Sermon: God's Inner Turmoil

Hosea 11:1-11

God’s Inner Turmoil

James Sledge                                                                                       July 31, 2016

Church hymnals are usually organized into sections that cover topics, themes, special seasons, and so on. It’s helpful for people who plan worship services. If there is a baptism that Sunday, you can go to the section on baptism and look at the different hymns. Same with the Lord’s Supper.

When the Presbyterian Church came out with a new hymnal in the early 1970s, someone had the bright idea simply to put all the hymns in alphabetical order. Predictably, most people hated it. When you’re using the hymnal to plan the Christmas Eve service, no one wants “Angels We Have Heard on High” at the very front of the hymnal, “What Child Is This” at the very end, and other carols scattered throughout. You want to open to the Christmas section and find all of them in one spot.

The Presbyterian Hymnal in our sanctuary came out in 1990, once again featuring sections for Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and so on. There are section for baptism and the Lord’s Supper and a section of Psalms. Right after the Psalms are about sixty hymns organized around the persons of the Trinity. That makes some sense. If you want to find a hymn about the Holy Spirit, you can turn to that section and see what’s there. Or you can find hymns about Jesus.

But I’ve always had a problem with how they labeled the Trinity sections. As I mentioned, there’s “Holy Spirit” and “Jesus Christ.” No problem with those. But then there’s a section simply labeled “God.” God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; but that’s not the Trinity. The Trinity is God the Father (or Mother perhaps), God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It’s not God and then something else called Jesus and the Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is truly God.

This idea that Jesus and the Spirit are somehow subordinate to God is probably the most common version of something called “functional Unitarianism.” It’s not true Unitarianism because we say that we believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But in practice, functionally, we often speak of God and then, on a slightly lower level, there’s Jesus and the Spirit, important but not really God.

I blame Greek philosophy for this problem. That may be overstating things, but Greek, philosophical notions of God predominated in much of the Greco-Roman world before Christianity ever showed up. And these Western ways of thinking didn’t always fit easily alongside the non-Western understanding of God from Judaism and most of the Bible, the understanding shared by Jesus and his followers.

Sermon video from July 24: It Starts with Water

On the day before Vacation Bible Camp began, this sermon was done as an extended children's time. The Creation story was told using "Godly Play," with the sermon itself spoken to the gathered children.


Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video from July 17: Famine

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: It Starts with Water

Genesis 1:1-10, 26-27, 31-2:3 (Matthew 3:17-17)

It Starts with Water

James Sledge                                       July 24, 2016, start of Vacation Bible Camp

When I first became a pastor at a church in Raleigh, North Carolina, a more experienced pastor was very kind to me. Her name was Wylie, and she gave me a lot of good advice. She also invited me to be a part of group of pastors who gathered each week to discuss Bible passages for upcoming sermons. But before we talked about the Bible, we socialized, ate lunch, and talked about being pastors. One day, Wylie told us a story I’m going to share with you. I think I’ve shared it before, but it’s a good story and worth hearing more than once.

Wylie had gone to a big gathering of pastors from all sorts of denominations and traditions. She found a seat at one of many tables, and there the pastors introduced themselves to one another, telling their denomination, the church they served, how many members it had, and so on. One pastors asked the rest of them, “What day do you take off?” Because pastors work on Sunday, we often take a weekday off instead.

The pastors answered saying, “I take Monday off,” or “I take Friday off.” But one pastor thought taking any day off was a bad idea. “I never take a day off!” he shouted. “The devil never takes a day off.” My friend Wylie replied to him, “God does.”

That’s what the story we just heard says. God finishes with all the work of creation, and then God rests. God takes a day off. What’s more, God gives everybody the day off. The seventh day, the Sabbath, is “hallowed” the Bible says, which means it’s set apart for special purposes. And the main purpose is rest.

But we humans are not always good at resting. I recently read a story in the newspaper about people not using all their vacation time, working instead of resting. And even when we do vacation, we don’t always rest. We cram our vacations with travel and theme parks and activities, so much so that we’re often worn out when we return.

To What End?

The world would be a bigger mess than it already is without rules. Imagine if no one stopped at intersections. It's bad enough because a few don't follow the rules of the road. But rules are not an end in and of themselves. They are in service to some larger purpose, or at least they should be.

"Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy." This commandment or rule is one our society has disregarded to its detriment. The need for sabbath, for rest, is part of what makes us human. Many of us are frazzled and burnt out because we've not realized this, because we've imagined that this rule does not apply to us. This commandment is not simply some arbitrary rule. It is meant to safeguard our humanity.

Sabbath keeping as a rigorous, religious requirement seems to have developed during the time when the Babylonians carried off much of Jerusalem's population into exile nearly 600 years before the time of Jesus. In exile, with their Temple destroyed, Sabbath keeping became a way for the Hebrews to maintain a distinct, Jewish identity. The rule may have always been there, but during the Exile, it came to occupy a central place in what it meant to be a Jew.

The Sabbath rule is also one where Jesus regularly found himself in conflict with Jewish religious leaders. Most often it was when he healed someone on the Sabbath, but on at least one occasion the issue was Jesus' disciples plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath day, grabbing a bite on the move, if you will. But this constituted "work" and so was against the rules. But Jesus, who clearly kept the Sabbath himself, reminds his critics that the Sabbath (like all God's rules) is made for the sake of humanity, and not the other way round.

Many of us are prone to thinking of rules as constraining us and getting in our way as opposed to things that help us. The actress Katherine Hepburn supposedly said, "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun," but I wonder if that observation doesn't arise from the sort of rule keeping that has forgotten the true purposes of the rule.

Religion seems particularly prone to confusing our rules for the larger purposes behind them. (We're certainly not the only ones with this problem. The Second Ammendment seems to have become an object of worship for many people in our day.) Perhaps this is because we are unsure of what our larger purposes actually are?

A favorite theology professor of mine was fond of saying that the true purpose behind all divine activity in the Bible was "true communion with God in true community with others." That sounds like as good a synopsis as any, and that raises the question of how our rules and required ways of doing things serve that larger end.

Very often we in religious communities seem far more interested in preserving our ways than we do in serving those larger purposes. We live in a time when true community is desperately needed, when our society is fractured into camps, each eyeing others with suspicion, fear, and sometimes hatred. My own, more liberal branch of Christianity often imagines that this is not a problem for us, and it's true that we are not as prone to certain sorts of rule-keeping legalism. Yet we often look down on what we suppose are "less sophisticated" versions of the faith, and we sometimes assume that our carefully thought out, high-brow forms of worship are inherently better.

For that matter, Christians of all stripes are depressingly prone to worrying more about their worship style than they are about true communion with God or true community with others.

I suppose I find myself thinking of such things because the congregation I serve is currently doing some intentional looking at who we are and what we are about. I have some real hopes for this process. Most of all, I hope we can find ways to focus more on how things we do as a church help create true communion with God and true community with others.

Sermon: Famine

Amos 8:1-12

Famine

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 17, 2016

We’re celebrating the baptism of Aemon Cashin today, something I love doing. It’s the same sacrament whether for infant or adult, but most baptisms here are young children. Along with the cute factor and joyfulness that goes with such baptisms, they also highlight our covenantal understanding of what it means to be the Church.

Our baptismal covenant mirrors Israel’s covenant with God in the Old Testament. Israel’s treaty or agreement, like other covenants, had expectations of all parties involved. God would be with Israel, help her and protect her. Israel, in turn, would abide by the Law, a gracious gift meant to create true community.

There is similar covenant language in the sacrament of baptism. We make promises to turn from sin and toward Jesus, to follow him as faithful disciples. We recite the Apostles’ Creed and make covenant commitments to one another. Parents “promise to live the Christian faith, and to teach that faith to (their) child?” We as a congregation promise “to guide and nurture Aemon by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging him to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his church?”[1] And God embraces Aemon, making him a brother of Jesus

In baptism, parents, child, congregation, and God become covenant partners. Down the road, Aemon will get to decide if he wants to be part of this covenant and make his own profession of faith, but God is fully committed to Aemon already, just as his parents are fully committed to him before he is really able to love them back.

The biblical notion of covenant with God was rooted in the covenants or treaties common to the ancient Middle East. Larger kingdoms or empires often entered into covenants with less powerful kings or chieftains, promising to come to their aid in exchange for tribute, providing soldiers when the bigger kingdom went to war, and so on. If the smaller kingdom failed in its obligations, the larger likely would punish it, even take it over entirely. If the larger kingdom failed to keep its obligations, the smaller might seek alliances with another.

Israel could describe its relationship with God in such treaty terms, at times sounding almost contractual. Be good and get God’s blessings. Break the rules and get punished. Some Bible verses say just that, and you can find people in our day who say the same. Be good, believe the correct things, and God will bless you and admit you to heaven. Break the rules and God will punish you, maybe eternally.

But Israel does not picture God solely as a powerful king with whom they have a treaty. The covenant is also relational with God seen as spouse, shepherd, or loving parent. This loving God may punish Israel for failing to keep covenant, but it is always in hopes of restoring the covenant, of reconciliation and restored relationship.

Sermon video: Plumb Lines, Measuring Sticks, and Idolatry

Audios of worship and sermons available on the FCPC website.

Spiritual Famine

I've grown weary of preaching in response to the latest shooting or terror attack. What am I to say? What word of light to declare in the face of such darkness, what word of hope in the face of shootings, racism, and hatred that seem pervasive?

Beyond my own vocational travails, what witness is the Church called to give in such times? What are we to say, do, and be that someone offers hope? My Presbyterian traditions says that one of the primary purposes of the Church is "the exhibition of the Kingdom of heaven to the world." According to the prayer Jesus gave us, this kingdom is a world where God's will is done. How are we to show this to the world?

I wonder if part of our problem isn't that we've forgotten what this kingdom is all about. I sometimes lament the fact that Matthew's gospel uses the term "kingdom of heaven" because I think it is misleading to those who already think that kingdom parables such as today's gospel passage are about getting into heaven. In truth, Matthew uses the term in place of Mark's "kingdom of God" because he is a good Jew who prefers to speak indirectly of God. We can still do the same thing today. When someone says, "O thank heaven," we don't think they are thanking a place.

Someone who had no knowledge of Christianity and carefully read the four gospels would probably be surprised to learn that one stereotypical form of Christianity involves beliving in Jesus in order to get to heaven. Jesus says virtually nothing about going to heaven but a great deal about a kingdom that is coming to earth. And he spends much time training his followers in the ways of this kingdom. These ways include radical love that extends to enemies, an embrace of weakness and powerlessness, a call to self-denial, a rejection of violence, and all manner of other behaviors that are at odds with much of the world. It is no wonder that the first name for the Jesus movement was "The Way."

But that Way has degenerated into belief to such a degree that the Church rarely shows the world a radically different way. Christian faith has become as fractured and divided as most everything else in our world, and much of this division is over what to believe rather than how to act, how to live. And when we worry about actions it's often about other people's rather than ours. But how are our actions, our Christ-like lives and Kingdom-shaped communities showing the world a better way?

I've been working on a sermon for next Sunday based on the prophet Amos' warning about a coming famine of the word of God. I wonder if we aren't fulfilling this prophecy, not because God has withdrawn from us but because we won't listen. We simply won't do the things Jesus tells us to do.

There's a famous quote attributed to Gandhi that he may never actually have said. "I like your Christ but I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." Regardless of its accuracy, it surely is an apt description of "Christians" who are starved for the actual Word of God, who have somehow never heard Jesus calling them to follow him on the peculiar and radical Way that he lives and teaches. No wonder the Church is struggling in our culture. It is in the depths of a spiritual famine.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon: Plumb Lines, Measuring Sticks, and Idolaty

Amos 7:7-17 (Luke 10:25-37)

Plumb Lines, Measuring Sticks, and Idolatry

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 10, 2016

I recently stumbled upon the website of an innovative, urban, Presbyterian Church in another city. Its homepage said simply, “Recess. Closed for Sunday Worship: July 3 & 10,” with a link where you could “Learn More.” There it spoke of  “an active pause… essentially, a sabbath for the system.”[1] There were online liturgies available, but no church.

I was intrigued, and so I showed it to a group of colleagues at a pastor lunch a few weeks ago. One pastor, who shall remain nameless, immediately said, “O how wonderful to be closed on July 3^rd and not to have to worry about worshipping the flag.”

The connection to July Fourth had escaped me, perhaps because I’ve never been part of a church where people in uniform march the flag around during worship. I’m thankful to live in this country and happy to share my thanks in worship, but hopefully we never forget that we gather to worship God, that our ultimate allegiance is to our Lord, Jesus Christ.

I hope that, but letting other things get between us and God seems to be a chronic human problem. We don’t usually construct altars or golden calves, but we have all manner of things we honor, serve, or give loyalty to other than God. It is not unusual for them to be well ahead of God on our priority lists. And by definition, whatever sits at the top of the list is our god.

These gods may be security, wealth, power, nation, family, our political views, or simply self-indulgence. Regardless of the god, people will try to enlist their religion for support. People who worship money may say, “God wants you to be rich.” Racists, homophobes, and Islamophobes imagine a god who hates those they hate. More subtly, those of us who worship at the altar of consumerism may think of faith or spirituality as one more item for our shopping carts. Jesus is not our Lord, our God, but an element of our actual faith, one which promises us happiness and fulfillment if we have enough of all the right things.

The theological term for all this is idolatry, and Presbyterian tradition has long spoken of it as a fundamental human problem. The Presbyterian Book of Order includes this line in its list of the key themes of our theology: “The recognition of the human tendency to idolatry and tyranny, which calls the people of God to work for the transformation of society by seeking justice and living in obedience to the Word of God.”[2] People sometimes imagine that faith is a private, personal thing, but our tradition never has.

Jesus didn’t either. After all, Jesus said he came to proclaim the Kingdom of God, and there’s nothing private or “spiritual” about that. The ways of this kingdom were a stark contrast to the kingdom of Caesar, and so it’s no surprise that Jesus eventually drew the ire of Roman authorities.

In our scripture today, the prophet Amos draws the ire of Israel’s authorities. He says nasty things about Israel’s rulers right there in the national cathedral. It’s not like the National Cathedral in DC. It’s more like Westminster Abbey in England, a place where kings were crowned, a place built by a king. The high priest is clearly on the payroll, and he orders Amos out, telling him, “Never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."

The priest’s faux pas, his idolatry, is too obvious. The king’s sanctuary? The kingdom’s temple? Really? Isn’t it God’s?

Cleansing Our Temples

Yesterday's gospel reading includes the famous story of Jesus "cleansing" the Temple. Jesus gets so riled up that he's turning over tables and flinging chairs, but I'm not entirely certain what has Jesus so upset. The only things specifically mentioned, "money changers" and "those  who sold doves," don't seem all that troublesome. They were simply accommodations to the many pilgrims who arrived after long journeys and needed an animal for sacrifice or to convert Roman coins into those used in the Temple. I'm not sure it was all that different from churches selling books or having credit card kiosks for those who no longer carry checks.

Regardless, Jesus goes ballistic at the Temple, which has left me pondering how he might react if he walked into a typical American church some Sunday morning. Are there things that would infuriate him so that he started throwing offering plates and ripping down sanctuary banners?

Jesus' upset is clearly not directed at Judaism in general. He regularly visited synagogues on the Sabbath, and while he gets into verbal tussles with some leaders over Sabbath healings and such, he never starts messing with the synagogue furniture or decorations.

This is something of an over-simplification, but the synagogues of Jesus' day gave rise to the rabbinical Judaism that is still around today. This form of the faith was more focused on following scripture and less focused on ritual. Priests and sacrifices were not a part of synagogue activities. Priestly Judaism was mostly confined to the Temple, a magnificent structure built by Herod the Great as a replacement for Solomon's Temple destroyed by the Babylonians centuries earlier. Priestly Judaism would largely disappear after the Romans destroyed this latter Temple only a few decades after Jesus caused a ruckus there.

The Church that emerged in the century following the first Easter probably looked more like synagogue than temple, but when the Church later became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it brought back more and more of the temple. Over the centuries there have been all manner of combinations and permutations. Some congregations and denominations lean more toward synagogue, other toward temple, but probably a majority feature some mix of the two.

And that brings me back to my pondering about what it was that got Jesus so worked up that day in the Temple. It must be more than helping pilgrims exchange Roman coins or buy a dove, which was happening in the courtyard and not the Temple proper. Surely it had something to do with service to God getting lost in the process of doing the rituals, maintaining the institution, and performing the required religious duties for good standing before God.

After all, this is the same Jesus who earlier taught, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." Going through the motions, doing institutional religion just right, is not what it means to be part of God's new day.

So what must Jesus think of our synagogue/temple hybrids. Surely there is much in most of our churches that isn't about doing God's will. That many people think of "going to church" as a primary mark of faith sounds a little temple-like, a little Lord, Lord-like, to me.

How about your synagogue/temple hybrid? Are there temple-like elements that could use a bit of cleaning?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon video: Learning To See

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Learning to See

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Learning To See

James Sledge                                                                                                   June 26, 2016

A distinctive feature of Presbyterians is that we ordain not only pastors or teaching elders, but also ruling elders and deacons. All three take the very same ordination vows, plus a vow specific to each ministry area. Because they are ordained or “set apart,” deacons and ruling elders are also required to have training and to be examined “as to their personal faith; knowledge of the doctrine, government, and discipline contained in the Constitution of the church; and the duties of the ministry.”[1]

As part of this training, elders and deacons here at FCPC utilize an online video series that includes a helpful study guide. We also ask them to write a personal faith statement, and one of those study guides provides helps for this. It lists a number of faith topics and then asks people  to complete “I believe…” statements about each one. People jot down thoughts on what they believe about God, sin, Church, humanity, scripture, and so on, the sort of things you might expect someone to include in a personal faith statement or creed. But one of the belief topics initially struck me as a bit odd: “End times.”

End times. This in the study guide of a very Presbyterian, academically oriented, video. At first I planned to skim the topic in training. I was never asked about end times when I was going through the ordination process for pastor. Surely this was something of a fringe topic.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how important the topic actually is. If Church leaders do not have a picture of what God is up to in the world, of the future that God will bring, how can we show the world the hope of God’s new day? When Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” he could do so because he had a clear sense of God’s purposes, of where history is ultimately headed.

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I wonder if being able to see God’s purposes and ends isn’t a part of today’s story about Elijah, Elisha, fiery horses, and chariot. I’m thinking of the part where Elisha asks Elijah to inherit a “double share” of his spirit. That request may not be what you think. A “double share” was the inheritance typically given the eldest son who would carry on the family lineage. Elisha is asking that he be successor, the one to continue Elijah’s ministry.

Elijah gives a strange answer to this request. It depends. It depends on whether or not Elisha has learned how to see things that are not earthly but heavenly. It depends on Elisha knowing how to see beyond the sphere of human activity and glimpse the work of the divine.

Sermon video from June 19: From Despair to "Go"

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: From Despair to "Go"

1 Kings 19:1-16

From Despair to “Go”

James Sledge                                                                                       June 19, 2016

Many of you recently took a lengthy, online survey known as the Congregational Assessment Tool or CAT. Thanks to the large numbers who participated, we got a lot of great information about our congregation. The Session, the governing council of our church, received a lengthy report with all sort of statistics and charts and graphs. It’s a little overwhelming, which is why we weren’t simply given the report. It was interpreted to us for nearly three hours by people who have been trained in understanding and utilizing these reports. Even then it was a bit overwhelming, and we’re still grappling with just how to follow-up and utilize all this information in moving forward.

During that initial presentation, one of interpreters told us that he had spoken with a consultant at the company that owns and administers the CAT, who said that based on our survey data, we appeared to be a congregation  that was “sitting on ‘Go.’ ”  We have great resources and energy, a vital congregation ready to do great things but, in some ways, we are sitting at the starting gate, sitting on “Go.”

I should add that those interpreters also said that our report was one of the better ones they had seen among the many Presbyterian congregations in this area who have taken the CAT. The comment about sitting on “Go” wasn’t a “Here’s what’s wrong with you” statement. Rather it was a call for a strong, solid congregation to explore where we should go and what we should do to fulfill the potential that’s just waiting to be tapped.

But where to go? What to do? What is it God expects of us right now? These are difficult questions at any time, but we live in a time of great uncertainty and great challenges for the Church. We live in a time when the world seems to brim with hate and fear and violence. How are we to comfort and support LGBTQ sisters and brothers after an attack on what many of them consider a sanctuary, a safe place? How are we to love those who have so often been the victims of the world’s and the church’s hate?

How are we to love Muslim brothers and sisters in this time when Donald Trump and others use them a political punching bags? How are we to show Christ-like love to those who are hated and condemned because terrorists claim to be followers their faith?

What are we to do, where are we to go in response to never ending gun violence in this country? What is God calling us to be and do in the face of cold cynicism that says, “Nothing is ever going to change.”?

I confess that right now, I do not know what to do. I feel numb, dejected, at times hopeless. I may even feel a new sense of kinship with the prophet Elijah, who is so dejected and hopeless that he is ready to give up.

Thoughts and Prayers, Hand Wringing, and Faithlessness

I posted my own, brief prayer on Facebook yesterday after learning of the shooting in Orlando, and I’ve shared a few posts from others that moved or touched me. But I confess that I’m a bit tired of well-crafted prayers proliferating on my social media pages. At some point it starts to feel like a prayer competition. No doubt most these prayers are heartfelt and helpful to many, but I’ve seen so many of them in recent years.

At the same time that thoughts and prayers have begun to grate on me, I am far beyond that with American society. I grew up in “the country” and learned to shoot and hunt, but no hunter needs a military assault rifle. And in this supposedly “Christian nation,” people quote the Second Amendment as though it were sacred writ. But it’s only an amendment to a constitution that has needed correction many times over its slightly more two centuries of existence.

This “sacred” document originally approved of slavery, denied women the vote, and didn’t allow the people to elect the senators from their state. Yet many, including many who say they are Christian, quote “the right to bear arms” as though is was to be found in the Ten Commandments. They insist on “my rights” while ignoring Jesus’ command to deny oneself and to put the need of the other, even of the enemy, above oneself.

I wonder what Jesus thinks of the odd mix of “thoughts and prayers” combined with the near certainty that no meaningful measures to curb gun violence will be enacted, that “rights” matter more than people’s lives. This is what he said to his followers over their failure to heal someone in desperate need. "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you?” What must he think of us?

But I’m not just annoyed and frustrated with other “Christians.” I feel certain Jesus includes me among the perverse. When the disciples ask Jesus why they had been unable to heal the person he answers, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you."

Sometimes I feel like I belong to the Church of the Holy Hand-Wringing. We can drone on and one, making endless statements about the need for this measure or that. We are well versed in passing resolutions that almost no one pays any attention to, but we’re not much on telling mountains to move. We’re far too rational and timid ever to say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you…” I’m far too rational and timid.

In the New Testament letter of James, there are these words on faith. “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” I fear that my own “thoughts and prayers” are a version of “Go in peace…”

I am not at all certain how to ratchet up my faith so that it is alive. Perhaps I suffer from the same affliction I’ve often diagnosed as ailing my and other Mainline denominations. I know a lot about God, but I do not really know God in a deep and meaningful way. I do not experience God’s presence significantly enough to trust God’s ways and God’s power over the ways and power I know from living in the world.

While I’m uncertain about specifics, clearly I need to work on experiencing God, on letting the Spirit touch me and guide me. A hurting world needs something more tangible and alive than my thoughts and prayers.

Click to learn more about the lectionary. 

Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

Looking over today's passage from 1 Kings 21:1-21, it is hard to avoid connecting it to this political season. The story is about greed, but even more, it is a story about abuse of power. The story starts out simply enough. King Ahab would like to buy Naboth's vineyard which adjoins his property. He offers to give him another vineyard or to give him cash. Seems reasonable.

But there is a problem. The land is ancestral. This is more than a
matter of sentiment. In Israel, ancestral land was understood to be held in trust. This was part of the commandments Moses had given Israel. There was even a provision in the Law where ancestral land that had somehow been sold or lost would revert to the family every 50 years, in the Jubilee year.

Naboth's refusal to sell is an act of faithfulness to God's law, an act to ensure his family is provided for in the future. The story makes note of this twice, but Ahab makes no mention of it when he mopes and tells his wife of his "problem." Ahab, as king, is supposed to be one who upholds the Law. Even more, he is supposed to be a shepherd who watches over the people, especially those who are vulnerable. Yet he gives no thought to that at all.

Ahab is already wealthy. Surely that should make him able to keep his priorities straight. Without real financial worries, surely he is free to attend to the needs of his flock. But of course that is not how wealth tends to work. Very often, those with wealth seem preoccupied with it, with protecting what they have and with gaining more. There are notable exceptions, but far from freeing wealthy to care for those with less, it often makes them more callous. Clearly that is the case with Ahab.

We don't have kings in our day, but our leaders are often wealthy. Indeed as the costs of running for public office grow ever higher, our "shepherds" are more and more likely to be people of wealth. And if not, they are heavily dependent on people of wealth to provide the funds needed to run.

If rulers and leaders are supposed to be shepherds, we who are Christians have a ready made way to judge the shepherd-like qualities of office holders and those running for office. We say that Jesus is the "Good Shepherd," yet even among voters who say faith is important to them, the candidates we support and elect often look very little like Jesus. Even Bernie Sanders, who often did look more shepherd-like in his stances, has seemed to me a bit too filled with hubris and a sense of self-importance of late. And Donald Trump... Even his most ardent supporters are not likely to suggest he exhibits many Christ-like qualities.

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We live in a time when income inequality is growing, when those at the bottom are struggling while those at the top are doing remarkably well. It is the sort of time that often caused Israel's prophets to blast their leaders as bad shepherds who failed to watch over and care for the most vulnerable. So how can we who follow the prophet Jesus not be appalled at the problems facing the poor in our day?

I wonder if it is even possible for us to use Jesus as a measuring stick for our political candidates. Politics has become such a strange game in our country. And the country has become so bitterly divided. Still, I wonder what sort of judgements we might make if we thought of every political office, from US President to school board member, to be the office of Good Shepherd. Would it make any difference?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon video: Getting To Know God

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Uncomfortable Jesus

Today's gospel passage is one of those uncomfortable ones. Jesus first ignores a Canaanite woman's request for his help. When she is insistent, he calls her a "dog." This isn't the Jesus of Sunday School class artwork, smiling and friendly. This Jesus is unsettling.

The gospel writers have reasons for telling this story that typically get missed when it is read without its context, but that's not what I'm interested in today. Today I'm simply wondering about its uncomfortable and unsettling quality, along with our usual desire quickly to dispense with such discomfort.

There are more and less sophisticated ways of dealing with the discomfort. Some suggest that "dog" is somehow a term of endearment, which it is not. I'm more inclined to find some fancy exegetical move that's not so easily dismissed. But I wonder why we are not willing to sit with an uncomfortable and disturbing image of Jesus for a bit.

This passage is uncomfortable because it is contrary in some way to our existing pictures of Jesus. Perhaps that is simply because we've misunderstood the story. But if we move too quickly to provide and understanding that relieves our discomfort, we may simply be protecting our existing image. And that may get in the way of knowing Jesus more deeply.

All growth requires some measure of discomfort. If one is trying to grow stronger or increase her stamina, that discomfort will be physical. If one is hoping to grow emotionally or spiritually, the discomfort will be of another sort. Many of us seem easily to recognize the need for physical discomfort in pursuit of physical growth, even though it still dissuades many an exercise program. But when it comes to emotional or spiritual discomfort, we don't always make the connection.

This happens to me sometimes when I'm reading a book on faith or spirituality. I may be enjoying the book, nodding in agreement here and there, but then the writer steps on a deeply held article of my theology. Suddenly the author is diminished in my sight. Clearly he doesn't know what he's talking about. If, however, all my deeply held beliefs are unassailable, then I can never really move far from where I am, never really grow in any profound way.

That's precisely the problem that some religious authorities had with Jesus. When Jesus said something that made them uncomfortable, they immediately assumed he was wrong. It's a pose many Christians in our time assume whenever they encounter a notion about faith, a way of doing church, or an understanding of Jesus that doesn't fit neatly with what they already "know." (Today's gospel passage about Jesus and the Canaanite woman is actually part of a larger section dealing with the certainties of tradition.)

Very often when we try to get rid of discomfort - whether by explaining why Jesus didn't really insult the Canaanite woman or deciding a spiritual author is no count - it is a fearful act of self protection. Most of us have an almost innate need to defend ourselves, to preserve the identities we have constructed for ourselves, to be right. I know that I certainly do.

Interestingly, Jesus doesn't act this way with the Canaanite woman. He first says that he was sent "only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," that, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." But when the woman challenges his analogy, saying that "even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table," Jesus does not defend his earlier statements. He applauds the woman's faith and does as she requested. An enacted lesson for us perhaps?

I wonder if Jesus' command to love our enemies isn't a way of challenging us to do some really difficult and uncomfortable self-examination. After all, our enemies are most often those we disagree with, who we fear and are most likely to react to in defensive ways. But loving them requires seeing them differently. And it likely requires painful growth of becoming different ourselves.

Jesus told is such growth would be painful. He spoke of it as dying to self. No wonder faith, even Christian faith that is supposed to be about loving God and neighbor, so often degenerates into hating those who disagree with us.

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Sermon video from May 29: Limping between Gods

Audios of sermons and worship can be found on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Getting To Know God

1 Kings 17:8-24

Getting to Know God

James Sledge                                                                                                   June 5, 2016

What does it mean to be the Church? Ask a hundred people and you might get a hundred different answers. No doubt there would be a lot of overlap, but there would probably be a good deal of variety and disagreement.

What if I instead asked, What does it mean to be the body of Christ? It’s just a different version of the original question, but I suspect that it shifts the answers somewhat.

Thinking of the Church as the living body of Christ reminds us that we’re called to respond to situations and events and people in the same way that Jesus would. I always thought those old, “What Would Jesus Do?” wristbands were hokey, but they did capture a truth about Church, that we are called to see things as Jesus did and respond as he did. And because Jesus is the human face of God, that means to see and respond as God does.

Of course, a deep knowledge and understanding of Jesus, of God, especially since there’re no gospel stories about whether to raise the minimum wage, provide universal health care, or about how many Syrian refugees to take in. Yet a lot of us Christians – and this is true for liberals, conservatives, and everywhere in between – tend to picture Jesus lining up neatly with what we think are our best and noblest and most deeply held convictions. We may even have a few supporting Bible verses, but our images of Jesus are very often constructed on an incredibly small about of data.

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Sermon: Limping between Gods

1 Kings 18:20-39

Limping between Gods

James Sledge                                                                                       May 29, 2016

If you were among the participants in the weekday Bible study on the book of Revelation, you may recall that it is a badly misunderstood work. It does not predict the end of the world. It is not meant to be frightening but to encourage people who were already frightened, who lived in a time when it was difficult, even dangerous, to be Christians.

Revelation is addressed to seven churches in what is today Turkey. Each church’s strengths or weaknesses are mentioned, their need to hold fast to their faith or to deal with some problem. But the seventh is addressed differently. “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

The writer of Revelation seems to have a special disdain for the church at Laodicea. Embrace the faith or don’t. None of this half in, half out business. And in their lukewarm ways, the Laodiceans seem to mirror the Israelites in this morning’s Old Testament reading.

Like Revelation, Old Testament books such as 1 Kings are also misunderstood, if for different reasons. They tend to be viewed as historical works, reports of “what happened,” but 1 Kings is primarily theological reflection. It seeks to understand how God’s chosen people, rescued from slavery in Egypt and brought into the land of promise, could have ended up with Jerusalem and its Temple destroyed, the Ark of the Covenant gone, people carried off into exile in Babylon. And even when they finally returned home, there was no return to the glory days of King David. They were an unimportant, insignificant speck in some other nations’s empire. How could that be?

The writers and editors of 1 Kings look back over Israel’s history  in an effort to give an answer. And so while they do tell a history, questions of “what happened?” are always secondary to questions of “Why?”

Sermon: Waiting and Praying

Acts 2:1-21

Waiting and Praying

James Sledge                                                                           May 15, 2016 – Pentecost

Imagine for a moment that some significant challenge faces your department at work, a group you’re a part of, maybe even your church congregation. Maybe your company’s sales have been hurt by online shopping. Maybe an organization you belong to wants to find a new way of fundraising, but doesn’t know where to start. Maybe your congregation is worried about Millennials not going to church and wonders how to respond.

Regardless of what sort of challenge it is you imagine or actually face, what are some of ways you might go about meeting the challenge? Perhaps form a task force or ad hoc committee? Maybe hire a consultant? Perhaps give the congregation an online survey to provide data for strategic planning.

In the weeks following the very first Easter, the little congregation of Jesus followers faced huge challenges. Many of the 120 or so of them still weren’t entirely sure what the resurrection meant. They had asked Jesus if he was going to restore Israel to power, but he said such things were not for them to know. They were, however, responsible for being his witnesses throughout all the world. Quite the challenge for a little congregation of 120.

Almost none of them had any leadership experience. Many of them had lived in the same place their entire lives. What did they know about going into all the world? Time to form a task force or hire a church growth expert. But they don’t do any of those things. In fact, by my typical way of thinking, they don’t do much of anything. They wait, and they pray.

Over the years, first as an elder on a church session and later as a pastor, I’ve had numerous opportunities to be a part of church or presbytery committees and councils dealing with problems large and small. And though it pains me to say it, I’ve often found myself frustrated by others in these groups who wanted to stop, to wait, to pray.

By nature I tend to be impatient. On top of that, I’m the product of a culture that values production, efficiency, and accomplishment. And it is hard to be productive or efficient or accomplish anything when you are waiting, when you are praying. Yet the explosion of the Christian faith all over the Mediterranean world, surely one of the great accomplishments of history, happened only after waiting and praying. The work was not something that little congregation could do by itself. It could only happen with the power of God, the Holy Spirit working through them, a story that begins at Pentecost.

Sermon video: A Way of Deliverance and Liberation

Audios of worship and sermons available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: A Way of Deliverance and Liberation

Acts 16:16-34

A Way of Deliverance and Liberation

James Sledge                                                                                       May 8, 2016

If you were in worship last week, you heard Diane preach about when Lydia met the Apostle Paul at Philippi. Paul had gone out from the city on the Sabbath, looking for a place of prayer. There he met Lydia, and she and all her household were baptized. She then opened her home to Paul, and presumably he and his companions stayed with her during their time in Philippi.

If you were in worship last week, or on any number of other occasions when Diane preached, you heard her close our worship by speaking of Christians as a people sent into the world. She charged us to go out into the world saying, “Consider that wherever you go this week, God is sending you there.”

I wonder if Paul discovered something about this sort of sending in the events of our scripture for today. The story is really a part of that reading from last week were Lydia met Paul and on beyond today’s passage. The story begins when a vision convinced Paul he was sent to Macedonia and its leading city, Philippi. Initially, the story played out along the lines Paul likely expected. He probably set up shop in the city to ply his trade, traditionally thought to be tentmaker, where he would talk to those he met in the marketplace.

On the Sabbath, Paul had gone out to find that place of prayer. There along the river just outside the city, Paul spoke to the worshipers he found there. Lydia was moved by the Spirit, the Church gained a new convert, and Lydia opened her home to Paul.

 But then, on another day, Paul headed to the same place of prayer where he had met Lydia and met someone else. More to the point, an unnamed slave girls seems to have met him. The story says that she had a spirit of divination, and because of this possession, she recognizes Paul’s connection to God. She senses the Holy Spirit in him, and begins to follow Paul and his companions around, announcing, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation,” or “deliverance” or even “liberation.”

Perhaps Paul enjoyed the attention at first, especially when he learned about her how people paid her owners (literally “her lords”) for oracles she would speak. Surely her words would confer a bit of prestige on Paul with the locals. But after days of this, Paul was getting more and more annoyed. Curiously, Paul never seems to consider that he might be sent to this slave girl, to proclaim to her a way of deliverance or liberation. Yet when Paul can stand her no more, he heals her in a fit of pique. “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And immediately it was so.

By Their Fruits

Growing up Presbyterian, I got a good introduction to the Bible, and so I knew about the Ascension at a fairly young age. However I was totally oblivious to any celebration of a Day of Ascension, which happens to be today (in case you haven't yet learned of it as I eventually did). But in keeping with my upbringing, I'm reflecting on the gospel reading from Matthew in the daily lectionary rather than the Luke passage that is the gospel lection for Ascension of the Lord.

Interestingly, both readings conclude their respective gospels. But if Luke ends with Jesus telling the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit, followed by his ascension, Matthew concludes with Jesus sending the disciples out via what is often called "The Great Commission." These words are often cited as a call to evangelism, but such evangelism frequently strikes me as paying scant attention to the content of Jesus' commission.

A great deal of evangelism in America has focused on "accepting Jesus," and on "believing in him." There are certainly New Testament passages that seem to emphasize faith or belief, but this Great Commission in Matthew is not one of them. There is nothing here about believing and being saved. Instead Jesus says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." The emphasis is on making disciples, something done by baptizing and by teaching people "to obey everything that I have commanded you."

This call to obedience is how Jesus urges his followers to build his Church. That won't happen from signing up believers or adherents, but by making disciples or followers. And those commandments Jesus says these new disciple must obey include all that fun stuff about loving enemies, not retaliating against those who injure you, not swearing oaths on Bibles or anything else, the impossibility of serving wealth and God, not judging others, denying oneself, forgiving others over and over and over. And the list goes on and one.

Within all those commands, Jesus speaks more than once about a trees and their fruit. Trees, and people it seems, are known by the quality of their fruits. Consider the things the church in America is known for. The list is a mixed bag. It includes feeding the hungry, volunteering at homeless shelters, doing beautiful and uplifting worship, operating health clinics, settling refugee families, and more. But it also includes very public fights over everything from sanctuary carpet colors and worship songs to questions about whether to ordain women or gays. It includes preachers calling for violence against Muslims and carrying concealed weapons for self-defense. (See Jesus' command about "all who take the sword...") It includes "bathroom bills," disingenuously labeled "religious freedom bills," and every manner of discrimination and hate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

If you were able to take a poll of all non-Christians in America, asking them what "fruits" they associated with Christianity and the Church, I wonder which sort of fruits would top the list. My fear is that they would not be sort Jesus taught. That suggests to me that we need to re-embrace the Great Commission. I'm not talking about trying to "evangelize" people. Our fruits are already publicly proclaiming our faith, for better or worse. I'm talking about seriously embracing  Jesus' call to teach each other to "obey everything" he has commanded. If we did that, we'd never have to convince anyone about Jesus.

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Anxiety, Gap Year, and Sabbath

I assume that by now you have heard about Malia Obama's college choice, and also that she plans to take a "gap year" before attending. Both have been widely reported, including articles on the topic of gap years prompted by Ms. Obama's decision.

(Total aside: Why do reputable publications such as The Washington Post have a "Comments" section accompanying their articles on this or any topic? They seem to serve no real purpose other than empowering trolls. And the fact that we currently have a presidential candidate who sounds like a comment section come to life only adds to my concern about a fourth estate that has lost its vocational bearings. But enough venting for now.)

Gap year, or at least the term, was unknown to me until recently. I suppose there have long been students who chose to hike across Europe or work for a year prior to college, but my admittedly scant knowledge on gap years suggests this is a bit different. The sort of gap year engaged in by well-off suburbanites is likely not available to those of more modest means. Then again, the very idea seems a response to the over-scheduled, overly competitive, enrichment filled lives of many well-off, suburbanite youth.

The church I serve sits in a community that epitomizes well-off suburbia. My own children were grown prior to my arrival here, but here seems an only slightly amplified version of where they went to high school. That means that it feels slightly more tense and anxious . The pressures to measure up, excel, get into a good school, etc. are more intensified in this tense region surrounding our nation's capital.

Enter the gap year. In some versions, such years are no doubt as over-scheduled and competitive and enrichment-filled as was middle and high school. But at a more fundamental level, surely the gap year is an attempt to take a break from all that, from all the activity and competition and anxiety.

Understood thus, a gap year strikes me as a version of Sabbath. Because Sabbath became so connected to worship, a great many people, whether or not they are church-goers, seem unaware that Sabbath was originally about rest rather than worship. It was a command to stop, to cease. And it applied to everyone, even one's farm animals. If ever there was a piece of anti-anxiety legislation, surely the Fourth Commandment is one. (or Third Commandment, depending on your tradition).

I've told the following story so many times I've likely shared it here, but I'm an over-sharer when it comes to good stories. I heard this one from a colleague who related her experience attending some sort of ecumenical, clergy gathering. As with other other lines of work, pastors will "talk shop" when you put them together. On this occasion they began discussing what day each took off, a peculiar concern for pastors who typically "work" on Sunday.

As those gathered debated the relative merits of Friday versus Monday, one pastor objected to the very topic itself. "I never take a day off," he said. "The devil never takes a day off!"

To which my colleague replied, "But God does." (If you don't get her retort, read the first Creation story from the Bible's opening, Genesis 1:1-2:4.)

I've never fully understood it, but religious people can be remarkably anxious. Especially for Christians, who claim that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God and God's love, such anxiousness seems totally at odds with our faith. If God is indeed sovereign, as we Calvinists love to claim, then how could the world possibly spin out of control just because I took the day off? Never mind what the devil does or doesn't do.

The notion of Sabbath insists that life, in all its intended abundance, cannot occur in a state of constant anxiety. God commands a "gap day" for each week to break our tendency to pursue endless cycles of anxiety. Our culture has become particularly practiced at this. We have learned to quantify almost everything, and then we are able to worry about whether or not we have enough. Inevitably, we need more. We need more money, more power, better grades, more efficiency, more experiences, more accomplishments, more fitness, more sleep, more, more, more.

My old running watch recently broke and needed to be replaced. The old one told me basic info runners like to know: how far I've gone, my pace, and my heart rate. But the new watch does so much more. It has functions popularized by Fitbits and can track my steps and my sleep. If I wear it all night, it tells me not only how many hours of sleep I got but also how many of those hours were "deep sleep." And it color codes both to let me know when I'm deficient, where I need more. Now I can add anxiety about sleep to my others.

There is much in the world over which to be anxious. Neither I nor the Bible advocate a "What me worry?" attitude toward life. But our worries and anxieties are definitely something we need less of and not more. So where do we find our break, our gap, our Sabbath?

Most of us cannot manage a gap year, but we can cultivate practices of cessation, of stopping, of not measuring or marking anything. We can cultivate the spiritual practice of rest, of simply being, of Sabbath. Call it whatever you like, but what many of us need in our lives is to take a break from our culture's dominant focus on consumerism and acquisition. We desperately need a gap in such activities. God has said so from the beginning.

Sermon: Transformed by Love

John 13:31-35

Transformed by Love

James Sledge                                                                                       April 24, 2016

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” But exactly how new is this commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself is in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. And haven’t parents been trying to get siblings to love one another since the beginning of time? Isn’t a mom yelling, “Why can’t you two just get along?” an exasperated version of “Love one another!”?

At first glance, this command to love one another also seems a lot less noble, a lot less impressive than some of Jesus’ other commands such as, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Now that’s an extraordinary accomplishment, surely something much more difficult than loving those around you, than loving one another.

Then again, “one another” presumably refers to those we spend a lot of time with, those who have ample opportunities to annoy us, hurt us, disagree with us, get under out skin, and disappoint us. And if our enemy is nameless and faceless, some group way over there, they may not stir our emotions nearly so much as that family member we can’t abide, or that member of the congregation who seems to go out of his or her way to be difficult and cause trouble

There’s an old Peanuts cartoon that I think captures this well. (I’ve updated the language a bit.) Lucy has told Linus that he can’t be a doctor because he doesn’t love humankind. Linus yells back, “I love humankind… It’s people I can’t stand!!”

Humanity… nameless, faceless others in general, even some who are enemies, perhaps we can love them on principle. But those people that we encounter on a regular basis, who irritate and annoy and cause us all manner of problems… that’s another matter entirely. “Love one another,” may not sound all that noble or impressive, but doing it isn’t very easy.

That doesn’t really make it a new commandment though. What is new about love one another?

Strange Blessings

As a pastor, it is not unusual for me to hear people speak of their blessings. They may comment to me that they have been "blessed," usually referring to tangible things they appreciate such as possessions, wealth, position, children, etc. In prayers people sometimes refer to their "many blessing," often with similar meaning. What I've never heard is someone including the items on Jesus' list in today's gospel passage, one usually labeled "The Beatitudes."

These Beatitudes (from the Latin for "blessing") have suffered from a fair amount of trivializing over the years. They frequently get referred to as the "Be Happy Attitudes," as though Jesus was here offering some tips for self-improvement or success. But any self help guru who suggested mourning, anguished longing for the world to be set right, or persecution as a prescription for happiness would not last long in that role.

Jesus/God clearly has different priorities than most of us do. Jesus has little interest in possessions, and he regularly invites people to leave what they have behind and follow him. Many of the things we call blessings involve acquisition and getting, but Jesus says that the path to life goes through giving, self-denial, and concern for "the other."

My own Calvinist tradition is largely responsible for the so-called "Protestant work ethic." In its origins it equated hard work and success with signs that you were a member of God's "elect." Yet Jesus' beatitudes speak of God's favor being on people most of us would not list as paragons of success. And in Luke's gospel, a similar set of beatitudes says, "Blessed are you who are poor..." And it later adds, "But woe to you who are rich..." The same pattern follows for those who are "hungry" and those who are "full." Not sure how that fits into a hard work + success = God's blessing.

Our culture often blames those who are poor for their fate. They are presumed to be lazy or without initiative. Yet God seems to be quite taken with the poor. It's a theme that recurs regularly in Old and New Testaments. Whether that poverty is spiritual or literal, God looks with favor on those who are too often despised for their "failings." And I'm pretty sure that Jesus' teachings are encouraging us see things more from God's point of view.

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Left to Our Own Devices

Today's lectionary gospel reading features John the Baptist calling people to prepare for the coming Messiah. According to John, getting ready involves a change of direction or mind, repentance. That got me wondering about what sort of repentance is required for me or a congregation to embrace Jesus fully. This wondering was intensified because I had been thinking about an upcoming sermon that deals with miracles.

The context for my wondering is a secular mindset in a secular age. The stories of the Bible, of Jesus, of healings and miracles do not sit easily in our world. I'm not Thomas Jefferson, taking a razor and carefully removing all the miracle stories associated with Jesus in order to produce a pure collection of Jesus' teachings without foolish superstitions about demons and evil spirits and healings and exorcisms. But I do struggle with miracles. When I hear of a televangelist or other religious figure offering healings or other miracles, I assume he or she is a con and a fraud.

But do such secular assumptions create problems for following Jesus? Is there a change of mind, a repentance required of me and those like me if I am to be properly oriented for following Jesus?

I'm unsure of the exact connection, but the rise of a secular worldview seems to parallel the development of individualism. In its best forms this has encouraged everyone to recognize his or her own intrinsic value and worth. In its worst forms it has transformed us into free agents, each of us responsible for self alone, no overriding loyalties, allegiances, debts, or commitments. If one is wealthy, it is because she had done well for herself. If one is poor, it is because he has done poorly.

The message of Jesus certainly seems compatible with notions of intrinsic value and worth for every individual. But it seems totally at odds with being free agents. In the alternative community Jesus proclaims, there are profound commitments and obligations to the neighbor, to the other. And Jesus expands the neighborhood to include outsiders and enemies. It is a worldview that allows Jesus to die for the sake of others, even for enemies.

But central to Jesus' proclamation is the certainty that the power of God to transform, the bring life out of death, to make all things new, is active and at work in the world. God is shaping things, bending the arc of history toward particular outcomes. And if the power of God is at work in the world, then surely miracles must at least be a possibility.

Possibility and control are two very different things, and I suspect that much modern skepticism around religious miracles has roots in issues of control. Think of televangelists who offer healing for a donation or, more commonly, the notion of being healed if you pray hard enough or have sufficient faith. This is less about the power of God moving in surprising and life giving ways and more about formulas to harness such power. And one thing the Bible makes clear over and over is that the God of Jacob, the God we meet in Jesus, will not be harnessed. The God of Sinai and of the cross is radically wild and free.

But if God will not be harnessed, what does it mean to follow this Jesus who could trust his very life to the power of God to make new and give life? Surly it requires, at the very least, being open to the power of God at work in the world. And I'm not always open to such things.

Very often the Christian faith practiced by Presbyterians and other Mainline/Oldline denominations can be a mix of "believing in Jesus" and trying to follow some of his teachings (at least those we like). But this often includes no expectation that anything other than our own devices are involved. We're not inclined to claim any ability to control the power of God. We seem to think that only power involved is the power we possess. At least I often seem to operate from such a point of view.

And that is why I'm wondering about repentance, about a change of mind.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.