just retired the “We Try Harder” slogan in 2012. At the time the ad campaign premiered, Hertz controlled the vast majority of the car rental business, around three quarters of it. Way back in Hertz’s dust were a group of smaller companies fighting over the remaining twenty five percent. But by the late 1960s, Avis was challenging Hertz for number one.

In in one of the first ever commercials to make a virtue out of being the little guy, Avis was very successful in convincing people that they would get better service from an upstart. But “We Try Harder” wasn’t the only message Avis was selling in their ads, even though it was the only clearly stated one. The claim, “We’re number 2” appeared to be a simple statement of fact, but in reality Avis may not have been number 2 at all, It was one of several bottom feeders fighting for the crumbs left by Hertz, but the ad campaign convinced everyone that they were Hertz’s rival. It changed people’s perception of things.

You may wonder what this has to do with Mary’s song. The Magnificat isn’t advertising. It does, however, make a number of bold claims. God is about to turn the world upside down, scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things while sending the rich away empty. But perhaps unnoticed by us, our attention focused on Mary’s words, Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth speaks of a world already turned upside down.

Sermon: The Grass Withers... BUT

 Isaiah 40:1-11
The Grass Withers… BUT

James Sledge                                                               December 6, 2020 – Advent 2

Christ the Good Shepherd, 5th century mosaic
in the Mausoleum of Gall Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

I’m no musician, but I love music. I like many kinds, though I typically listen to alternative, or indie music in the car or at my desk. One sort of music I don’t much like is Christmas songs from popular bands. That is true when they cover traditional songs, but even more so when they create original ones.

A notable exception for me is rather different holiday offering from Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer fame. It was released way back in 1975, but it has been covered more recently by folks such as U2. Some have said it is an anti-religious song, but Lake claims it was a protest over the commercialization of Christmas. Regardless, the lyrics are hardly the typical, cheery, holiday fare.

They said there'll be snow at Christmas.  They said there'll be peace on earth.

But instead it just kept on raining;  A veil of tears for the virgin's birth.

They sold me a dream of Christmas.  They sold me a silent night.

And they told me a fairy story 'till I believed in the Israelite.

Like I said; not your typical holiday fare, and Lake was surprised when it became something of a hit. He assumed people would think it anti-holiday and reject it, but no. 

I don’t know why it was a hit, but I do know why it touched me, why it still touches me. It seems to strip away the manufactured cheer that has become such a big part of the Christmas season. Perhaps it could even be called a rock and roll Advent song. Our culture’s celebration of Christmas works very hard to create warmth and good feelings, but these are usually quite shallow and fleeting. We don’t expect them to last. They’ll be tossed to the curb with the dried up Christmas trees, boxes, and old wrapping paper. Then we’ll have to wait until next December to get that holiday spirit, that Christmas cheer, once more.

But Advent is different. It doesn’t try to hide from the world’s pain or ugliness by covering it in colorful wrapping and holiday glitter or drowning it out in cheerful sounds of the holidays. It takes full stock of how things really are. Then, with eyes of faith, it sees God moving in history. Advent anticipates what God is doing to bring about something truly new.