Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Sermon: Trusting in Hope
Romans 5:1-5
Trusting in Hope
James Sledge June
16, 2019
“Tim,
will you please stop sabotaging this meeting with hope?!” That’s
the opening line from an article I read on the Presbyterians Today Blog. Tim is a pastor who’s been brought in to
help revitalize a church after twenty years of decline. His diagnosis is that
the church has become captive to the functional
and needs to recapture the spiritual.
Here’s
how the blog post defines functional. “It’s a secular style of operating that
slowly pushes a deep awareness and embrace of God’s presence and guidance away
as we try to do things decently and in order. Functionality cares more about
how the church functions than about how well it leads us to deeper
experiences and encounters with God.” [1]
Of
course it is a lot easier to be functional than spiritual. The world runs on
the functional, and our culture, our schooling, and most of our work experience
trains us to be functional. Inevitably, it creeps into the church, and many of
you have experienced it. You’ve been to a committee meeting that has a prayer
at the beginning and perhaps another at the end, but the meeting itself happens
with absolutely no awareness of the Spirit or that God is present.
Pastor
Tim ran into something like that at the Finance Committee meeting. The blog
post was short on details, but they’re easy enough to imagine. The committee
member said something like, “There isn’t enough money in the budget for that.”
And the Pastor Tim said something like, “If this is what God is calling us to
do, then God will provide a way.”
It
was probably not the first time for such an exchange, but this time, the
committee member had had enough. And he yelled, “Tim, will you please stop
sabotaging this meeting with hope?!” before walking out on the meeting.
What
an odd idea, sabotaging with hope. When I think about sabotage in
organizations, I usually think of people trying to shut down hope. People get
excited about a new idea and began to hope that it might help the organization,
but then the naysayers come out. They begin to point out all the risks and all
the things that could go wrong. They work to undermine hope and excitement. But
this finance committee member accuses the pastor of sabotaging things with
hope. Who knew that hope could cause so much trouble?
Monday, June 10, 2019
Sabbatical Doubting
We are nearing the end of a several year's long process that we have labeled "Renew," and this summer marks a time of transition from and old, heavy-on-the administrative-side committee structure to a new structure that is more focused on ministry. Summer is when the new teams will come up with priorities and implementation plans for the program year that begins in September. And I will be gone for much of that time.
All this is context for my recent church newsletter article which I've copied below.
Sisters and
brothers in Christ,
As summer
approaches, I find myself feeling a little uneasy. I’m not quite certain how to
describe it. Neither worry nor concern nor trepidation seems quite right, but it’s something like that. My
upcoming motorcycle sabbatical might seem a likely culprit, but I think not. I
am truly looking forward to the trip, and I worry less about riding the
highways of the American Southwest than I do the freeways of DC.
Another
potential source of uneasiness is our Renew process. This summer will be an important
time as the new Mercy, Worship, Justice, Spiritual Growth, Community Building,
and Ministry Support teams begin to set priorities. The will develop focus and
plans to help live into our mandate: Gathering
those who fear they are not enough, so we may experience grace, wholeness, and
renewal as God’s beloved. And I will be absent for much of that process.
I’d be lying
if I said I had no anxieties about this. But Renew has been a collaborative
project of the Session. I have certainly had input, but I’ve not been the
primary leader. Elders have done the leading and the planning, and I have
little reason to worry that the process will falter without my presence.
That said, I
do think that my uneasiness is related to the Renew process. It’s not about the
capabilities and commitment of our elders, our deacons, or our dedicated staff.
The Renew process is in as capable a set of hands as any congregation could
ever hope. Still, my uneasiness remains, and I wonder if this isn’t a faith
issue.
Our missional
mandate speaks of gathering people “…so that we may experience grace,
wholeness, and renewal…” Appropriately it does not say “…so that we may provide
grace, wholeness, and renewal…” These are not ours to give. They are gifts from
God. No amount of capability and dedication on our part can bring about the
transformation at the heart of Renew. It is dependent on God, on Jesus’ call, and
on the movement of the Spirit, none of which is under our control.
Will we, along
with those we gather in with us, experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as
God’s beloved? And why wouldn’t we? Shouldn’t God be the most reliable part of
this process, even more sure than the capabilities of elders, deacons and
staff?
I see two different
faith issues here. One is about making room for the Spirit. It is easy to get
so focused on the things I need to do, the things we as a congregation must do,
that God nearly gets shoved out of the picture. Many times I have caught myself
functioning as though God was not present, that it is all dependent on us. If we
do not work to stay connected to Jesus’ call, to the guidance and empowerment
of the Spirit, we may find ourselves attempting to do, on our own, what only
God can do.
But there is
a more fundamental faith issue. Is God reliable? The Session has listened very
carefully, spent much time in prayer and discernment, and has clearly heard
Jesus calling us to our new missional mandate. But that mandate asks us to step
out on faith, to risk that God will provide what is needed. Will God provide? I
sometimes have my doubts, and perhaps that’s the heart of my uneasiness.
I have known
people who say their faith is without doubt. I do not trust such people, and
many great Christian thinkers would seem to agree with me. Paul Tillich once
said, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith… Sometimes
I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the
faithful.” John Calvin said, “…we cannot imagine any certainty that is not
tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety.” And
my favorite is from Frederick Buechner, “Doubts are the ants in the pants of
faith. They keep it awake and moving.”
I hope my
sabbatical allows me to do a lot of wrestling with doubts this summer. Perhaps
the continuing Renew rollout will provide opportunities for you to do a little
wrestling of your own.
May the summer bless you with fruitful doubting,
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Sermon: Freed and Led by the Spirit
Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17, 25-26
Freed and Led by the Spirit
James Sledge June
9, 2019 – Pentecost
When
I entered seminary at age 35, it took me a semester to adjust to the huge
amount of reading. A lot of it was simply something to get through, but some
had a profound impact on me. I vividly remember reading Resident Aliens. This seminal, 1989 work by Stanley Hauerwas and
Will Willimon of Duke Divinity School explored what it means to be Christian in
rapidly changing world. Let me read just a bit of the books provocative
opening.
Somewhere
between 1960 and 1980, an old, inadequately conceived world ended, and a fresh,
new world began. We do not mean to be overly dramatic. Although there are many
who have not yet heard the news, it is nevertheless true. A tired old world has
ended, and an exciting new one is awaiting recognition…
When
and how did we change? Although it may sound trivial, one of us is tempted to
date the shift sometime on a Sunday evening in 1963. Then, in Greenville, South
Carolina, in defiance of the state’s time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater
opened on Sunday. Seven of us—regular attenders of the Methodist Youth
Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church—made a pact to enter the front door of the
church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the
Fox.
That evening has
come to represent a watershed in the history of Christendom, South Carolina
style. On that night, Greenville, South Carolina—the last pocket of resistance
to secularity in the Western world—served notice it would no longer be a prop
for the church. There would be no more free rides. The Fox Theater went head to
head with the church over who would provide the world view for the young. That
night in 1963, the Fox Theater won the opening skirmish.[1]
As
Christendom faded, church more and more became optional. A numerical decline set
in that continues to this day. It seems that many were at church only because
it was required or expected. Realizing this was no longer so, people left. So were
they ever really followers of Jesus? And what about the church congregations
that nurtured such believers?
What
does it mean to be Christian, to be church? There was a time, not so many years
ago, when people spoke of Presbyterians as “the Republican party at prayer.” That
referred to a very different Republican party, one with strong liberal and
progressive wings. Regardless, such a label describes an identity rooted less
in following Jesus and more in an easy, comfortable compatibility with
mainstream, middle-class America.
At
the height of Christendom, American-style, people were assumed to be Christian,
and Christianity was often a generalized belief in Jesus mixed with morality,
citizenship, and patriotism. “American Civil Religion,” as it has been called,
was a necessarily vague faith that claimed Jesus and belief in God without too
many details or particulars, permitting it to be compatible with a culture that
subjugated women and people of color, while it happily blessed patriotism,
capitalism, consumerism, and war.
But
now, thanks to a changed world that no longer subsidizes and props up the
church, we’ve been freed from the constraints of that old civil religion and
its Faustian bargain with culture. We have been given the opportunity to
discover who we are on our own, no longer wedded to a culture that expects us
to water down and domesticate the gospel.
Such freedom has proved disorienting,
and many would love to go back. I’ve lost track of all the times retired
colleagues told me how glad they are not to be serving a church nowadays. No
doubt, things were easier, but I don’t want to go back. I want us to figure out
what it means to be Jesus’ church. Not an American church, not a white, middle-class
church, but a church that follows Jesus and calls all manner of people to the
new life he brings.
Monday, June 3, 2019
Sermon: Jesus Shaped Community
John 17:20-26
Jesus Shaped Community
James Sledge June
2, 2019
As
a pastor, I’m fascinated by how congregations work, what makes them tick.
Fortunately for me, there are all sorts of research and books about this. One
particular area of research focuses on how congregations have predictable
behavior patterns based on their size, patterns that cut across denominational
and theological lines
This
research identifies four types of congregations labeled, from small to large, family,
pastoral, program, and corporate,. Corporate church are very large and staff
driven in the extreme. Nearly every program area is directed by paid staff with
the pastor as CEO.
Program
churches have similarities with the corporate, with a number of thriving program
areas. But being smaller, lay leaders provide some of the program leadership,
and pastors can’t be CEOs because they are often leading volunteers. In both
program and corporate churches, people tend to join because of one of more of the
many program offerings.
The
pastoral church may have some strong programs, but its identity is focused very
much on the pastor. Most have only one pastor, but if there is an associate,
and that person visits a member in the hospital, the person may not think they
been visited by the church. And people tend
to join or leave such churches because they like of dislike the pastor.
The
final category is the family church. A lot of churches use the term “family” to
describe themselves, but this category applies to only the smallest
congregations. These churches literally function like families, often with a
matriarch or patriarch who is the real power regardless of governing structure.
The pastor, if there is one, is a kind of paid chaplain.
A
lot of people assume that a small, family church would be the warmest and
friendliest. In truth, they are the hardest to enter. Like real families, becoming
part of one requires being born into it, marrying into it, or somehow getting
adopted. You can get your name on the roll in the same way as in any church,
but ten years later you will likely still be “the new guy” and not quite part
of the family.
Now if you’re not fascinated with how
congregations work, your eyes may be starting to glaze over. But want us all to
think for a bit about what it is that creates a faith community, what it is
that binds you to this congregation or to some other. What drew you to the
church and what holds you there? What is it that makes you feel a part of it?
How strong are the bonds that connect you? Would it be easy to leave if you
were unhappy or would wild horses be unable to drag you away?
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Sermon: God with Skin On
Luke 24:36-48
God with Skin On
James Sledge May
19, 2019
I’ve
likely told this story before, but it seems worth retelling. A mom is putting
her young child to bed, but he’s frightened and begs her to stay with him. She
does those things parents do, explain that there’s nothing to be afraid of,
remind him that she’ll be just outside his room, and so on, but none does much
good. Finally she says, “God will be right here the entire night.” But the boy protests,
“I need God with skin on!”
You
can’t really blame him. God can feel pretty wispy at times, an idea or concept
without a lot of substance. If I’m really frightened, a concept may not feel
all that comforting. If I don’t have enough to eat, saying “God loves you,” won’t
do much good.
The
whole Jesus business is, in part, about giving God some skin, about a God that removes
some of the wispiness and lets us say, “Oh, so this is what God is like.” Yet modern
Christianity sometimes minimizes the skin on part, preferring God as concept.
And so Jesus the man, the Jewish rabbi, gets turned into Christ, a not quite
human figure without all those messy particulars of skin and bodily functions
and Jewishness. Sometimes it’s easier to run a religion where God is a
manageable concept without too much skin.
The
gospels, however, go to great lengths to insist on the fleshiness of Jesus, not
just before his death and resurrection but after it as well. Our reading this
morning is one of several that go out of their way to keep Jesus’ skin on.
People are invited to touch him, and, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus eats in two
successive stories.
On
the day of resurrection, two disciples meet Jesus as they walk to Emmaus but don’t
recognize him. Only when they stop for the evening and share a meal where Jesus
takes bread, blesses and breaks it, do the disciples realize it is Jesus.
They
rush back to Jerusalem and are telling the others what happened when Jesus
shows up once more. He invites his friends to touch him, to see that he has
skin on, then he asks, “Have you anything to eat?” And he
eats the fish they give him.
This
might seem a totally unnecessary detail unless you’re determined to present the
risen Jesus as a fleshy, with-skin-on sort of God. For the gospels, and for
biblical faith, bodies are not a problem to be overcome. Salvation is not about
a spiritual existence apart from the body. Christian faith is a messy,
incarnate faith where God has skin on, and where following Jesus with our earthly
bodies is as much the focus as what happens when we die. Christian faith only
works when it is embodied, when it has skin on.
Monday, May 13, 2019
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Sermon: Transfroming, Holy Space
Isaiah 1:12-17; Romans 12:1-2
Transforming, Holy Space
James Sledge May
12, 2019
The
other day I attended the annual spring luncheon of the Falls Church Community
Service Council at Knox Presbyterian. Some of you bring food for their food
pantry, and our congregation has long supported this and other programs at FCS.
This
year’s lunch celebrated their 50th anniversary. A representative from
Church World Services spoke briefly and reminded us of all that was happening
in 1969, the first moon landing, Woodstock, all the tumult and turmoil. “It was
a time when we thought we could change the world,” he said. But then he added,
“Not many of the people I work with feel that way these days. Many of them are
depressed.” He went on to make a more hopeful point, but I was still thinking
about that journey from expecting to change the world to despair.
Perhaps
it was simply a matter of hopes meeting reality. That speaker mentioned that
the number of refugees in the world is now larger than at any time since the
end of World War II, a rather sobering statistic. But along with being sobered
up by cold, hard facts, I wonder about the source of that confidence back in
1969.
I
was only twelve years old at the time, but I suspect that expectations of
changing the world were partly rooted in a belief in progress and the idea that
we humans could do anything we put our minds to. America had helped win World
War II, become the dominant super power, and put a man on the moon. On top of
that, the 60s saw huge gains by the Civil Rights movement, and a burgeoning
anti-war movement, Between unparalleled scientific advances and great social change,
it was easy to see endless possibilities.
I
wonder if Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King shared the same sort
of optimism. They had a different sense of the difficulties and costs involved.
My impression is that Dr. King’s optimism was not rooted in a belief in
progress or endless human capabilities. It was rooted in faith, in a certainty
that God’s will would ultimately prevail.
Perhaps
that is why Civil Rights rallies often looked a little like African American worship.
Such worship wasn’t so much about personal piety or salvation but about
salvation history, about the power of God at work to free the oppressed and set
right injustice.
The worship I sat through growing up in
the 60s and 70s was very different. Our white, middle class worship fit easily
into American civil religion that often saw the Civil Rights movement and, to a
greater degree, the anti-war movement as threats. Even in churches that were
sympathetic to these movements, faith and worship often served as a respite
from the tumult, largely disconnected from any hope or desire to change the
world.
_________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Sermon: Won't You Be a Neighbor
Luke 10:25-37
Won’t You Be a Neighbor
James Sledge May
5, 2019
Perhaps
you are familiar with the old, proverbial saying, “Charity begins at home.” Many
assume it is from the Bible, but it’s not. Its first written appearance is in 1600s
England, when the word “charity” was used somewhat differently than today.
In
the old King James Bible, the Apostle Paul’s famous words on love instead speak
of charity. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of
these is charity. And so the old proverb’s understanding of charity
would include “Christ-like love.”
Originally,
the proverb spoke of how people learned to be loving and caring by witnessing
such behavior at home. You could say much the same of other behaviors. A strong
work ethic begins at home. Good citizenship begins at home. Love of learning
begins at home, etc.
However,
I typically hear the proverb used quite differently. “Why should our government
send financial aid overseas when there are needy people here? Charity begins at
home.” Here the proverb is taken to set limits on charity. Only after those
close by are cared for should it be extended to others.
I
take it that the lawyer who questions Jesus in our gospel reading would have
used the proverb in this latter fashion. He’s concerned with rules and limits. “What
must I do…?” He’s is an expert
in the Law of Moses, so he knows the answer, easily providing appropriate
scriptures. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your
neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus
is happy to confirm that this is indeed the correct answer, adding, “Do
this, and you will live.” But the lawyer is a “charity begins and ends
at home” sort, and so he wants Jesus to clarify the boundaries, the limits. “And
who is my neighbor?”
If
I have to love my neighbor, I want to know where the neighborhood ends. Is it
people who live on my street? Is it my religious group or church? Is it people
of my race? Is it citizens of my country? Where can I stop, Jesus?
Jesus
doesn’t really answer the question, but he does tell a famous story. It’s a
somewhat troubling parable about what happens to a man who’s been robbed and
left for dead, although some of its more troubling aspects get lost in
translation and its familiarity.
Monday, April 29, 2019
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Easter sermon: An Idle Tale
Luke 24:1-12
An Idle Tale
James Sledge
Resurrection of the Lord April
21, 2019
In
recent weeks I’ve seen several versions of an Easter Facebook joke that goes something
like this. “In an effort to be more biblical, only women will be attending the
Easter sunrise service.”
Over
the years, many have remarked that the story of women being the first witnesses
to the empty tomb must be historical. No one would invent this sort of Easter
story. People still dismiss what women have to say in our day. Imagine what it was
like in a day when women were not even citizens, when they couldn’t be
witnesses at a trial, when they were considered property that belonged to a
man, either their father or husband.
And
sure enough, in Luke’s version of that first Easter morning, no one believes
the women. You’ve heard the story before. Some of Jesus’ female disciples, and
apparently none of the men, had followed when Jesus’s body was taken to the
tomb. Then they had gone back, prepared spices, and rested on the Sabbath as
the commandment required.
Early
Sunday morning, they took the spices to the tomb, hoping to give Jesus the
tender care they had not had time for on Friday evening. But when they arrive,
they find the tomb open and the body missing. As they are wondering what to do,
two men in dazzling clothes, later described as angels, say to them. “He
is not here, but has risen,” and remind the women how Jesus had told
them that he would be crucified and rise on the third day.
And
so Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women hurry back
to tell the eleven and the others what they had found. But these words seemed to them an
idle tale, and they did not believe them.
I
probably wouldn’t have believed them either, even if this had happened in 2019
where women aren’t routinely dismissed… unless they are contradicting a man. I
know what’s possible and what isn’t. I know that dead people stay dead. Even if
I believe that a soul moves on somehow, I know that the body stays in the
grave. “He is not here, but has risen.” What a cockamamie idea. Who
would believe such a thing?
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He was among
those who didn’t believe the women’s report, and yet he rushes to the tomb. Why
rush to investigate an idle tale?
________________________________________________________________________
Friday, April 19, 2019
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Sermon: Accidental Parade Goers
Luke 19:28-40; 22:14-23
Accidental Parade Goers
James Sledge Palm/Passion April 14, 2019
My
memory sometimes misleads me, but I recall the Palm Sundays of my childhood
being bigger deals they are nowadays. In my childhood church, the palms didn’t
have to share billing with the passion. Every year it was a parade from
beginning to end. A lot more fun that way, but with a significant downside. The
church of my childhood memory rushed from Palm Sunday parade to Easter parade,
from celebration to celebration, and it was easy to miss the betrayal, trial,
and execution that lay in between.
In
one of his letters, the Apostle Paul writes, But we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and the wisdom of God. For
Paul, and for the gospel writers, the cross is absolutely central, but it is
more fun to go from one parade to the next.
Each
of the gospel writers tell the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem slightly
differently. Perhaps you noticed that there were no palms at all in Luke’s
version. This isn’t because the writers have heard different versions of events
but because they are more like preachers than reporters or historians. The
gospel writers have slightly different points and emphases for their
congregations to hear and so they tell the story differently.
Luke,
like all the gospel writers, connects Jesus’ entry to Psalm 118 and to the
prophet Zechariah. The prophet speaks of a coming, victorious king who rides in
on a colt, and the psalm is a coronation psalm, one that would have been used
in Israel’s past when a king ascended to the throne.
In
Luke’s telling, an interesting distinction gets made between the parade
watchers and Jesus’ actual followers. Luke doesn’t report a crowd, but he does
say that people kept spreading their cloaks on the road, which certainly
befits a royal procession. But it is the disciples, and not the crowd or people,
who begin to shout joyfully from Psalm 118. “Blessed is the king who comes in
the name of the Lord.”
Some of the Pharisees object to this
explicit naming of Jesus as Israel’s messianic king, but Jesus insists that his
disciples are correct. Apparently these Pharisees weren’t overly bothered by
cloaks spread on the road. They don’t mind celebrating Jesus as a great teacher
or healer, but to declare him God’s Messiah, the long awaited king, is too
much.
______________________________________________________________________
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Sermon: Being More Like God
Micah 6:6-8
Being More Like God
James Sledge April
7, 2019
In
a day when many church congregations are struggling, strategic planning and church
revisioning have become quite common. Seemingly endless books, conferences,
consultants, and other resources are available for such work, but sometimes
this work is made difficult by a lack of fundamental clarity about why church
exists in the first place.
Typically
the problem is one of assumption. Members and leaders assume that they know why
church exists, but if you ask them to spell it out, you sometimes get answers
such as, “You know, to be church.” If you press for specifics, most people can
come up with some sort of answers, usually a list of prominent things happening
in their church such as worship, Sunday School, and a few other items. But it
is hard to do much in the way of strategic planning if you define why church
exists by the things it currently does.
Fortunately,
we Presbyterians have denominational statements that spell out the fundamental
reasons for congregations to exist. One is something called “The Great Ends of
the Church.” This century old statement lays out six primary ends or purposes.
They are:
the
proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;
the
shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;
the
maintenance of divine worship;
the
preservation of the truth;
the
promotion of social righteousness; and
the
exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.[1]
Our
scripture for this morning, as well as our Renew focus for today, has me
thinking especially about those last two: promoting a rightly ordered society
and showing the world what God’s kingdom looks like.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Sermon: Idyllic Community
Acts 2:37-47
Idyllic Community
James Sledge March
31, 2019
The
congregation in our scripture reading is the very first one. It’s brand new,
and there is no church building, no Sunday School, no youth group. There is no
paid staff or formal governing structure. There is no budget, committees, task
forces, or ministry teams. But despite having almost none of the things we
associate with church, this congregation has something absolutely remarkable
and astounding, the goodwill of all the people.
Think
about that. What group or institution in our world has the goodwill of all the
people, the entire population? Traditionally things such as education and
medicine were held in high esteem, but not as much these days. When I was a
kid, I got the impression that everyone trusted Walter Cronkite delivering the
CBS News each evening, but I’m pretty sure the news media doesn’t have the
goodwill of all the people these days.
What
about religion? If you took a clipboard and walked the sidewalks of DC, asking
people their opinion of religion in general, and the church in particular, what
sort of response might you get? What if you went door to door here in Falls
Church and asked about FCPC? How likely would you be to discover the goodwill
of all the people?
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Sermon video: Taking Our Place in the Story
Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.
For much of this spring, sermons at FCPC will not be from the lectionary passages. Rather the passages will be chosen to help interpret the various facets of our new missional mandate: "Gathering those who fear they are not enough, so that we can experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as God's beloved." This sermon is the first of these and accompanies a presentation on "How We Got Here."
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Sermon: Taking Our Place in the Story
Hebrews 11:39-12:2
Taking Our Place in the Story
James Sledge March
17, 2019
Last April, Michael Gerson, Washington
Post columnist and former aide and speech writer for George W. Bush, wrote
an article in The Atlantic magazine
entitled, “The Last Temptation: How evangelicals, once culturally
confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the
least traditionally religious president in living memory.”[1] The
article is tinged with sadness at the moral demise of evangelicalism, something
Gerson deeply values as one raised in an evangelical home and educated at the
evangelical Wheaton College. Here are some excerpts.
Trump supporters
tend to dismiss moral scruples about his behavior as squeamishness over the
president’s “style.” But the problem is the distinctly non-Christian substance
of his values. Trump’s unapologetic materialism—his equation of
financial and social success with human achievement and worth—is a negation of
Christian teaching. His tribalism and hatred for “the other” stand in direct
opposition to Jesus’s radical ethic of neighbor love…
…The moral convictions of many
evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification.
This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption. Blinded by political
tribalism and hatred for their political opponents, these leaders can’t see how
they are undermining the causes to which they once dedicated their lives.
Little remains of a distinctly Christian public witness.
Fear
and anxiety drive the “utter corruption” and loss of Christian witness Gerson
writes about. But fear and anxiety are hardly restricted to evangelicals.
There’s a lot of fear, anxiety, and pessimism in the progressive church these
days. Conservatives and progressives have different fears and anxieties, but we
can be equally reactive to our particular favorites. Fear, anxiety, and
pessimism tend to corrupt our witness. If we could only lower the level.
Perhaps something like the pep talk in the letter to the Hebrews could help.
Hebrews
isn’t a letter like those Paul wrote to his congregations. It’s more of a
sermon. Its preacher is worried about his congregation’s fear and pessimism.
They had hoped for a quick arrival of God’s new day, a setting right of a world
where small numbers of powerful and wealthy controlled things and enjoyed the
good life while most people struggled to get by. But that hadn’t happened.
Throw in the popular suspicion of Christians in the Roman world, add an
occasional persecution, and you have a prescription for fatigue, anxiety, and
pessimism.
And
so the preacher tries to rouse them. Like the coach of a struggling team, he
reminds them of all the greats that went before them and how they had triumphed
under the most difficult and trying circumstances. But then the pep talk takes
a rather bizarre turn. None of those past greats, says the preacher, received
what had been promised them.
Here
the preacher moves from pep talk to divine mystery. Greats of the past, the
heroes of the faith, cannot make it, cannot be perfected or made complete,
without us.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Sermon: Are You Listening?
Luke 9:28-36
Are You Listening?
James Sledge March
3, 2019 – Transfiguration of the Lord
I’ve
just begun reading a book entitled, The
Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion for
Seekers, Skeptics, and Believers. It’s a follow-up to another book by the
same author, “What the Least I Can
Believe and Still Be a Christian?” A Guide to What Matters Most.
Both
books address, in different ways, the issue of Christian identity. It’s a topic
I find increasingly critical in a world
where many didn’t grow up in the church. What they know of Christianity often
comes from its portrayal in the media, too often examples of the “Bad Religion” in that book. Meanwhile,
Mainline and progressive Christians are often fuzzy about our Christian identity,
other than not being like that “Bad Religion.”
It
is all well and good not to be like those “Bad Religion” Christians, but you
can’t define yourself solely by what you are not. You also have to know what
you are. And if we’re talking Christian identity, it must have something to do
with Jesus. That’s one reason I think this scripture on the Transfiguration is
such an important passage.
Just
on the face of it the event is a big deal. A cloud and God’s voice on a
mountaintop recall the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. Moses and Elijah represent the
law and the prophets, the very core of Jewish faith. And the divine words, “This
is my Son,” recall coronation psalms along with Jesus’ baptism.
Just
prior to the Transfiguration, Jesus foretells his coming death, and he teaches his
disciples what it means to follow him. “If any want to become my followers, let
them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who
want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake
will save it.” Those words still
echo when Peter’s befuddled proposal for some sort of shrine is interrupted by
God’s command. "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
“Listen
to him.” With Christian identity, there is no avoiding this. Shrines and
rituals alone won’t do. Professing one’s belief won’t do. Being a caring
progressive or holding fast to conservative family values won’t do. We must
listen to Jesus.
When
I was a boy and my mother yelled, “Listen to me!” she spoke of more than hearing
the words. “Listen” put me on notice. I’d better pay attention, and I’d better do
what I heard.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
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