Sermon: Enacted Prophecy

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Enacted Prophecy
James Sledge                                                                                     September 25, 2022

 As a general rule, there’s no such thing as a popular prophet. You might even say that the term popular prophet is an oxymoron. By definition prophets are people who see things that others don’t,

The Peaceable Kingdom, Fritz Eichenberg,
1950, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

and that almost always puts them out of step with the status quo, make them a challenge to the status quo, and that almost always makes them unpopular.

One of our most famous, recent prophets, Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good example. Even though Dr. King is widely honored today, albeit an often sanitized and domesticated version of him, that was hardly the case when he led a civil rights movement. In 1966, the last Gallop poll to ask about his popularity during his lifetime found that 63% of Americans had an unfavorable view of him.[1]

The prophet Jeremiah has a book in the Bible named for him, but during his lifetime, he may well have been more unpopular than Martin Luther King. When Jeremiah first began his ministry, he was a voice of doom and gloom at a time when all seemed to be going well. But Jeremiah knew that Israel’s failure to love God and neighbor, to enact mercy and justice, could only lead to tragedy, and that tragedy eventually showed up in the form of the Babylonian Empire with its powerful army.

Babylon conquered Israel, carried off some of its intelligentsia, royals, and priests into exile. They installed a relative of Israel’s king on the throne to be a puppet ruler, and collected regular tribute from Israel.

Unfortunately for Babylon, and for Israel, this puppet king was convinced to join a pro-Egyptian coalition of neighboring kingdoms who would rebel against Babylon with assistance from Egypt.

Jeremiah had warned the king against such a plan to no avail, and Babylon responded with ferocity. They attacked Israel and besieged the city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah urged surrender, for which he was branded a traitor and thrown into jail, which is where we find him in our scripture reading this morning.

Sermon video: God's Strange Economics (Luke 15:1-10)

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Sermon: God's Strange Economics

Luke 15:1-10
God’s Strange Economics
James Sledge                                                                                     September 11, 2022

Cara B. Hochhalter,
A Parable - The Lost Sheep

 I imagine it must have been exhilarating to meet Jesus when he was walked the dusty roads of Palestine all those years ago. He must have had an incredible presence. We hear over and over how great crowds sought to hear him. There was just something about him. Luke says that people were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. Not only did Jesus do miracles, but people could tell that he was not like other rabbis, not like other teachers and religious leaders.

But for all the thrill of meeting this Jesus, it must have been deeply unsettling as well. You’d be hard pressed to realize it from looking at most churches, but Jesus had this tendency to upset folks, especially religious folks, those who were members of the established church of his day. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees,” Jesus said on many occasions, which in our day might be more like “Woe to you pastors and elders, to you theologians and denominational leaders.” 

But as if that weren’t enough, Jesus had this infuriating habit of explaining what God was like with stories that featured some of the least godly sort of people. Samaritans, who were considered losers both on religious and ethnic grounds, shepherds, who were regarded as unsavory ruffians without morals or couth, and women, who were not even legally recognized as persons, all get lifted up by Jesus as models of the mercy and love of God. 

It happens in today’s reading from the Gospel. Jesus is hanging out with low life and riff raff, and the religious folks get offended. They know that Jesus is a religious man and so they complained about him. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Jesus reaches out and extends hospitality to the very sort of people church folks look down on. No wonder religious leaders got upset.

Jesus responds to this with some of his stories, and of course he highlights a no-account shepherd and a woman, of all people, to exemplify the ways of God. “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’”

Which one of you?... I don’t know about you, but I might have raised my hand if Jesus had been talking to me. “Wait a minute, Jesus. You can’t leave the flock alone in the wilderness. What if a lion or a wolf comes while you’re gone? Many could be killed, and the flock would be scattered all over the country side. You might never find lots of them. Sometimes economics require you to cut your losses, sad as that may be. And what’s with throwing a big party for friends and neighbors when you get back home. Come on. How much is one sheep worth. You’ll end up spending more than that on the party.”

Sermon video: Trading in Our T-shirts (Luke 14:25-33)

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Sermon: Trading in Our T-shirts

Trading in Our T-shirts
Luke 14:25-33
James Sledge                                                                                     September 4, 2022

Some of you may know that I’m a pretty serious runner. Serious is not the same as good, but suffice to say that I run a lot. I’ve been a runner off and on for over 40 years, and during that time I’ve run a slew of races, 5ks, 10ks, half-marathons, and full marathons.

If you’ve ever been a runner or been around races, you probably know that you often get a T-shirt. When I ran my first marathon back in the 1980s, I proudly wore my Charlotte Observer Marathon shirt until it finally became so torn and ratty that my wife made me throw it away. 

If I’m out someplace and see someone else wearing a T-shirt from a race I’ve run, I will often go up to him or her and say something like, “I see you ran the Richmond Marathon. How’d you do?” Sometimes this leads to a nice discussion about the race and layout of the course, a particularly difficult hill, and so on. We talk about how we did and how we hope to do in an upcoming race.

But sometimes when I’ve spoken to someone with a race T-shirt it doesn’t go like this at all. Sometimes the person will say to me, “Oh, I never actually ran in the race. I just liked the T-shirt and found a way to get one.

It always struck me as a little odd that people would want to wear T-shirts from a race they never ran, but clearly some people do. I wonder why they want to be associated with the race without actually running it. 

Sermon video: Living Water and Cracked Cisterns (Jeremiah 2:4-13)

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Sermon: Living Water and Cracked Cisterns

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Living Water and Cracked Cisterns
James Sledge                                                                                      August 28, 2022

The Prophet Jeremiah
by Marc Chagall

 God seems genuinely shocked at the situation, almost unable to comprehend how things could have ended up this way, this way referring to Israel’s abandonment of their God. Jeremiah is made livid by two different issues. One is worshiping the Canaanite god Baal, and the other is failing to live by God’s ways, failing to follow the commandments and law.

According to the prophet, the very people who should have led Israel in God’s ways have instead led her astray. The priests and the rulers and the prophets have all turned away from God and encouraged the people to do the same. It is a tragic situation that can only lead to ruin.

From what we know of the historical prophet Jeremiah, he was unimpressed by Temple worship and the royal house. In his view it was actual fealty to Yahweh and keeping the commandments that made Israel God’s people. But Israel was doing neither.

God’s shock at Israel’s behavior is rooted in all the blessing the Lord has showered on them. We heard some of these in our scripture this morning. God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, guided them through a barren wilderness, brought them to a good and fertile land, and established them as a successful people in that land.

Yet now Israel has turned away, seemingly forgetting all that God has done for them. They have traded the living God who brought them out of bondage for stone and metal idols, and the prophet employs a vivid metaphor to picture this situation. Unfortunately, many of us are unfamiliar with the elements of this metaphor, living water and cracked cisterns.

Vision Problems (Luke 13:10-17)

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Sermon: Vision Problems

Luke 13:10-17
Vision Problems
James Sledge                                                                                      August 21, 2022

Back in the 1960s, a student at Y

James Tissot, 1836-1902,
Woman with an Infirmity of Eighteen Years

ale University wrote a term paper in which he proposed creating a company that used a fleet of airplanes to deliver envelopes and small packages overnight. Parcels would be picked up in the afternoon, whisked to the airport, flown to a central location where they would be sorted, put back on airplanes, then flown to their destinations to be delivered the next day.

His professor was unimpressed by the paper and gave it a grade of C. Clearly the idea was impractical, and the cost would be prohibitive. No way the market would support the cost of developing a small airline for ferrying around letters and packages at night. And who would pay the high price of getting mail to its destination a couple of days early?

Not too many years later, that student founded Federal Express, now known as Fed Ex. In just over a decade, the company had a billion dollars in revenue and was being copied by UPS and others. The company was so successful and synonymous with overnight delivery that people began to say, “I’ll fed ex that contract to you.”

I’ve often wondered if that Yale professor ever reflected on the poor grade he gave that term paper. Did he wonder how he had failed to see what an innovative idea it was? Did it make him wonder about his own credibility as a professor?

History is littered with smart people, experts in their field, who dismissed cars as a passing fad, television as a ridiculous idea that could never compete with radio and the movies, or the phone as little more than a novelty. It’s amusing to recall how badly these experts missed in their predictions. How could they have gotten it so wrong?

It seems we humans have an impressive ability to misjudge the future, to misjudge what will work and what won’t, to misjudge where the world is really headed. Some of this is simply the limitation of being human. We can’t see into the future, and so it’s no big surprise when that we fail when we try.

But human limitations aside, we also fail to see the future because of poor vision that causes us to miss what later seem obvious signs of coming change. Our vision problems come from a trait we all share to one degree or another. We tend to think that our understanding of how things are is actually how they are and even how they should be. And so we’re usually very slow to accept different views of things, different ideas of what is possible, different ways of doing things. We label such things impractical, unworkable, ill conceived, etc.

When Jesus showed up, proclaiming that the day of God was drawing near, a day when the poor would be lifted up, justice would be done, people would be healed, restored, and experience new life, lots of people couldn’t see it. The problem was especially acute for religious leaders who often saw Jesus and his ideas as disruptive, irreverent, impractical, ill conceived, etc. Even when Jesus did amazing things in their presence, they still couldn’t see it. Jesus just went against the grain too much.

Sermon video: Spirituality of Money (Luke 12:32-40)

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Sermon: Spirituality of Money

Luke 12:32-40
Spirituality of Money
James Sledge                                                                                     August 7, 2022

St. Lucy giving alms, Bernat Martorell, c. 1435
The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

 Several years ago, we were visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Austin, Texas, and we went into one of the many quirky little shops there. While looking around I stumbled onto a playing card sized refrigerator magnet that depicted a stereotypical image of Jesus in a robe with a shepherd’s staff in one hand. With his other hand he appears to be knocking on a door, and just above this image it says, “Jesus Is Coming.” Below the image it says, “Look Busy.”

Our scripture reading for this morning is part of a longer section on discipleship. As Jesus and his followers draw closer to Jerusalem and the cross, he is beginning to teach them how they are to live when he is no longer with them. The disciples are indeed supposed to look busy because they will be about the work of the kingdom, of God’s new day.

Jesus urges his disciples not to worry about and strive for the things of the world. He says, “Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” It is in the context of this striving that Jesus speaks of selling possessions and giving alms, adding, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also. In the gospels, Jesus talks a lot about money and treasure and their relationship to faith. I’ve never tried to verify it, but I’ve read that Jesus talks more about money and riches than he does about any other facet of human life. Clearly Jesus thinks that our relationship to money is a critical aspect of faith. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This statement might seem simply to be an obvious statement of fact. If someone’s heart is really given to something, an activity, a cause, another person, then money tends to follow. If someone is totally onboard with a political candidate, really all in, then they are likely to donate money generously to the candidate, work as a volunteer making phone calls, or go door to door handing out campaign literature. It just makes sense that if someone has given their heart over to something, it will show up in how they spend the money and their time.

But I’m not sure that Jesus is simply stating a truism. Rather, I think he has the order reversed from a statement of fact. He’s saying that where you put your money, your heart will follow. That actually is in keeping with much that Jesus says about discipleship. He says that being a disciple starts with letting go, letting go of old ways, letting go of old priorities, and, according to today’s scripture, letting go of some of our treasure. It is a spiritual practice that helps form people into faithful followers of Jesus.

Sermon video: Generous to Others and God (Luke 12:13-21)

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