Sermon video: Hearing the Shepherd

 Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Hearing the Shepherd

 John 10:22-30
Hearing the Shepherd
James Sledge                                                                                      May 8, 2022

The Good Shepherd, 5^th century mosaic,
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

 "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." It seems a reasonable enough question that some people ask Jesus. They know he is something special. He’s attracting crowds and there are reports of miracles. He is teaching as a rabbi, and many are mesmerized by what he says. But his teachings tend to be enigmatic with more than one possible meaning. Spell it out for us, Jesus.

I suspect that there are more than a few people in our day who would like a little clarity, too. Jesus’ identity can be hard to pin down, what with so many variations of him running around. For some Jesus’ primary purpose is to get individuals into heaven. For others Jesus came to inaugurate the kingdom, God’s new commonwealth on earth. For others Jesus is a dispenser of wisdom that can guide you into a meaningful life. For still others Jesus is a worker of miracles for those who have sufficient faith.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus would clear all this up? Wouldn’t it be helpful if Jesus said, “I’m this one but not that one”? Come on Jesus, tell us plainly exactly who you are.

Jesus tell his questioners in our scripture, "I have told you, and you do not believe,” which is a little strange because Jesus has done no such thing. Read John’s gospel carefully up to this point and you won’t find any place where Jesus says, “I’m the Messiah,” I’m guessing that’s why Jesus also says, “The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me.”

Jesus hasn’t said he’s the Messiah in so many words, but the things he is doing should provide all the answer that is needed. Jesus seems to think this is clear and compelling testimony as to his identity, but there is a catch. Apparently this testimony isn’t convincing to everyone, only to those who belong to his sheep. Jesus is actually quite blunt on this. “…but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”

Sermon: The Story Continues

 John 21:1-19
The Story Continues
James Sledge                                                                                                 May 1, 2022

Peter Koenig, Breakfast on the Beach, 20^th Century,
Parish of St. Edward, Kettering, UK

from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

 When a movie ends, the scene fades to black, “The End” appears, and the credits begin to roll. But rare is the movie where we don’t know it’s the end without these cues. 

Music works in similar fashion. More often than not, we can detect that the piece has ended even when we’ve never heard it before. Any musical tension and dissonance resolve into something that feels complete, finished, and we know we are at the end.

In movies, in plays, in novels, in music, this pattern is familiar to us. Things need to be brought to a conclusion. The war must be won. The broken relationship must be repaired.  The killer must be caught. The jury must come in. The lovers must find one another. The last note must be played. Otherwise we are left with a sense of loose ends. 

The gospel of John has dealt with its loose ends. Jesus has been raised from the dead.  Mary Magdalene has seen him. Then he has appeared to the disciples, commissioned them and given them the Spirit. Finally he has appeared again so that Thomas, who was somehow absent when Jesus appeared that first Easter evening, might see and believe.

And then the gospel ties up the last loose ends and plays the final note. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. Fade to black.

But just as we prepare to get up from our seats, suddenly the story resumes. After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. It’s all rather jarring. Just when we thought we understood exactly how things came out, the story starts up again. It breaks into the feeling of completeness. All that dissonance that had been resolved is stirred up again.

Sermon video: Wait a Minute, Jesus. Are You Sure We're Ready?

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Wait a Minute, Jesus. Are You Sure We're Ready?

 Wait a Minute, Jesus.  Are You Sure We’re Ready?
John 20:19-23
James Sledge                                                                                                             April 24, 2022

Holy Spirit Window
St. Peter's Basilica

 Last Sunday, we celebrated the news that Christ is risen. We filled the place with flowers.  We had special music and sang for joy that Jesus Christ is risen today. Alleluia! But the very first Easter seems not to have gone much like ours. There is little fanfare. There is little in the way of celebration. In fact, our scripture reading finds the disciples in hiding.

It is the evening of Easter. Mary Magdalene met the risen Jesus by the tomb earlier that morning. She returned to the disciples with the wonderful news that she has seen the Lord. But the evening finds the disciples huddled behind locked doors. They are not out proclaiming the good news. They are not rushing to tell everyone that Christ is risen. They are afraid of the authorities, and they are in hiding.

It is not a terribly impressive scene that the gospel paints for us—frightened, cowering disciples, trembling behind closed shutters, drawn curtains, bolted doors, with the lights turned down low. But into this unimpressive group comes Jesus with words of comfort.  Twice he says, “Peace be with you.”

This is much more than a greeting. Jesus is giving them God’s shalom: spiritual wholeness, peace and harmony with God and with others. This is a profound blessing that gives restoration and the assurance of being held in God’s love. “Peace be with you.”

Does that seem at all odd to you? Doesn’t it seem like Jesus would comment on their lack of faith, their lack of understanding? Jesus has taught them, told them what would happen, told them he would be killed and rise again. Now it has all happened. Mary has told them that he has indeed risen. But they hide. Don’t you think Jesus must have been disappointed? Don’t you think he must have wondered if these were the right folks to carry the news to the world, to continue his work in the world?

But it only gets more strange. Not only does Jesus not fuss at them, Jesus commissions them for their work. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” As the Father sent Jesus, he now sends them. Jesus is entrusting them with the very same job God had entrusted him. In the very same way that he embodied God’s love, these disciples are to embody God’s love in the world. And they are empowered to forgive sins just like Jesus.

Hold on a minute, Jesus. Are you sure? Do you really think these folks are ready? They haven’t demonstrated much reason to trust them. Why only a couple of days ago Peter, the leader of the disciples, was denying even knowing Jesus. Even after the resurrection they remain in hiding, and now Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”?

Easter sermon video: Living Presence

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Easter sermon: Living Presence

Luke 24:1-12
Living Presence
James Sledge                                                                                     April 17, 2022

Easter Morning,
Cara B. Hochhalter

 Early on a Sunday morning, several women return from the empty tomb and tell the others what they had just experienced, how they had found the tomb empty and encountered two men in dazzling clothes. Presumably these were angels, and they had told the women that Jesus was risen. When they tell the others, however, the women do not find the most receptive audience for their account. Says the reading, But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

Over the years, many have commented on the role gender may have played in this. After all, it was a patriarchal society where women’s voices did not carry that much weight, and the women’s words perhaps seemed an idle tale because men didn’t trust women as reliable witnesses. I’ve no doubt commented on this dynamic in some of my past Easter sermons.

But it turns out that Luke’s gospel does not report some women bringing a report back to male disciples. Instead, it tells of female disciples who bring back a report to the eleven and to all the rest. And no doubt all the rest included more female disciples.

At numerous places in his gospel, Luke depicts women in the role of disciples, and in our passage this morning, the angels confirm this. They say to the women, “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” These women were among the disciples Jesus had instructed on the way to Jerusalem and the cross.

Now if these women are disciples, and if some of those hearing their report are also female disciples, then judging the report an idle tale isn’t about not believing female witnesses. Rather, it seemed an idle tale because it was too difficult to believe. Dead people stay dead. No one goes to a cemetery expecting to meet anyone once buried there, and most of us would think anyone who said they had needed to see a psychiatrist.

Sermon video - Christian Identity: Cross Shaped Lives

 Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Cross Shaped Lives

 Luke 19:28-40; Philippians 2:5-11
Christian Identity: Cross Shaped Lives
James Sledge                                               April 10, 2022, Passion/Palm Sunday

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

What might it mean to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus when we are talking about Palm Sunday? What do you think was on Jesus’ mind as he paraded into Jerusalem with his disciples shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"

Jesus had to be thinking very different thoughts than those of his disciples. Jesus had been clear for a long time about the fate that awaited him in Jerusalem. But he also knew that his disciples had never really understood what he had told them, and at that moment they were still hoping for a conquering Messiah, a new king to ride in and take over the throne of David. But Jesus knew that his throne was a cross.

The Pharisees don’t understand any better than the disciples, but they do want the disciples to be quiet. These Pharisees seem to think that Jesus would agree with them, would object to what the disciples were shouting. Perhaps they think it sacrilegious to speak of Jesus this way or perhaps that are simply worried about how dangerous this would sound if the Romans heard of it.

But Jesus insists that the shouts of “Blessed is the king,” must be made. Jesus is the king arriving for his coronation. That must be announced, even if the disciples don’t understand the odd sort of king that Jesus is.

It is easy to join in the disciples’ confusion. When I was a child, Palm Sunday was a day of unbridled celebration. We would wave palms and shout Hosannas with nary of thought about a cross. Oh, we knew about the cross, but it was little more than an unfortunate detour on the way to the glory of Easter. We rushed from Palm Sunday parade to Easter parade with only a quick glimpse of the cross.

Sermon video - Christian Identity: New Priorities

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Sermon - Christian Identity: New Priorities

 Philippians 3:4b-14
Christian Identity: New Priorities
James Sledge                                                                                                 April 3, 2022

Ruins at Philippi

 A little over 20 years ago, Nicholas Cage was in a somewhat corny, somewhat trite movie called The Family Man. For those who never saw it, Cage stars as a young man who has become a highly successful businessman and financier. He is an incredible deal maker who has a salary to prove it. He lives in a luxury high rise apartment, drives a Ferrari, wears the finest of clothes, and has beautiful women at his beck and call. As far as he is concerned, he is living the ideal life. But then everything changes.

He wakes up one morning to find himself a New Jersey suburban husband and father, living in a little three-bedroom house, and working as the assistant manager in a tire store. At first, he thinks it’s some sort of terrible dream, a nightmare. But as time wears on and the reality of his new existence sinks in, he begins to feel as if he’s died and gone to hell. He finds a bottle of scotch in his desk at the tire store and says to whomever’s life it is that he now finds himself living, “You must have really needed this.” He is sure that no one would choose such a life for himself, and he sets out to work his way back to being a player in the financial life of New York City.

The movie is nothing but predictable so you can probably guess what happens as the movie unfolds. He gradually begins to fall in love with his wife, a woman whom he had once given up in order to be a Wall Street player. And he comes to love his children, to love playing with them and caring for them. He even comes to love his middle-class existence, including hanging out with neighborhood buddies and bowling in the local bowling league. It’s a far cry from the life he had lived.

But just as he has begun truly to appreciate this new life, he wakes up back in his luxury apartment in the city, a gorgeous woman knocking on the door. He has all his fine clothes and his fancy Italian sports car again. All those things that he valued so much, all those things he had worked so hard to achieve were his again, but all he could think about was that mundane, middle-class life he had briefly experienced.

He makes a desperate attempt to get back his suburban New Jersey life. He locates that woman he had not married. He jeopardizes a huge deal his company is working on when he rushes to the airport to intercept her before she leaves for an extended overseas stay. He makes a fool of himself trying to get her to delay her departure, and the movie ends with him talking to her in the airport bar, trying to find something he’d once been sure he didn’t want.

This old movie came to mind as I thought about Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. Paul speaks of having lived two different lives himself, and like the Nicholas Cage character, he was certain that the first life was the one he wanted. He had all the things that he thought mattered. He was from the right ethnic group, from the right family, and had been to the right schools. He belonged to the right political party and had attended the right church. He had been certain that all of this was the right way to go, and so he was zealous about how he lived his life. He pursued it with a single-minded devotion born of the certainty that his life was just as it should be. He could not imagine any other sort of life.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Realizing We're Lost

 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Christian Identity: Realizing We’re Lost
James Sledge                                                                                                 March 27, 2022

Forgiving Father,
Frank Wesley, 1923-2002

Recently I spotted an article from the Religion News Service on The Washington Post website with a headline drawn from the piece that read, “If there is anything remotely ‘helpful’ about the Ukraine conversation, it is simply this: It has resurrected the concept of evil.”[1]

I only skimmed what turned out to be a blog post, but I had a pretty good idea where the author was going. The notion of evil, along with its close cousin, sin, fell out of fashion some time ago. For many, things once labeled as evil can be explained in terms of inadequate education and opportunity or perhaps mental illness. And much termed evil could be eliminated if all its causes were dealt with.

I’m all for addressing inequities in education and opportunity, and everyone should have access to mental health services, but I’m not so sure that evil is simply a problem to be solved if enough resources are brought to bear. Russia’s vile war against Ukraine cannot be blamed on one man’s mental illness or lack of adequate education and understanding. The actions of Putin and a whole host of Russian political and military leaders speak to a more fundamental, existential problem with the human creature, the problem of human sinfulness.

I had a pastoral care professor in seminary who like to define sin as distortion. All of us have a tendency to misperceive ourselves, others, and the world around us and so to act in ways that are not in our own best interests, those of others, or of the world we live in. This tendency is remarkably resilient and resistant to the cures we devise for it, and so we are prone to mess up in ways minor and ways spectacular. We are prone, in ways large and small, to live in a manner that is counter the image of God that lies buried within each of us.