Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Monday, October 4, 2021
Sermon: Out of Gratitude
Mark 10:2-16
Out of Gratitude
James Sledge October
3, 2021
Some of you are old enough to recall a
famous advertising campaign by the investment company Smith Barney. It featured
a well-known, professorial and upper crust looking actor stating very
profoundly, “Smith Barney, we make money the old-fashioned way. We EARN it.” 
Christ and the Children
Emil Nolde, 1910
I suppose the statement was supposed to emphasize both the expertise and strong drive of a company that would work diligently and effectively to make your portfolio grow. You could trust them with your money because they had the skill and tenacity to ensure success.
I have no idea how successful the ad campaign was, but it ran for a long time so the company must have thought it worked. I can see why it would. We Americans are enamored with people who earn their way to the top. The prototypical American icon is the self-made individual who claws their way to success. Such notions are so baked into our culture that many people assume rich people are largely responsible for their wealth while poor people are largely responsible for their poverty. They earned it.
I’ve frequently heard America described as a meritocracy, which is another way of saying that whatever your lot in life, you earned it. Merit even makes its way into to popular religious thinking. You get what you deserve, as countless “There’s a place in heaven…” or “There’s a place in hell…” statements will attest.
But Jesus’ statement at the end of our gospel reading stands at odds with popular thinking about merit. When Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it," he is talking a total lack of merit. Little children in Jesus’ day were totally and completely dependent on others, with no means to acquire things, no merit to apply. They could only receive, not buy, earn, merit, acquire, etc.
Jesus’ words about receiving rather than earning not only undermine thoughts of religious merit, they also provide an interpretive key for understanding what Jesus has just said about marriage. Jesus gives no new religious rules to follow if you want God to like you. Jesus refuses to play that game with those who bring the question about divorce to him.
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Sermon video: Forsaking All Others
Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.
Sermon: Forsaking All Others
Mark 9:38-50
Forsaking All
Others
James Sledge September
26, 2021
 | |||
| Jesus Teaching His Disciples from 1684 Arabic manuscript of the Gospels The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore | |
I found one, and when I went in I was in the chair, and the woman was cutting my hair, and she said, “I don’t recognize you. Have you ever been in here before?” I told her no, that I was a Presbyterian minister and that I was leading a clergy seminar. And she brightened up and said, “Oh, I’m a Christian, too, you know.” I said, “Really!” She said, “Yes, I’m a member of Creflo Dollar’s church.” You may not know Creflo Dollar, but he is the latest incarnation of the “God Wants You to be Rich” theology. He drives a black Rolls Royce, he has a corporate jet, and his congregation has bought him millions of dollars of real estate. He is known locally as Cash-flow Dollar, and here is this woman telling me, “I’m a member of Creflo Dollar’s church.” I’m thinking to myself, “I’m already getting a bad haircut, now I’m going to get bad theology as well!”
But to be hospitable I played along – she was holding a razor, after all. I said, “Well, have you got your blessing yet?”
She said, “Oh yes, I’ve gotten my blessing, all right!”
“Well, tell me about it,” I said, expecting her to say something about the Lexus in the parking lot or the diamond earrings in the scissors drawer.
But instead she said, “Two nights a week I get to volunteer in a shelter for battered women. I was one myself, you know, and they trust me. They need me. They know I love them.”
I sat there silently thinking, “My God! Jesus is loose in Creflo Dollar’s church!” It’s amazing the way he does it… He goes into Creflo Dollar’s church, and he finds a nine-dollar-an-hour hair cutter, and by the power of God he ordains her in the Holy Spirit to be a minister of the most high God…[1]
Tom Long was preaching on a different scripture and a completely different topic than I am, but I thought of his sermon when I read about this non-disciple who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Apparently it was not uncommon for pagan magicians to invoke Christian or Jewish names they thought powerful. The disciples, quite understandably, try to stop to it. This guy shouldn’t be allowed to borrow Jesus’ name so he could make a buck.
Creflo Dollar is not so different. He uses Jesus’ name to make himself rich, although in his case, he does claim to follow Jesus. You would think Jesus would get all riled up about such a thing, but at least in that pagan magician’s case, Jesus says, “Leave him alone. It will lead to something good in the end.” And Jesus goes on to say that the most trivial good deed done because of his name will be rewarded.
Monday, September 20, 2021
Sermon: Welcoming the Invisible
Mark 9:30-37
Welcoming the
Invisible
James Sledge September
19, 2021
 | |||||||
| Christ Teaching the Disciples* |
But Jesus wouldn’t put everything out there for the masses. First century Jesus often spoke to crowds, but some of his most important teachings happened in private, with only his disciples as the audience. That’s the case in our scripture reading this morning. The passage is quite clear that Jesus wanted no crowds around when he tried for a second time to explain to the disciples about his upcoming arrest, trial, execution, and resurrection. Not that the disciples seem to understand.
Jesus’ teachings about what awaits him in Jerusalem would not show up on YouTube or Instagram if Jesus came in our day. This was not for the curious but only dedicated adherents. And neither would Jesus put a child in his disciples’ midst if he had a 21st century ministry. The disciples would probably still argue about who was the greatest, but a child would not help Jesus make his point in our day.
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Monday, September 13, 2021
Sermon: Getting Behind Jesus
Mark 8:27-38
Getting Behind
Jesus
James Sledge September
12, 2021
Take
Up Your Cross, Gary Bunt, 2016
The beginning of this school year has been
accompanied by fierce resistance to masks by some. One parent in Texas ripped
the mask off a teacher. For reasons that baffle me, resistance to vaccines and
masks is often couched is religious language. Last year, in a rebuttal to such
views, Scott Hoezee, a pastor on the faculty of Calvin Theological Seminary
wrote a blog post entitled, JWWM: Jesus Would Wear a Mask. The post opened with
an updated take on the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil. 
Then the devil led Jesus to the entrance of the Jerusalem Farmers Market. Jesus observed that most people were prudently wearing face coverings and masks to protect from a severe virus that had made many in the Holy City sick in recent weeks. And the devil said unto him, “If you are the Son of God, then enter the market, talk, shop, and laugh but do not wear a mask for it is written ‘He will give his angels charge over you’ and so we know God will protect you and others from the virus.” And Jesus replied, “It is also written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus then put on his face covering and entered the market in search of some fresh figs. The devil then left him . . . until a more opportune time.[1]
“Until a more opportune time” is a reference to Jesus’ struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, where he is once more tempted to turn away from the path God has placed before him. But there is a hint of that later temptation in our gospel reading for this morning.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Sermon video: Equipped by God
Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.
Sermon: Equipped by God
Ephesians 6:10-20
Equipped by God
James Sledge August
22, 2021
Scene from
Trajan’s Column, Rome, 113 CE
Where you are situated when you encounter
a scripture passage has a lot to do with what you hear. People in positions of
privilege and power may hear a vastly different message than those from the
underside do. Slaves in the pre-Civil War American south heard a very different
word from the Bible than did those who oppressed and exploited them.
Ever since the 4th century, when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, interpreters of the Bible and the Christian faith have largely been aligned with empire and power. As a result, the Church has often given its sanction to wars, crusades, and genocide, and much of American Christianity still suffers from an easy, uncritical alliance with patriotism and the privileged status quo.
I suspect that my growing up in a position of privilege, a citizen of a powerful nation that often describes itself as “Christian,” has greatly influenced how I’ve heard this morning’s scripture. It’s always made me a little nervous with its military imagery and talk of spiritual battle against the forces of evil. It’s just the sort of passage that has been used to justify violence against those deemed pagans, heretics, or practitioners of unapproved versions of the faith, and I’ve always avoided preaching from it until today.
Monday, August 16, 2021
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