Sermon: More Than We Can Imagine

 John 6:1-21
More Than We Can Imagine
James Sledge                                                                                      July 25, 2021

 If you’re a regular to our worship services, you’ve no doubt heard me speak about Welcome Table, our program that provides people with a home cooked meal as well as a grocery store gift card. During much of the pandemic we expanded the gift card program to twice monthly, and at one point we were handing out $12,000 in gifts cards each month, something made possible by the incredible generosity of our members and others who donated to our hunger ministries.

What Welcome Table has done over the last fifteen months is nothing short of remarkable. But something Welcome Table does not do is address the underlying causes of hunger and food scarcity. That so many people will stand in line for a meal and ten dollars speaks to grave problems in our society. Many guests have full time jobs but still struggle to make ends meet.

As a pastor, I regularly talk to people who struggle with housing. From time to time, I provide a motel room for homeless individuals so they can get off the street for one night. I also occasionally help people who are late on their rent or utility bill. They work but their meager income frequently can’t be stretched far enough. I am happy to provide some small amount of assistance, but even if I can keep someone from being evicted, I’m doing nothing to address the lack of affordable housing or our society’s failure to ensure that hard working people earn a living wage.

Larger issues such as hunger, affordable housing, income equity, systemic racism, and more are daunting problems that can feel overwhelming. As a part of our recent Renew process, we separated our mission activities into a Mercy Ministry Team and a Justice Ministry Team, recognizing a need to focus some of our energy on these larger issues. Our congregation recently joined VOICE, Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement, as a part of this justice focus. Joining with other congregations and faith communities provides greater resources for grappling with larger, systemic issues. But even so, how can a handful of faith communities make a difference when the problems are so large and intractable?

Sermon: Breaking Down Dividing Walls

 Ephesians 2:11-22
Breaking Down Dividing Walls
James Sledge                                                                                                 July 18, 2021

Acts17v25.blogspot.com, January 3, 2013

 I recently finished reading Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. For those who aren’t familiar with the book, Wilkerson argues that America’s persistent struggle with race is a more deeply ingrained problem that people realize because we aren’t simply dealing with the residue of slavery and Jim Crow legal segregation. We are dealing with a caste system where there is a dominant caste, whites, and a subordinate caste, Blacks.

This caste system, writes Wilkerson, is pervasive, shaping the worldview of all who live in it, both Black and white. It is the air we breathe, the water we swim in, and it does not go away because laws are changed or because a Black man was once elected president. Those in the dominant class benefit from it even when they are not “racists.” It is a resilient system that does not go away easily, that will not go away without a great deal of hard work and effort from those in the dominant caste.

I found the book a little depressing. It made the racial divisions in our country seem even more profound and intractable. But I also think the author paints a more realistic, accurate picture of race in America than many of us imagine.

For (Jesus) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. The writer of Ephesians is not talking about Blacks and whites but about Jews and Gentiles, the defining us and them for the first Christians. I don’t know that this division amounted to a caste system, but there were certainly similarities.

Some Jews would not share a meal with Gentiles or invite them into their homes. Gentiles could not enter the Temple in Jerusalem but had to remain in one of the outer courtyards. The first Christians were all Jewish, and initially, they did not allow Gentiles to join. If a Gentile wanted to join the church, they would need to become a Jew first. Men would need to be circumcised, and they would need to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions.

The first big, knock-down, drag-out fights in the church were over Gentiles being able to join. People like the Apostle Paul argued that being baptized into Christ was what made one a Christian, regardless of whether or not the were Jewish or circumcised. But the leaders of the church in Jerusalem insisted that Paul was wrong. Only Jews were allowed in.

By the time our letter was written, likely be a disciple of Paul, Paul’s viewpoint has become more accepted, and the church was becoming more and more Gentile in its makeup. But the writer insists that the church has not left its connection to Israel behind. Instead, Gentiles have been joined to God’s covenant with Israel, and the two groups have become one. For (Jesus) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.

Sermon video: Celebrating Newness

 

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Celebrating Newness

 2 Samuel 6:1-19
Celebrating Newness
James Sledge                                                                                                 July 11, 2021

 The David we meet in our scripture reading this morning is a shrewd and astute politician. He is well aware that his kingdom is something daring and new. No one had ever united Israel into a nation before, and leaving the old, tribal ways behind would be difficult. David will need lots of things to go just right for this to work.

Perhaps it will help to recall what happened in previous episodes of the story. Until David’s time, Israel has been a loose confederation of tribes, tied together by language and their worship of Yahweh. The tribes sometimes cooperated and sometimes fought with one another. On occasion, a charismatic religious leader would unite some of the tribes to deal with an outside threat. But when the immediate threat waned, things returned to normal.

It seems likely that the growing military threat of the Philistines led to Israel’s first king, Saul. Saul was another of those charismatic leaders though he was not a religious figure. He united some of the tribes and scored some fairly impressive military victories. But Saul was not a great politician, and he eventually had a falling out with the religious establishment.

David had served in Saul’s army for a time, and one of Saul’s daughters, Michal, was married to David. But Saul and David eventually became rivals, a rivalry that ended when Saul was killed fighting the Philistines. After that, David’s tribe of Judah named him their king, and after defeating forces loyal to the house of Saul, David was named king of all Israel.

However, David still had doubters and detractors. His sort of king was a bigger break with the old tribal system than Saul had been, and religious conservatives were suspicious of this new king. Actually unifying the tribes into anything resembling a nation was going to be difficult, but David had a bold plan.

David chose to put his new capital in Jerusalem, a city that was not part of any tribe’s territory. David had captured the stronghold from the Jebusites, and now he proposed to establish the monarchy in something of a neutral location.

But that was only part of the plan. He also planned to make Jerusalem Israel’s religious center, giving his kingdom religious legitimacy and further unifying the tribes. And that brings us to today’s story, the story of the ark of the covenant.

Sermon video: Stumbling over the Jesus I Know

 

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Sermon: Stumbling over the Jesus I Know

 Mark 6:1-13
Stumbling over the Jesus I Know
James Sledge                                                                                      July 4, 2021

Christ in the Synagogue of Nazareth, unknown artist ca. 1350

Many years ago, I was watching a track and field event on TV, and there was a lot of excitement and build up for the mile run. As I recall, there were a number of the world’s top runners there and expectations were high that a new world record might be set.

The race got underway, and a large pack of runners went out quickly, running the first lap at below record pace. The quick pace continued, and the TV commentator’s voice became more and more animated. It was going to be an exciting finish, and a new world record looked more and more likely.

But into the final lap, disaster struck. I couldn’t tell if someone stepped on someone else’s heel or what, but a runner stumbled and fell, causing a chain reaction that sent everyone tumbling. No one seemed to be badly hurt, and most of the runners gathered themselves and continued on, but there would be no exciting finish. There would be no world record.

I recalled that decades old race when I read the gospel passage for today. Perhaps that seems a strange connection to make, but let me explain. When I begin work on a sermon, I will often take a quick look at the passage in its original language, Greek for the New Testament, and that’s what spurred my recollection of that race.

Sermon video: Because of Gratitude

 

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Sermon: Because of Gratitude

 2 Corinthians 8:1-15
Because of Gratitude
James Sledge                                                                                      June 27, 2021

 When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Corinth, there was no such thing as a church budget, no church building and none of the costs we now associate with a church congregation. Yet even without church budget, building, or payroll, Paul still engages in a stewardship campaign of sorts. Paul is collecting an offering for the mother church in Jerusalem, an offering he mentions in several of his letters.

This offering was clearly very important to Paul. From a strictly practical standpoint, the offering was about helping the poor in the Jerusalem congregation. But Paul also understood the offering to be about the unity of the Church.

Paul’s ministry was to the Gentiles, but he did not want them to lose sight of the debt they owed to Judaism and to Jewish Christians. Even though Paul had a strained relationship with the Jerusalem Church leaders because he did not require converts to be circumcised or adopt Jewish dietary restrictions, he wanted his Gentile congregations to show their gratitude for the new life they experienced in Christ, a new life made possible by a Jewish Messiah and by a Jewish Church that supported a missionary movement.

Paul had given instructions in a previous letter about what he called “the collection for the saints,” and apparently the Corinthians had at first been excited about expressing their tangible gratitude to the mother church. But that initial excitement had waned.

The Corinthians were well-off compared with the Christians in Jerusalem and Paul’s other congregations. Corinth was a booming, cosmopolitan city, and the congregation had a number of wealthy members. But wealth sometimes has a negative impact on giving.

Sermon video: On Listening for God

 

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Sermon: On Listening for God

 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
On Listening for God
James Sledge                                                                                                 June 13, 2021

Samuel Anoints David to the Kingdom,

Alexander Ivanov, 1806-1858

 We Presbyterians have a way of doing things that is a kind of middle ground between the hierarchical church governance used by Roman Catholics or Episcopalians and the congregational form of governance found in most Baptist churches. In the former, a bishop appoints a priest for a congregation. In the latter, there is no bishop. The congregation can whomever it wants.

Presbyterians, however, don’t look like either of these. When it comes to pastors, the congregation can neither hire nor fire a pastor on their own. They must work with the presbytery, the regional governing body, in both the coming and going of pastors. When a pastor nominating committee looks for a pastor, it must follow procedures set forth by the denomination, and candidates for the position must be vetted and approved by the presbytery.

When a pastor nominating committee, or PNC, begins the work of finding a new pastor, certain prescribed forms must be used, and it must promise to abide by a search process that follows patterns set by the presbytery. As part of this, the PNC must sign a form that attests to their having had the presbytery’s Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action policy explained to them and their agreeing to follow that policy.

One of this policy’s stated purposes is “To inhibit discrimination in employment because of race, color, national origin, sex, age, marital status or disability and to ensure fairness to all candidates.”[1] To carry this out, the policy expects the PNC to interview a diverse group of candidates, regardless of the congregation’s racial makeup, and it requires written reports to confirm that this is happening. There is even a requirement that the PNC interview at least one woman and hear her preach.

Yet despite these requirements, white churches almost always end up with a white pastor. And even in 2021, such churches are more likely to call married, white men to be senior pastors.

You might think that the requirement to look at diverse candidates would cause PNCs occasionally to be wowed by a candidate who didn’t look much like their last pastor, but apparently not. I can’t imagine that many PNCs actually say out loud that they are looking for a married, white male, but somehow everyone on the committee knows that.

I should also mention that the PNC’s job is to discern God’s call. They aren’t looking for the one they like or the one that looks like them but rather the one that God has in mind for their congregation. Apparently, God has a preference for married, white men.

Sermon video: Insiders on the Outside

 

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Sermon: Insiders on the Outside

 Mark 3:19b-35
Insiders on the Outside
James Sledge                                                                                      June 6, 2021

Jesus and His Apostles,
from the Russian Siysky Gospel, 1340

 As a general rule, I don’t think most people appreciate the sophistication of the biblical writers. Take the gospels for instance. Many Christians, both the conservative and more liberal, think of the four gospels as simple, straightforward accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They simply tell what happened, or what the writer believes happened.

But none of the gospels were written to tell people the story of Jesus. They were written for congregations who already knew that story well. The gospel writers were trying to help their congregations understand the story and how it impacted their lives and their situation, and so they retold the story of Jesus in particular ways they thought addressed concerns and issues in those congregations.

Mark’s gospel is the first one written, and it seems to address a non-Jewish audience outside of Palestine. Mark’s gospel employs an interesting technique to help his readers understand Jesus and the nature of Christian discipleship. The writer frequently places one story into the middle of another so that the two stories “talk to one another,” hopefully providing the readers a fuller understanding of both stories.

Our reading this morning has one of these bracketed or sandwiched stories. Both stories take place in the same setting, at home or, more literally, in a house. This word for house is used to speak of God’s house along with God’s household. And so it can refer to the Church.

Jesus and his disciples have come into the house for a break because his fame has started to spread, and crowds gather around him wherever he goes. But the house provides little respite. The crowds gather once more, creating such a ruckus that Jesus and his friends cannot even eat in peace.

Somehow Jesus’ family gets wind of the situation and decide that he needs to be restrained. Apparently they think Jesus has taken leave of his senses. Our scripture reading says “people were saying,” that Jesus was crazy, but that seems an unfortunate translation. There is no word “people” in the original Greek. It simply says, When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for they were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” “They” could speak of “people,” but it seems more likely to mean “the family.”