Sermon - Seeing, Faith, and Gratitude

Luke 17:11-19
Seeing, Faith, and Gratitude
James Sledge                                                                                                 October 9, 2022

JESUS MAFA,
The Healing of the Ten Lepers

Sarah was feverishly opening the last of her birthday presents. Wrapping paper, bows, and ribbon were everywhere. So were the gifts that had been in the many bags and boxes only a little while earlier. Most anyone who looked in on the scene would have been very impressed with all that Sarah had gotten. That is, everyone but Sarah. As the last gift came out of the box, Sarah looked around and said, “Is that all?” Her mother glared at her in a way that should have frozen her, but still Sarah said, “Are there any more presents?”

Some of the aunts, uncles, and grandparents who had tried hard to find just the right gift for Sarah were obviously bothered by her obvious lack of regard for their gifts. After everyone had left, Sarah’s mother had long talk with her. Sarah had to call everyone who had brought her a gift and apologize for being rude. That was on top of having to write thank-you notes, too.

Sarah was furious. What was the big deal? Everybody had gotten burgers, cake, and ice cream. You have to bring presents when you go to a party. Why did her mom have to get all worked up over it? After all, they were her relatives.

She was still angry when she went to school the next morning. Her friend Danielle asked what was the matter, and Sarah told her about what had happened, and about the punishment she had gotten from her mother.

“How many presents did you get?” Danielle asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ten or twelve.”

“Wow,” said Danielle. “If I had gotten anything close to that I would have been running around the room, jumping up and down, kissing everyone, and yelling ‘Thank you.’”

“What are you talking about?” Sarah asked.

“I only got one present at my birthday,” Danielle responded. My dad lost his job a while back. He’s been working at whatever he can find, but it just isn’t enough to make ends meet, so he couldn’t afford to buy me much. And I don’t have any relatives who live around here. I was afraid I wouldn’t get anything, so I was happy with the one that I got.”

“Oh, I see,” Sarah said rather sheepishly.

Sermon video - Seeing, Faith, and Gratitude (Luke 17:11-19)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website. (Apologies for the video quality. One AV person was on vacation and the other was sick.)

Sermon video - A Little Faith (Luke 17:1-10)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: A Little Faith

Luke 17:1-10
A Little Faith
James Sledge                                                                                      October 2, 2022

As many of you know, the scripture passages that I use for preaching normally come from the lectionary, a list of readings for each Sunday that includes an Old Testament passage, a psalm, an epistle reading, and a gospel reading. The lectionary follows the Christian year, beginning with Advent, and it has a three-year cycle. Year one feature’s Matthew’s gospel, year two Mark, and year three, which we’re in now, Luke. John’s gospel doesn’t get a year but gets interspersed here and there in all three years.

The lectionary that I follow is used by pastors in many Protestant denominations. Its full name is the Revised Common Lectionary which replaced a previous, common lectionary in 1983. The revision was done by a committee of scholars and denominational representatives from the US and Canada, but I don’t know much about how they pick certain texts or how they decide where a reading should start and end.

I mention this because today’s gospel passage seems to start in the middle of a conversation. I told you when I read the passage that I expanded the lectionary limits, going back five verses prior to where the lectionary actually starts. Had I simply followed the lectionary, our gospel reading would have begun, The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"

Increase our faith! Perhaps you’ve had occasion to offer a similar exclamation. Increase my faith! I know that I have. If you’ve ever made that request, what was it that prompted it? Perhaps you were having some sort of faith crisis, or perhaps you were going through some sort of difficult time. But it seems likely that something would precipitate crying out so.

That’s true of the disciples in our reading for today, which is why I added the five verses before the start of the lectionary passage. The disciples aren’t simply asking for stronger faith. They are reacting to what Jesus tells the to do, worried that they won’t be able to do it.

Sermon video: Enacted Prophecy (Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Enacted Prophecy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: God's Strange Economics

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

Cara B. Hochhalter,
A Parable - The Lost Sheep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audios and videos as sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Trading in Our T-shirts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sermon: Living Water and Cracked Cisterns

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

The Prophet Jeremiah
by Marc Chagall

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

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

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

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

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

Vision Problems (Luke 13:10-17)

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Sermon: Vision Problems

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

Back in the 1960s, a student at Y

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Spirituality of Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Generous to Others and God

Luke 12:13-21
Generous to Others and God
James Sledge                                                                                      July 31, 2022

The parable of the rich fool, 1585
print by Ambrosius Francken
Royal Library of Belgium

I’ve likely mentioned this in some past sermon, but many years ago, I saw a bumper sticker on a car that read, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” I’m assuming that whoever created this bumper sticker meant it in a humorous way, but I also assume that the people who would buy such a bumper sticker were the sort who liked their grown-up toys.

The list of grown-up toys is practically endless. Sporting equipment would seem to qualify as toys of sorts. There are people who spends lots of money on tennis rackets, golf clubs, bicycles, running gear (my favorite), snow skis, and so on. There are actual toys such as video games, skateboards, and remote-control drones. And then there are the really expensive toys such as sports cars, boats, motorcycles, ATVs, and the like.

I’ve owned my share of toys over the years. I used to fly fish and water ski a lot. I have a closet full of running shoes. And I’ve had six different motorcycles over the years. These toys have brought enjoyment, thrills, fun, adventure, a sense of accomplishment, and more to my life, but are they the major component of what makes for a full and meaningful life?

To say, “The one who dies with the most toys wins,” even in jest, implies that what gives life fullness and meaning is accumulating things. To a degree, that is the message our consumer culture sends out. Acquiring more will make you happy, content, secure. To which Jesus replies, “… one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

So what does life consist of? If it isn’t an abundance of possessions that is central to life, what is? Another way to ask the question is what does is it mean to be truly alive and fully human?

Sermon: On Prayer (and the Bible)

Luke 11:1-13
On Prayer (and the Bible)
James Sledge                                                                                                 July 24, 2022

Arabic calligraphy of
the Lord's Prayer

Every Sunday in the bulletin, just below the “Prayers of the People,” there are two lists. The first says “prayer concerns,” and the second says “continued prayers.” The first list is where names go when we first learn of an illness or concern, first find out that someone is in the hospital. The second list is for ongoing concerns. These people were on the first list at some point, but we no longer tell the specifics.

I occasionally hear from someone who was on the prayer list, thanking me for the prayers they received. And sometimes these people tell me how they could feel the prayers and how they helped. No doubt most of us have heard a story of someone with a terrible illness who was being prayed for by many who then had an inexplicable and miraculous recovery.

Of course that is often not the case. People on the prayer list, people for whom I and many others have prayed for healing are sometimes not healed at all. Sometimes this seems especially tragic when a young person is sick and dies. Why are some healed and some not? Why does prayer seem to work sometimes and not in others?

Such questions can feel especially poignant and difficult when part of this morning’s scripture is brought to bear. Jesus says, "So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Taken in isolation, these verses might well lead one to think that when prayer doesn’t work it must be the fault of the one doing the praying. Somehow they didn’t say the right words or pray the right way. Perhaps they didn’t have enough faith. There must be some reason that God didn’t respond to those prayers.

Sermon video: On Prayer (and the Bible) (Luke 11:1-13)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Doom and Gloom (Amos 8:1-12)

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Sermon: Doom and Gloom

Amos 8:1-12
Doom and Gloom
James Sledge                                                                                                 July 17, 2022

The Prophet Amos
by Irving Amen (1918-2011)

You may or may not be aware that this congregation recently became part of something called VOICE or Virginias Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement. VOICE is a coalition of around 50 faith communities who work together to address systemic social justice issues in northern Virginia. Getting well connected with VOICE hasn’t been easy during a pandemic, but I think you will be hearing about initiatives we want to get involved with in the future.

Recently another church member and I attended a VOICE meeting that discussed trying to address some of the issues in what is a woefully inadequate Fairfax County mental health system. Even people with means struggle to access any sort of emergency care for a family member experiencing a mental health crisis, and the situation is even more dire for people who are poor.

Among the many things I learned at this meeting is that the rules for the state of Virginia require that any mental health medications for Medicaid patients must be prescribed by a psychiatrist. No prescriptions from general practitioners allowed. But here’s the catch. Not a single psychiatrist in Fairfax County accepts Medicaid patients. Good mental health care is difficult to find for anyone, but if you are poor, it is nearly impossible.

Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring ruin to the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

Sermon video: Forsaking Tribal Gods (2 Kings 5:1-14)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC webpage.

Sermon: Forsaking Tribal Gods

2 Kings 5:1-14
Forsaking Tribal Gods
James Sledge                                                                                     July 3, 2022

Naaman Bathing in the Jordon

Woodcut from the Cologne Bible, 1478-80

 I love July 4^th, patriotic music, and fireworks. I’ve always felt very fortunate to live in the US, and I love all the history that is so much a part of the Washington, DC area. But I’ve never been very comfortable with the intersection of worship and July 4^th. Even in this fairly liberal congregation, I’ve had people get upset that the worship around the 4^th wasn’t patriotic enough.

I once had a colleague who decided to confront such thinking head on. He chose the July 4^th weekend as the Sunday to remove the American flag from the sanctuary, and he preached a sermon on why. It did not go over all that well.

More common is some sort of nod to the holiday by singing a patriotic hymn, making sure to give thanks for the nation in prayer, or, my favorite, putting some 4^th of July illustrations in a sermon that isn’t about the 4^th at all.

My queasiness about bringing July 4^th into worship grows out of two very different ways in which patriotic worship tends to go astray. On the one hand, it easily devolves into worshiping the nation. Worship that it supposed to celebrate and glorify God ends up celebrating and glorifying various aspects of our country.

On the other hand, patriotic worship has a troubling tendency to recast God into to some sort of local, tribal deity who is especially concerned with America. It is all well and good to say, “God bless America,” but that too often carries with it the unspoken caveat, “over and above all others.”

My issues with patriotic worship have always made me deeply appreciative the lectionary’s Old Testament reading for today. Every three years, this passage shows up on the Sunday between July 3^rd and 9^th which means it’s always close to July 4^th. And this passage totally blows up the notion of God as a tribal deity. In fact, it undermines a lot of popular notions of divine power and access to that power.

Sermon video: Lottery Ticket Faith (Luke 9:51-62)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Lottery Ticket Faith

 Luke 9:51-62
Lottery Ticket Faith
James Sledge                                                                                     June 26, 2022

It seems like something of a lost cause, but the Presbyterian Church has long taken a vigorous stand against gambling, including state sponsored gambling such as lotteries. Countless governing bodies of the Church have repeatedly stated that lotteries, usually approved with the promise of additional funding for schools, are the most irresponsible and regressive sorts of government fundraising. Rather than simply requiring the most well off in society to pay for essentials like a good education, the state preys on desperate people who see lotteries and gambling as their best hope out of poverty.

Nevertheless, state after state has passed a lottery, and the state gambling racket continues to grow and multiply. Lotteries have become a part of the American landscape, and even those Presbyterians who ardently worked against their continued spread probably can’t resist the temptation to buy a ticket now and then.

Official Presbyterian policy calls on church members to boycott lotteries and gambling as an article of faith, a matter of principle. Such action is unlikely to change anything, and not many of us are gambling addicts who are personally endangered by lotteries and such. At least I hope that most of you are not the sort of who fill the lottery coffers by buying hundreds of dollars in tickets. Surely not many of you think of the lottery as a good investment. Anyone counting on lottery winnings to get the kids through college, to pay for your retirement, to help you buy your first home, to pay off student loans?  It might be wonderful to win one, but most of us wouldn’t think of entrusting our future to the lottery. And if you do, you have a problem.

Not many of us are going to cash in the life insurance policy, empty the savings account, forego retirement planning or college savings, and bet it all on the lottery. Lottery tickets are something we buy with discretionary money. 

Sermon video: Identity Crisis (Galatians 3:23-29)

Audios and videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Identity Crisis

 Galatians 3:23-29
Identity Crisis
James Sledge                                                                                                 June 19, 2022

The Apostle Paul
Andrei Rublev (1410-20)

 When Christian missionaries began to go to different parts of Africa in the late 1800s, they took more than the good news of Jesus. They also brought with them Western ways. When they started churches among their new converts, they made worship look as much like it did back home as they could manage. They sang Western hymns and imported pianos and pump organs. And they wore black robes regardless of the temperature.

For all intents and purposes, those missionaries said to the people they met, “If you want to be Christian, you must adopt Western ways. No using indigenous musical instruments or existing musical forms. Being Christian meant becoming Western, and of course the Jesus they took with them to Africa was white.

Jesus always gets contextualized and culturized. Christianity began as a Jewish messianic movement, but its forms shifted as it became more and more of a Greco-Roman, Gentile religion. And when the emperor Constantine made Christianity the Roman Empire’s official religion, that religion took on the trappings of empire and power.

So what does it actually mean to be a Christian? What are the identifying marks of a Christian? I know people for whom it isn’t really Christian if it doesn’t include a traditionally shaped sanctuary that includes an organ for the music. I know of colleagues who took positions at new churches and then nearly got run out of town because they decided not to wear a robe, or they preached sermons from somewhere other than the pulpit.

In recent weeks I’ve had more than one conversation where questions about what the church is here for or what it means to be church have been asked. In some of these conversations, there was a bit of frustration with church, with Christian faith. If church is mostly about a certain style of music or architecture or dress, why does church even matter? Does church matter? Perhaps it depends on how we define church or Christianity, on what their identifying marks are.

Sermon video: Set Afire (Acts 2:1-21)

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Set Afire

 Acts 2:1-21
Set Afire
James Sledge                                                                  June 5, 2022 – Pentecost

El Greco,
Decent of the Holy Spirit

I probably don’t need to tell you that the number of the religiously unaffiliated adults is growing rapidly in America. A recent Pew Research study said that nearly three out of ten Americans have no formal religious connection.[1] And younger Americans are even less likely to have a religious home.

Among the unaffiliated, a popular self-designation is SBNR, or spiritual but not religious. Different people mean somewhat different things by this, but a lot in this group think of organized religion as musty old institutions that aren’t really necessary for someone to find a connection to the divine.

I can sympathize with such thinking. Churches have at times gotten focused on things pretty far removed from following Jesus. Add in the hatred espoused by some churches and throw in some sexual misconduct and abuse by clergy, and it isn’t too hard to see why some folks are suspicious of institutional religion.

But when spirituality gets understood as distinct from religion, spirituality moves almost entirely into the private, personal sphere. The term spiritual even takes on a kind of ethereal sense, largely disconnected from the day to day. It’s about internal experience, feelings of well-being and contentment, a warm vibe from a connection to something beyond yourself.

Sermon video: If You Love Me

 Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: If You Love Me

 John 14:15-29
If You Love Me
James Sledge                                                                                                 May 22, 2022

Christ Taking Leave of His Disciples
Duccio di Buoninsegna, Maesta Altarpiece
Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana del Duomo
Siena, Italy

     When I was growing up, the Church was nestled much more comfortably into the culture than it is nowadays. Stores, movie theaters, and other activities all shut down on Sundays, ceding the day to churches. In the south, where I was raised, schools also wouldn’t schedule events on Wednesday evenings because many churches held suppers and Bible studies on those nights.

It was not unusual for a teacher to pray in my classrooms, and once a year, the Gideons came to my school and handed out their little pocket-sized Gideon’s Bibles. When I played on sports teams in junior and senior high school, we invariably said the Lord’s Prayer right before the game or match.

Billy Graham had a daily advice column in the local newspaper, and one of the local TV newscasts featured regular religious commentary from a prominent, local pastor. Christian faith was so intertwined with the culture it was at times difficult to tell when one ended and the other started. To a significant degree, the Church was propped up by this arrangement as the culture actively encouraged and even coerced church involvement.

To varying degrees, the Church had sold its soul in order to get this cushy arrangement, but nevertheless, it begin to disintegrate during the 1960s and 70s. For a variety of reasons, the culture decided it no longer needed to prop up the Church, and society started to become more and more secular. Many vestiges of that time still exist, things such as prayers to open sessions of Congress or prayers at presidential inaugurations, but by and large, the Church has been left to its own devices.

Sermon video: Transformed by Love

 Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Transformed by Love

 John 13:31-35
Transformed by Love
James Sledge                                                                                      May 15, 2022

Christ Washing the Feet of St. Peter
Sadao Watanabe, 1963

 Over the years, I’ve read a lot of books and been to more than a few conferences that were supposed to help a congregation become more effective, more missional, more welcoming, more generous, more something. Often these books and conferences had some helpful suggestions for evaluating how things were currently working so you could think about how to change things to achieve your desired results.

One suggestion that I appreciated recommended going into the neighborhood around your church and asking people, people who were not church members, to complete this sentence. “XYZ Church, they’re that church that…” The idea is that your neighbors may have some insights into who you are, or at least how you are perceived, that you could never get just by talking amongst yourselves.

We did this at one of the churches I served, and we got a variety of responses. They’re that church with the preschool. They’re that church with the pretty stone building. They’re that church with the nice playground. They’re that church with the block party every fall. They’re that church with the community garden. They’re that church with the tiny parking lot.

We’ve never done this exercise here, although I suppose we could if all of you talked to a few people who lived near you, assuming you live near the church. But since that can’t happen right this moment, I’ll imagine what some of the responses might be.

They’re that church with the pretty stone buildings. They’re that church where people stand along the street with Black Lives Matter signs. They’re that church that has some sort of free meal program. They’re that church where our kids went to learn to roller skate or ride a bike in their parking lot. They’re that church with a rainbow flag. Perhaps you can come up with a few more, although if we did this for real, I suspect there would be a couple of surprises none of us thought of.

Jesus seems to have some thoughts about what people should see when they look at us. Many of us are familiar with Jesus’ words saying, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And most of us have heard the song whose refrain goes, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love; yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”