Stumbling Blocks and Off-Course Christians

"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me..." So says Jesus in the opening verse of today's gospel reading. The word translated "put a stumbling block" is the basis for the English word "scandalize," Indeed you could easily hear the word "scandalize" if someone were to speak the Greek word to you. Jesus seems to be especially concerned that nothing happen to trip up "little ones," which refers not to children but to those learning to follow Jesus.

I suspect that Jesus' concern arises from the ease with which followers can be tripped up. Following Jesus is hard. His teachings are themselves scandalous. "Love your enemy... Blessed are the poor... Take up your cross... How hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven... Whoever wants to save their life will lose it..." The path Jesus walks and also calls his followers to walk involves self-denial and sacrifice. It involves giving oneself for the sake of the other, even when that other is enemy. No wonder Jesus knew that stumbling would be a problem.

All too often, church and society have worked together to create stumbling blocks. Nations and empires almost always desire power, and church has often been willing to legitimate the power of the state in exchange for safety. And so the Christianity of the church is often mostly about morality,  personal faith, respectability, and the status quo. The scandalous life of a disciple gets traded for believing the correct things and keeping your nose clean.

If you doubt that churches and Christianity often constitute the stumbling blocks Jesus condemns, look at churches' and faith leaders' stands against the poor or preferring "law and order" to justice for African Americans mistreated by police,  White Christians have used their "faith" to justify slavery, to oppose the Civil Rights Movement, and to condemn the Black Lives Matter movement. Just last week a prominent Baptist pastor said God had authorized Donald Trump "to take out Kim Jong-un."

More recently, President Trump, who was elected with huge support among professed Christians, who has been prayed over and had hands laid on him by evangelical pastors, has found it nearly impossible to call out white nationalists whose core beliefs deny that all human beings are created in the image of God. Mr. Trump, this one spoken of in Messiah-like terms by many Christians, speaks of those protesting the presence of Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville as though they are somehow as much to blame for the death and carnage as the white supremacist who deliberately killed and maimed those standing against evil, against his decidedly unChrist-like views.

All this brings me to the banner pictured above. It is the banner of "The Theological Declaration of Barmen," written by Christians, mostly from Germany, who objected to the rise of Hitler and to German state church's willingness to embrace Hitler. The state Lutheran church actually required its pastors to swear a loyalty oath to Hitler, despite strong objections from many pastors such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Confessing Church movement that arose among the Christians opposed to Hitler produced this faith statement that is part of my denomination's Book of Confessions. The declaration insists that Christians have no Lord but Jesus, that there is no segment of life that must be given over to some other Lord.

These Confessing Christians were more interested in following Jesus than being respectable, secure, safe, or participants in the prosperity and greatness that Hitler initially brought to Germany. They would walk the difficult, scandalous path of Jesus, despite the cost. They would not be tripped up or pulled off course by their church's willingness to become the stumbling block Jesus warned of just so it could preserve the life of that institutional church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.” I wonder what Bonhoeffer would think of the state of the Church in our day.

Is the Christian Church in America leading people into discipleship, into the difficult work of following Jesus, or is it trafficking in stumbling blocks that simply bless their members’ biases, beliefs, desires, loyalties, etc? The answer will vary from church to church, from congregation to congregation. But it behooves every congregation, and every Christian, to carefully consider whether their Lord, the one they follow, is Jesus or something else.

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Sermon: Trusting God with Our Stories

Genesis 37:1-34

Trusting God with Our Stories

James Sledge                                                                           August 13, 2017

I’ve likely shared before how my father read Bible stories to me and my siblings when we were young. I can still see that big, Bible Story book with its colorful illustrations, including one from our reading for today. It showed Joseph in his “coat of many colors,”  translated a bit differently, a probably more accurately, in our verses.

(Genesis 37:1-4) Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. ²This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. ³Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. ⁴But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

In my childhood memories of the Joseph story, I had the impression of Joseph as a good kid mistreated by his mean, older brothers. I don’t know if the Bible Story book told it that way, or if I just assumed that Joseph, being the hero, had to be a good guy. But when you read the entire story, it’s obvious that Joseph’s brothers had good reason not to like him. And it was more than their father’s blatant favoritism, as the story makes clear.

(Genesis 37:5-8) Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers,  they hated him even more. ⁶He said to them, "Listen to this dream that I dreamed. ⁷There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf." ⁸His brothers said to him, "Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?" So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

If I had ten older brothers who already hated me, I think I’d have the good sense not to tell them such a dream. Surely Joseph had to know that this would only make them madder. Perhaps he figured they wouldn’t do anything to him because he was Daddy’s favorite. But why tell them at all. If the dream were really true, they would see it soon enough. No, Joseph must have enjoyed this. He was a total brat or cruel or, more likely, both. Which probably explains why he went and did the same thing again.

Sermon video: Dysfunctional Families and a Loving God

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Seeing the Face of God

Genesis 32:22-31

Seeing the Face of God

James Sledge                                                                                       August 6, 2017

What a strange story marking the end of Jacob’s exile from his homeland. When he first left Canaan, fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau, he slept alone in the wilderness, fearing for his life, dreamed of a stairway to heaven, and there encountered God. To his surprise, God promised to be with him and bless him and bring him back home once more. Now, as he returns, Jacob encounters God once more.

Jacob is almost home. But the night before he arrives, he finds himself alone once more in the wilderness, yet again fearing for his life, fearing his brother Esau. He returns a rich man, with vast herds and flocks, and many servants. He also has two wives and twelve children. God has indeed been with him. God has also told him it is time to come home. But there is still the issue of Esau. Is he still angry? Does he still seek Jacob’s life?

Jacob sends messengers to tell Esau that he and his flocks and servants and family are coming, hoping to find favor with Esau. The messengers return with a report that Esau and 400 men are coming to meet them. Jacob is, understandably, terrified.

Jacob remembers God’s promises and the command to return home. He prays for God to protect his family. He also sends waves of offerings to Esau, hoping to appease him. Servants take flocks and herds toward Esau at regular intervals. Finally, Jacob sends his family and all that remains with him on ahead, leaving Jacob alone.

Jacob is alone and afraid, just like all those decades ago at Bethel. But this time there is no dream of a ramp to heaven. This night a man wrestled with him until daybreak. People sometimes speak of an angel wrestling Jacob, but as the story opens, it simply says “a man.” It soon becomes obvious, however, that this is no ordinary man.

Sermon: Dysfunctional Families and a Loving God

Genesis 29:15-30

Dysfunctional Families and a Loving God

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 30, 2017

After stealing his brother’s birthright, Jacob must flee to escape Esau’s plan to kill him. He seeks refuge in the far away land of Haran, with the family of his mother. When Jacob arrives in Haran, he encounters shepherds at a well and asks them if they know Laban, the uncle  he’s never met. They do, and they inform Jacob that the young woman coming to water a flock of sheep is Laban’s daughter, Rachel. Jacob is overcome with emotion. He weeps and embraces Rachel, who runs to tell her father of Jacob’s arrival. There is a warm, family reunion, and Laban invites Jacob to stay with him.

During the midst of this family reunion, the story offers an odd note. It says, Jacob told Laban all these things, with no explanation as to what “these things” are. Does he tell of stealing Esau’s birthright and fleeing to Haran,? Does he tell of his dream at Bethel and God’s promise to be with him? The story doesn’t say. It leaves us to guess or assume.

But our story tellers surely chuckle as Jacob the trickster is himself tricked. Laban invokes  the tradition of the older sister taking priority over the younger, a reversal of what Jacob did to his older sibling. Perhaps when Jacob told Laban all these things, Laban took offense at how traditional lines of inheritance had been tossed aside in the house of Isaac.

Regardless, the dysfunction we saw in Isaac’s house seems only to get worse as Jacob joins his uncle’s family. We see a bit of this in our reading today. Jacob now has two wives, one that he loves and one that he doesn’t. Laban has used his own daughters as pawns and bargaining chips to make Jacob serve him. If Laban knows about the dream at Bethel, knows that God is with Jacob, perhaps he thinks he will benefit from Jacob’s presence. Now Jacob is bound to Laban for another seven years. And we’re just getting warmed up.

As the story continues, a bitter rivalry develops between Rachel and Leah. They vie for Jacob’s attention and to be mothers of his children. God comes to the aid of both women in times when they are ignored or oppressed. And both women give their maids to Jacob in order to produce more children. In the end, the unloved Leah will be mother to eight of Israel’s twelve tribes, with Rachel mother to four.

Sermon video: The Crack Where the Light Gets In

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Remembering Our Stories

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: The Crack Where the Light Gets In

Genesis 28:10-22

The Crack Where the Light Gets In

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 23, 2017

Jacob is alone and on the run. The con-job that stole Esau’s blessing has backfired. Now his brother seeks to kill him, and he must flee for his life. He runs toward Haran, the homeland of his mother. Presumably her family will take him in.

Jacob is in grave danger, but he is not the only thing at risk. God’s original promise to Abraham and Sarah is in jeopardy as well. When God first spoke to Abraham, saying, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you,” the country God told him to leave was Haram. But now Jacob has left the land of promise, returning to the place Abraham and Sarah had left.

This danger to the promise was spoken by Abraham a generation earlier. When Abraham was old and near death, he sent one of his servants to Haran to find Isaac a wife. But he made that servant swear a solemn oath that he would not let Isaac accompany him, would not let Isaac journey back to Haran. And so our story speaks a double sense of threat, of danger, the threat to Jacob’s life as well as the threat to God’s plans.

Jacob may be unaware of that second danger. Up to this point, the story has been silent on Jacob’s knowledge of the promise, or of God for that matter.

And so Jacob, alone and on the run, stops to rest for the night. He must have been terribly frightened. Perhaps Esau is in pursuit. And if Jacob knows about God and the promise, he likely fears that God is angry with him as well.

In the midst of the threat of his brother and possible divine punishment, sleep must have been difficult. But harried and worn out by his journey, he takes a stone for a pillow, and somehow falls asleep.

Sermon: Remembering Our Stories

Genesis 25:19-34 (27:1-45)

Remembering Our Stories

James Sledge                                                                                       July 16, 2017

“A wandering Aramean was my father.” That famous line is the opening of a statement the people of Israel were to say when they offered their first fruits at the Temple. The full statement traces that wandering Aramean’s journey to Egypt, where living as an aliens, the descendants become great and numerous, were oppressed by the Egyptians, rescued by God, and finally, were brought into the good and bountiful land of the promise.

The statement functions a little like a creed such as the Apostles’ Creed. However, it is not primarily a statement of beliefs. Rather it is a claim to a particular and peculiar identity. This is who I am. This is my story. This is what it means to be this strange community of Israel that is called by God and exists only within its relationship to God.

Identity is rooted in story. Families have stories; communities have stories; cultures have stories. Many would argue that the partisan splintering in our nation today has been greatly aided by the loss of a shared story, a family story. They exist, but we’ve forgotten them, lost them, or can’t agree on them, and so, in a very real sense, we don’t know who we are. Something similar may well be happening in the Church.

Perhaps this is the ultimate goal of individualism paired with consumerism, to reduce each of us to agents of wanting and acquiring with identities built solely on what we can accomplish and get. But we have a deeper identity, a true identity as God’s beloved children. It is an identity rooted in stories of faith that need to become our story. “A wandering Aramean was my father.”

People often think of Abraham, that consummate man of faith, as this wandering, Aramean father. He fits the bill, but so does his grandson, Jacob. If anything, Jacob is the one in whom Israel sees itself. His stories are Israel’s stories. Israel’s identity is deeply bound to that of Jacob, its wandering ancestor.

Sermon video: Provision and Testing

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Provision and Testing

Genesis 22:1-14

Provision and Testing

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 2, 2017

I had a relative who was missing a good bit of one finger, and there was a family story about why. I don’t know that the story was true. I suspect not, but it goes like this. When this person was a child, her sibling or cousin – I don’t remember which – told her to put her hand down on a bench and he would cut off a finger with a hatchet. She complied, and he swung the hatchet. She assumed he wouldn’t actually go through with it; he assumed she would move her hand. Like I said, I doubt it’s true, but it’s a good story.

That story came to mind as I was thinking about the story we’re going to hear from Genesis where God commands Abraham to make a burnt offering of his son, Isaac. As with my family story, it seems like a story that could go horribly awry with one false move.

It is a frightening, even terrifying story. Christians have sometimes played that down by saying it prefigures Jesus and resurrection, trying to distract our attention from the horror of a story where God demands that Abraham put his son’s life in danger.

After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ²He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” ³So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.

Why on earth would God do such a thing? Surely this is simply some primitive story from a time when human sacrifice actually happened. Surely it has nothing to say to us. And yet this story was probably just a startling and frightening to the people of Israel. Israel abhorred the human sacrifice practiced by some of the cultures around them.

And while the origins of this story may well be primitive, the story as it appears in Genesis is quite sophisticated. It has a remarkable symmetry to it, a pattern that seems intended to guide our understanding. Three times Abraham is addressed and three times he responds with “Here I am.” Abraham is addressed by God, then by Isaac, and once more by God in the form of an angel. But in only one of those times does Abraham actually converse.

Sermon video: Meeting God in the Story

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.