Sermon: Accidental Parade Goers

Luke 19:28-40; 22:14-23

Accidental Parade Goers

James Sledge                           Palm/Passion                           April 14, 2019

My memory sometimes misleads me, but I recall the Palm Sundays of my childhood being bigger deals they are nowadays. In my childhood church, the palms didn’t have to share billing with the passion. Every year it was a parade from beginning to end. A lot more fun that way, but with a significant downside. The church of my childhood memory rushed from Palm Sunday parade to Easter parade, from celebration to celebration, and it was easy to miss the betrayal, trial, and execution that lay in between.

In one of his letters, the Apostle Paul writes, But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and the wisdom of God. For Paul, and for the gospel writers, the cross is absolutely central, but it is more fun to go from one parade to the next.

Each of the gospel writers tell the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem slightly differently. Perhaps you noticed that there were no palms at all in Luke’s version. This isn’t because the writers have heard different versions of events but because they are more like preachers than reporters or historians. The gospel writers have slightly different points and emphases for their congregations to hear and so they tell the story differently.

Luke, like all the gospel writers, connects Jesus’ entry to Psalm 118 and to the prophet Zechariah. The prophet speaks of a coming, victorious king who rides in on a colt, and the psalm is a coronation psalm, one that would have been used in Israel’s past when a king ascended to the throne.

In Luke’s telling, an interesting distinction gets made between the parade watchers and Jesus’ actual followers. Luke doesn’t report a crowd, but he does say that people kept spreading their cloaks on the road, which certainly befits a royal procession. But it is the disciples, and not the crowd or people, who begin to shout joyfully from Psalm 118. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Some of the Pharisees object to this explicit naming of Jesus as Israel’s messianic king, but Jesus insists that his disciples are correct. Apparently these Pharisees weren’t overly bothered by cloaks spread on the road. They don’t mind celebrating Jesus as a great teacher or healer, but to declare him God’s Messiah, the long awaited king, is too much.

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Sermon: Being More Like God

Micah 6:6-8

Being More Like God

James Sledge                                                                                       April 7, 2019

In a day when many church congregations are struggling, strategic planning and church revisioning have become quite common. Seemingly endless books, conferences, consultants, and other resources are available for such work, but sometimes this work is made difficult by a lack of fundamental clarity about why church exists in the first place.

Typically the problem is one of assumption. Members and leaders assume that they know why church exists, but if you ask them to spell it out, you sometimes get answers such as, “You know, to be church.” If you press for specifics, most people can come up with some sort of answers, usually a list of prominent things happening in their church such as worship, Sunday School, and a few other items. But it is hard to do much in the way of strategic planning if you define why church exists by the things it currently does.

Fortunately, we Presbyterians have denominational statements that spell out the fundamental reasons for congregations to exist. One is something called “The Great Ends of the Church.” This century old statement lays out six primary ends or purposes. They are:

the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;

the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;

the maintenance of divine worship;

the preservation of the truth;

the promotion of social righteousness; and

the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.[1]

Our scripture for this morning, as well as our Renew focus for today, has me thinking especially about those last two: promoting a rightly ordered society and showing the world what God’s kingdom looks like.

Sermon video: Idyllic Community

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Idyllic Community

Acts 2:37-47

Idyllic Community

James Sledge                                                                                       March 31, 2019

The congregation in our scripture reading is the very first one. It’s brand new, and there is no church building, no Sunday School, no youth group. There is no paid staff or formal governing structure. There is no budget, committees, task forces, or ministry teams. But despite having almost none of the things we associate with church, this congregation has something absolutely remarkable and astounding, the goodwill of all the people.

Think about that. What group or institution in our world has the goodwill of all the people, the entire population? Traditionally things such as education and medicine were held in high esteem, but not as much these days. When I was a kid, I got the impression that everyone trusted Walter Cronkite delivering the CBS News each evening, but I’m pretty sure the news media doesn’t have the goodwill of all the people these days.

What about religion? If you took a clipboard and walked the sidewalks of DC, asking people their opinion of religion in general, and the church in particular, what sort of response might you get? What if you went door to door here in Falls Church and asked about FCPC? How likely would you be to discover the goodwill of all the people?