Sermon: Assaulted by God

Genesis 32:22-31

Assaulted by God

James Sledge                                                                                                   August 2, 2020

When I was a child, my father would read Bible stories to us before bed. I can still see the big Bible Story book he used. It had stories about Jesus, but as a child, the Old Testament stories stood out more. There were a lot of “hero” type stories: David fighting the giant Goliath with only a sling, Samson, the Hebrew version of Hercules. And then there were all those stories about Abraham and Sarah and their offspring: Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and then all of Jacob’s sons, including Joseph.

The characters in those Bible stories didn’t seem much like real people to me. Perhaps that was just how far removed they were historically and culturally. Or perhaps it was because the Bible stories themselves had a kind of comic book quality to them.

Whatever the reasons, I was well into adulthood before it dawned on me what a messed up, dysfunctional family Abraham and Sarah’s clan was. It starts with the half-brothers Ishmael and Isaac and only gets worse from there.

Rebekah and Isaac have twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Esau is the first born by a few seconds, and the sibling rivalry is off and running. Not that the parents help matters much. Dad likes Esau, and Mom likes Jacob. Esau is an outdoorsy, hunting and fishing sort of guy,  and Dad plans to pass on the family business to him. Jacob is a Momma’s boy who likes hanging out in the tent. He’s also sneaky and manipulative, a scoundrel who takes advantage of Esau’s tendency to act first and think later. And his mother is happy to assist.

Jacob and Esau are born when Isaac is quite old, and he is feeble and blind by the time the boys are fully grown. Sensing that his time is short, Isaac calls Esau and asks him to go out hunting and bring back some savory game they can enjoy together. After the meal, Isaac will formally sign over the family business. In the language of the Bible, he will bless Esau.

Sermon video: Red Socks - Dare We Be Christians?

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Red Socks: Dare We Be Christians?

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Red Socks - Dare We Be Christians?

James Sledge                                                                                       July 26, 2020

Have you ever done a load of white laundry, and something dark got mixed in? A single, red item somehow went unnoticed, and you open the washer to discover that everything has turned pink. It’s amazing the way one, unseen thing can give you a new wardrobe.

Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven, the coming rule of God, is a little like that. Jesus speaks of yeast and mustard seeds rather than red socks, but the meaning is much the same. Mustard plants weren’t typically grown as crops in Palestine, but the tiny seeds did find their way into the grain farmers sowed. The minuscule, dust-like seeds were easy to miss amidst the grain. Only later would the farmer realize that a fast growing mustard plant was transforming his field into something quite other than he had intended.

And the yeast in Jesus’ parable is not the packaged product we buy in stores for baking. This leaven is dough that has soured, begun to go bad. Bread makers know it as starter. It is added to a new mix of dough to make it rise in baking.

In the Bible, leaven is almost always a symbol of corruption. Leavened bread could never be used as an offering to God. At Passover, not only was leavened bread forbidden, but no trace of leaven was allowed in people’s homes. And Jesus himself speaks of the teachings of the Pharisees as leaven, something that corrupts and distorts the good gift of God’s Law.

But in the parables we heard this morning, Jesus speaks of God’s hoped-for new day as like a mustard seed that unexpectedly sprang up in the field, like leaven that has transformed the bread into something that is no longer fit to be offered to God, like a red sock that has turned white dress shirts pink.

Sermon video: New Life as Exiles

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: New Life as Exiles

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

New Life as Exiles

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 19, 2020

Back in March when the stay-at-home order was first announced, I don’t think any of us could have imagined that we would be holding worship today in an empty sanctuary, live streaming it into people’s homes. And even now, in mid-July, we still don’t know when we might have anything resembling worship as it used to be.

COVID-19 has turned the church world upside down. No one knows exactly what church is going to look like in the coming years. No doubt, livestreaming is here to stay, even when we can have some sort of in person worship. But it also seems highly likely that many congregations will never recover. Unlike FCPC, many churches have no real financial reserves and operate on extremely tight budgets. Some who study religious institutions are predicting large scale church closings in the coming years.

But what about church in general? Will worshiping from home open church up to new people, or will it accelerate an already established trend of church decline? Will people start to treat church like Netflix, watching a little worship when they have time or the mood strikes them? Will church move further and further from the center of people’s lives and from the center of the culture, further diminishing the prominent place church once held?

Over twenty years ago, long before COVID-19, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann suggested the metaphor of exile as a good way to describe where the Church finds itself in America.^[1] He said that we had been deported from our comfortable homeland of the mid-20^th Century into a world that no longer works in ways we fully understand. The stores stay open and youth sports teams play games during our sacred worship times. Neither public schools nor the culture at large encourages church participation as they once did. The landscape of America has changed dramatically since the 1950s, and institutions like the Presbyterian Church, which had their heyday then, find themselves aliens in a strange land.

If exile was an appropriate metaphor at the close of the 20^th century, surely it is even more so today. The forces that led Dr. Brueggemann to speak of the Church in exile are still with us, perhaps even stronger. And now COVID-19 could push church even further to the edges of society and daily life, increasing the sense of exile.

In the Bible, when Israel is carried off into literal exile in Babylon, it created a crisis. As exiles in a strange land, nothing supported their religious life. The Temple was gone, the Ark of the Covenant lost, and no altar existed where offerings could be made. The Babylonian culture around them had different ways, different gods, different religious practices. It would be easy, even tempting, simply to adopt the ways of the prevailing culture.

Exiles are always in danger of disappearing, of being absorbed into the culture where they find themselves. Countless cultures have simply disappeared over the centuries as a result. To prevent this, exiles must cultivate a distinctiveness, a peculiarity. They must live in ways that set them apart, allowing them to maintain a distinct identity different from the surrounding culture. For the Hebrews in Babylon, Sabbath keeping and synagogue emerged in exile as crucial elements that marked them as different and distinct. But what about us?

Sermon video: The Hard Work of Unity

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC webpage.

Sermon: The Hard Work of Unity

Philippians 2:1-8

The Hard Work of Unity

James Sledge                                                                                                   July 12, 2020

Recently I was discussing our sermon series on the Confession of Belhar with Diane. I was wondering whether we should have a fourth installment or stop at three. Two of the primary themes from Belhar, reconciliation and justice, would get covered fairly thoroughly in the first three sermons. That left only the theme of unity.

I suspect I grimaced a little at the thought of preaching about unity. I think I said something to Diane along the lines of, “I don’t know. I hate to do something trite.” The phrase, “Can’t we all just get along?” popped into my head. Unity often gets spoken of as something that should be simple if only we all just worked together, if we all just realized that we’re basically the same, if we all just loved one another. Unity isn’t all that hard, such words seem to say. We just have to do this. We just have to do that.

Diane first suggested of a sermon series on Belhar in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Because Belhar addressed apartheid in South Africa, it seemed particularly well suited to the most profound and persistent source of division in our country, that of race.

Despite the intransience of racism in America, we still want to believe we could be rid of it if only we just did this or just did that. Despite decade after decade where corporate boardrooms remain largely white, where “better” neighborhoods and “better” schools are largely white, where everything from wealth to education to job opportunities to pay to home ownership to medical care and more are skewed in favor of whites, we want to believe that there is just one more little thing we need to do, and it will go away.

Sermon video: Justice at the Center?

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Justice at the Center?

Amos 5:18-27

Justice at the Center?

James Sledge                                                                                                   June 28, 2020

I recently read an article by a Black, Baptist minister entitled, “Why I’m Skeptical of New Christian Allies.”[1] His target seems to be more evangelical churches, but I don’t think progressive, mainline churches are completely spared. Pastor Lavarin is encouraged that so many Christians, including large numbers who’ve not previously been active in issues of race, are speaking out against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. But these feelings are tempered by worries that the change doesn’t go deep enough.

He writes, “Although numerous Christians have finally chosen to name racism, I am woefully skeptical of new allies who have rushed to protest without examining the ways in which their own theologies continue to nurture it. The failure to address theological racism will cause new allies to come to this moment believing that the fight for justice is merely theologically adjacent to their brand of evangelism as “the real work of ministry”. For some, this is still just a societal issue, and not a theological one.”

As I said earlier, this doesn’t seem to target us Presbyterians. We tend not to have evangelism high up on our list of “the real work of ministry,” but I’m not sure justice is much higher for us than evangelism. For many Presbyterians, the real work of ministry is holding good worship, educating and nurturing children, and perhaps engaging in some charitable acts in the community. And so some of Pastor Lavarin’s critiques may apply equally to us.

He continues, “Prior to this moment, new allies have preached a gospel of Jesus devoid of justice. They failed to make the theological connection that Jesus and justice are, in fact, mutually inclusive. To invoke Jesus and then to invoke justice is redundant. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the ministry of justice. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we declare the Psalmist’s decree that justice and righteousness are the foundations of God’s throne. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we summon the Messianic prophecy that the Spirit of the LORD was upon Jesus, to preach the good news to the poor, to set the prisoners free from the Roman industrial complex, and to proclaim liberty to those who were oppressed. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we remember that Jesus was convicted of a crime he did not commit, received an unfair trial, and was sentenced to a state-sanctioned lynching on a tree. We cannot divorce our theology from the ministry of justice, for to do so, is to divorce ourselves from Jesus, himself. The ministry of justice is the ministry of Jesus.”

But this pastor saves his most pointed barb for the end of his article. “Before your church decides to go out and protest, consider protesting your own theology that continues to intentionally and unintentionally do harm to Black and Brown bodies. Before taking a knee and holding a prayer vigil, consider this: there is no real substantive difference between a racist bigot holding a Bible in front of a church, and a Christian holding up a #BlackLivesMatter sign with no plans to parse out the practical implementation of the holy truth of justice.”

Ouch. Even if we are not the intended target of this arrow, it still has a sting for we have often viewed justice as a good thing, but not necessarily something central to our faith. It’s one of those extras like joining a prayer group or volunteering at Welcome Table. It’s optional, an elective in the walk of faith curriculum.

Sermon video: Breaking Down Dividing Walls

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Every One of Us Afire

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Breaking Down Dividing Walls

Ephesians 2:11-20

Breaking Down Dividing Walls

James Sledge                                                                                                   June 21, 2020

Shortly after the murder of George Floyd touched off waves of protests around the country, I began to see people on Facebook and Instagram posting lines lifted from the Confession of Belhar. For those who have no idea what that is, it is the newest confessional statement in our denomination’s (the PCUSA) Book of Confessions.

We Presbyterians love well-crafted and carefully articulated statements on what we believe and what that leads us to do and be in the world. Our Book of Confessions begins with ancient Creeds, the Apostles’ and Nicene, moves to a number of confessional statements and catechisms from the time around the Reformation, then jumps to the 20^th century.

Even though Belhar is new to our Book of Confessions, it isn’t all that new. It took shape in South Africa in the early 1980s when apartheid was still the law of the land there. It was written by members of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church, originally the denomination for those labeled “coloured” in the system of apartheid. This denomination was distinct from the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, the white church.

The Dutch Reformed family is one of our theological cousins whose roots go back to John Calvin just as ours do. But I don’t think Calvin’s theology had anything to do with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa developing sophisticated theological justifications for apartheid that cited biblical evidence for a divinely ordained separation of the races.

Of course we Presbyterians did exactly the same thing during the times of slavery and segregation. When I attended Union Theological Seminary in Richmond (now Union Presbyterian Seminary), Dabney Hall was a residence for some students. Robert Dabney was a professor at Union who served as a chaplain in the Confederacy, and who wrote stirring theological defenses of slavery and the noble cause of the South well after the Civil War.

His views held sway long beyond his time. My brother and I once found some of the my father’s school work in a box in my grandmother’s attic. Amongst the papers was some sort of quiz or worksheet where the correct answer labeled Blacks as the accursed descendants of Ham from the biblical Noah story, part of the rationale Dabney used to justify slavery and the marginalization of people of color.

The Belhar Confession correctly calls such foolishness sin and insists that the Church is called to precisely the opposite sort of activity, to ministries of reconciliation and justice. Even so, it took us Presbyterians until 2016 to add Belhar to the Book of Confessions.

Sermon video: Unmanageable God

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Unmanageable God

Genesis 1:1-2:3; Matthew 28:16-20

Unmanageable God

James Sledge                                                               June 7, 2020, Trinity Sunday

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind(or perhaps Spirit) from God swept over the face of the waters. ³Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. So opens Genesis and the Bible. So opens a lot of religious silliness as well.

For some people, the literal account found here becomes a critical item of faith, one that prohibits them for believing in things such as evolution. Other Christians, some in reaction to the first group, insist the story is merely symbolic, describing a well ordered cosmos. Or they dismiss it entirely, a primitive tale with no real bearing on the modern world.

I think all these views miss the mark, in part because religion, both conservative and progressive, has a tendency to become utilitarian. Religion becomes about getting something that I want. Perhaps its a certainty that I’ll go to heaven when I die. Perhaps it’s a sense of spiritual well-being that has eluded me despite buying into the competitive, success oriented, consumerist version of life that our culture peddles.

When religion is utilitarian, it’s a resource to be used, a way to get those things I want. That’s true if I’m a conservative who needs a list of things I must believe in and affirm so I get to heaven. And it’s true if I’m a progressive looking for spiritual purpose and meaning. In either case I decide what I need from religion, from the Bible, from God. In essence, I determine what God’s purpose is.

We all witnessed one of the most crass examples of utilitarian religion this past week when President Trump stood in front of St. John’s Church and waved a borrowed bible. It was brazen and shameless in enlisting religion, enlisting God to the president’s cause. But most all of us engage in more subtle, nuanced forms of enlisting God to our causes.

But back to our story from Genesis. When this story was written, it was, in part, meant to undermine utilitarian notions of God. The ancient Middle East was filled with gods; every kingdom had at least one of their own. These deities ensured that the crops produced and the herds grew. And when conflicts between kingdom erupted, they were viewed as power contests between gods, holy war in the truest sense of the term.

And Israel’s God had lost. The Babylonians had conquered them and carried all the important citizens into exile. Never mind prophecies promising an endless throne of David. Never mind assurances that Jerusalem would stand forever. Now there was nothing; the great city, the palace, Solomon’s magnificent Temple, all lay in ruins. Their God had failed them.

Sermon: Every One of Us Afire

1 Corinthians 12:1-13

Every One of Us Afire

James Sledge                                                                           May 31, 2020 – Pentecost

Some years ago, I had the chance to visit Corinth, Greece. Corinth sits on the Isthmus of Corinth which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the rest of mainland Greece. This location made it a thriving seaport in ancient times. A canal has allowed ships to traverse the isthmus since the late 1800s, but in ancient time the Greeks and then Romans devised various methods to create on overland shortcut such as rolling ships across on logs.

As often happens with seaports, Corinth was a cosmopolitan city with people from all over, many of them hoping to make it big there. It had reputation as a place where upward mobility was easier than in much of the Roman Empire. In that sense, Corinth was not totally unlike America. It was a land of opportunity, a place where even former slaves might become respected figures in the community. There was a sense of freedom and possibility.

No doubt the cosmopolitan, Gentile populace of Corinth posed challenges for the Apostle Paul when he first arrived and began a Christian congregation there. His converts often weren’t familiar with Hebrew ideas of a covenant community that cared for the least of these, notions which permeated the teachings of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t fit easily into a worldview of advancement and upward mobility, a world view that often sees those left behind as failures.

Most all we know about the congregation in Corinth comes from the letters Paul wrote. When Paul founded a church, he didn’t stay on as pastor. He was a missionary, always looking to spread the gospel, but he still tried to care for his congregations, visiting them occasionally, getting reports from travelers whenever he could, and communicating by letter.

Based on Paul’s letters, the Corinthian church was an exuberant, energetic place. People were excited about their new faith and the experience of the Spirit. But, as often happens with religion, they tended to view their faith through the lens of culture. American Christianity has become so individualized that might well be unrecognizable to Jesus, and the Corinthians saw their faith as another aspect of competitive, upward mobility.

Sermon video: Faithful Witnesses (from the early "informal" service)

More sermons and worship on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Faithful Witnesses

Acts 1:6-14

Faithful Witnesses

James Sledge                                                                                                   May 26,2020

“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” It seems like it would be a good time. Jesus had been raised from the dead a little over a month earlier. He’d been hanging out with the disciples, talking more with them about the kingdom of God, and telling them to stay in Jerusalem awaiting the promise of the Father… waiting to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Something big was about to happen. Maybe now God was going to straighten things out, set the world right. And by the time the two volume set of Luke-Acts gets written, likely over fifty years later, the world looked like it needed even more straightening out. The Romans had completely destroyed the city of Jerusalem, its magnificent temple totally obliterated. Jews and Christians alike had fled to various parts of the Mediterranean world.

By that time, the break between Judaism and Christianity was pretty much complete. Christians were no longer a sect within Judaism, and so they no longer enjoyed the special religious exemption that Rome gave to the Jews for being an ancient religion. And then there was the problem with that basic faith statement, “Jesus is Lord.” Rome said Caesar was Lord, that the emperor was a god. Christians were clearly trouble makers, a threat to the social fabric that held the empire together.

Lord, this would be a really good time to restore the kingdom, to straighten things out, to make life easier for the faithful. It’s a mess, God. Do something! But Jesus answers, “It is not for you to know the times and periods that the Father has set… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses…”

Fast forward nearly two thousand years, and it’s not hard to sympathize with those early disciples. Lord, this would be a really good time to do something. Many scientists are worried that we are perilously close to a tipping point on climate change, if it isn’t already too late. COVID-19 is decimating communities, sending countless people into poverty, and exposing our broken healthcare system. The partisan divide in our country has become so extreme that even the pandemic cannot overcome it, and wearing a mask in public, a simple act of loving one’s neighbor, has somehow been politicized.

Sermon video: Learning to Love Back

More sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Easter Life

More worship and sermons can be found on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Learning to Love Back

John 14:15-21

Learning to Love Back

James Sledge                                                                                                   May 17, 2020

Occasionally, when I first read a scripture passage I might preach on, thoughts just pop into my head. As I read today’s gospel, I thought of the “new commandment” Jesus had given to his followers moments earlier, “that you love one another.” Somewhat less obviously, I recalled a quote from Anne Lamott. about learning to love back.

For those who’ve never read her, Lamott is a novelist who may be better known for her bestselling writings on faith. These contain a mixture of her often strange personal story, wry wit and humor, and sometimes irreverent thoughts on how faith has helped her navigate it all.

With a little effort I found the quote I had recalled in one of her books. She was discussing her then fourteen year-old son, Sam, and the struggles of raising a teenager as a single mom who is a recovering addict. She spoke of Sam’s religious sensibilities, how he believes that Jesus is true, how he prays, even prays with his mom at bedtime on occasions. But he hates church, even the quirky little Presbyterian congregation Lamott belongs to. She writes:

Then why do I make him go? Because I want him to. We live in bewildering, drastic times, and a little spiritual guidance never killed anyone. I think it’s a fair compromise that every other week he has to come to the place that has been the tap for me: I want him to see the people who loved me when I felt most unlovable, who have loved him since I first told them that I was pregnant, even though he might not want to be with them. I want him to see their faces. He gets the most valuable things I know through osmosis.

Also, he has no job, no car, no income. He needs to stay in my good graces.

While he lives in my house, he has to do things my way. And there are worse things for kids than to have to spend time with people who love God. Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don’t get to meet people who love God back. Learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.[1]

I think she’s right. We’re all born needing to be loved. The desire for it is innate. Infants and young children who do not receive love struggle to thrive. But we are not born knowing how to love in return, to love back, and many of us never learn to do it all that well. The world is full of people who always take a lot more love than they give. Countless marriages and relationships fall apart because the balance of giving and receiving love gets so badly out of whack, because so many of us have not learned well that hardest part of being alive.

Sermon: Easter Life

Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10

Easter Life

James Sledge                                                                                                               May 3, 2020

Most of you have likely seen news reports about churches that insist on having in-person worship during this time of stay at home. I saw a newscast where a reporter interviewed members as they drove away from one such worship service. A woman said that she wasn’t worried about catching the virus because, “I’m covered in the blood of Jesus.”

The reporter asked her several more questions, and she seemed happy to talk with him. But her answer to nearly every question ended, “I’m covered in the blood of Jesus.”

If you’re like me and didn’t grow up singing hymns such as “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” or “Precious, Precious Blood of Jesus,” you may not be familiar with this graphic, formulaic notion of how Jesus’ death saves and protects people.  But our own hymnal can also be formulaic, if not so graphic. On Easter Sunday we sang, “But the pains which he endured… our salvation have procured.”

I’m not sure why religious formulas are so popular. A friend remarked about the “tendency for faith to degrade into magic” when he shared a Washington Post article about a Virginia pastor who died from COVID-19 despite his certainty that God would protect him. I suppose that magic has a certain appeal over the difficulties, nuances, and messiness of biblical faith. Believe this and you are saved. Say this and all will be well. Abracadabra.

But if Christian faith were formulas and magic, the Bible would be a pamphlet, not over a thousand pages of stories, poems, letters, teachings, sayings, etc. Jesus wouldn’t have spoken in parables and vivid metaphors. He would have just given us the magic words. Abracadabra.

Sermon video: On Our Way to Emmaus

Videos and audios of worship on the FCPC website.

Sermon: On Our Way to Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35

On Our Way to Emmaus

James Sledge                                                                                                   April 26, 2020

On the day of that very first Easter, two disciples headed to the village of Emmaus. No one knows exactly where that is. Various places have been suggested, but none is certain. Maybe it’s just as well.

In our day, Emmaus has become a metaphorical destination, one associated with spiritual awakenings. You can find spiritual retreats described as Emmaus walks, and there is an intense, three day retreat for spiritual renewal and formation called Walk to Emmaus, a Protestant adaptation of the Catholic Cursillo movement.

But in Luke’s gospel, I don’t know that Emmaus is really a destination at all. It may simply be a place to spend the night on the way somewhere else. A stop on the way to some place that isn’t Jerusalem, that isn’t about pain and betrayal and loss.

Those disciples aren’t on a spiritual journey. They’re on a journey away from the cross and the grave. Their hopes have been dashed. They’re shocked and stunned, still  grieving their loss. They don’t know what they need but they know it isn’t in Jerusalem.

Some of you know that I’m one of many mourning the death from COVID-19 of singer-songwriter John Prine. A line from one of his songs that I’ve played a lot lately could easily have been uttered by these two disciples headed for anywhere but Jerusalem. “Just give me one thing that I can hold on to. To believe in this living is just a hard way to go.”[1]

Curiously, these two disciples have already heard the report from women who visited the graveyard early that morning. They heard of an empty tomb and angels who said Jesus was alive, but it had not mattered. I don’t know if that was simply about men not believing women or if their sense of grief and loss was so overwhelming nothing could break through. Whatever it was, they were headed to Emmaus, to anywhere but Jerusalem.

Love Your Neighbor. Wear Your Mask

I went for a run this morning along one of the many trails we are blessed to have in the DC area. I was far from alone. There were a good many people out walking, running, biking, roller blading, etc. I was not surprised by the numbers, but I was a little surprised at how few of them were wearing masks.

I’m sure the reasons for this were varied. They are a little inconvenient. I find them especially annoying for running. They interfere with my breathing (though perhaps this simulates altitude training?). But I’ve read of one study showing how the slipstream effect causes runners to leave a trail of droplets floating 30 feet in their wake. For cyclists, it’s 60 feet. So I wear the mask. I would hate to unknowingly infect someone else.

I imagine there are still those who don’t yet understand that masks are not for protecting you but for protecting others. However I see people online proudly broadcasting their refusal to wear a mask, couching it in terms of personal freedom that won’t be taken from them. Curiously, some of these same people claim to be conservative Christians, yet there is something profoundly un-Christlike about elevating one’s personal freedom above the good of the other.

Jesus is clear that following him involves self denial. He is just as clear that loving God is inseparable from loving your neighbor as yourself. To declare, “My neighbor be damned; I’m not wearing any mask,” seems fundamentally at odds with the core of the Christian life.

If anything, wearing a mask in these days of pandemic is a relatively easy and painless way to embody love of neighbor, to enflesh Jesus’ call to faithful discipleship. Do good. Love your neighbor. Wear your mask.

Sermon video: Unfinished Business

More sermons and worship can be found on the FCPC website.

Easter sermon: Unfinished Business

Matthew 28:1-10

Unfinished Business

James Sledge                                                                                       April 12, 2020, Easter

“Unfinished business lingers in every graveyard—broken promises, betrayals, countless secrets left to perish with the departed.”[1] That quote really resonated with me when I first read it years ago. I suspect that it is true for most people. There’s always something that should have been said but wasn’t, a conflict that wasn’t resolved, a wound that still festers, a chance for reconciliation lost.

 I once heard about a woman who could not get past the unfinished business with her late husband. After his death she learned of a terrible betrayal by him, and it poisoned all her memories of their life together. She was able to move on only after following her pastor’s suggestion of going to the cemetery to have it out with her husband. I presume that he remained silent for this “conversation,” but through it she was able to deal with some of her hurt and anger, some of the unfinished business from her husband’s death.

In a Jerusalem graveyard all those centuries ago, unfinished business lingered. The followers of Jesus were left to contemplate how they had abandoned him in his hour of need, deserting him when he was arrested. For Peter, that included cursing and swearing that he did not even know Jesus. Peter had wept bitter tears afterward, but they had not washed away the horrible memory. 

And then there was their disappointment and anger at Jesus. How could he have let this happen? He put up no fight at all. Maybe he was not who they thought he was, who they hoped he was.

Perhaps all this unfinished business is the reason that only two women go to the tomb that first Easter morning. For others, memories of abandonment, desertion, denial, failure, disappointment were too fresh, too raw. Visits to the tomb would have to wait.

Sermon video: Palms, Passion... and Lament?

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

Sermon: Palms, Parades... and Lament?

Matthew 26:14-21, 36-46, 27:11-23, 35-46

Palms, Parades… and Lament?

James Sledge                                                                                       April 5, 2020

I’m sure that I’ve spoken before about my experiences of Easter as a child. I say Easter because for me as a young boy, Palm Sunday was simply the pregame show for Easter, a big celebration that prefigured the bigger celebration to come. My brothers and I I already had our new Easter sport coats, my sister her new Easter dress, and we had already dug out our Easter baskets. 

On Palm Sunday, we got to march around the sanctuary waving palms. On Palm Sunday, we had a celebratory parade, a grand, rah-rah moment. On Palm Sunday we left the church with shouts of “Hosanna!” echoing in our ears; just a week to the even grander celebration.

As a child, I never heard the term Passion Sunday. This was Palm Sunday. Period. No thoughts of betrayal and a cross, of suffering and death. No thoughts of despair and darkness.

I’m not sure when I first encountered Palm/Passion Sunday. It’s possible it wasn’t until I attended seminary. Oh I knew about Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the cross. But they didn’t intrude much into Sunday worship. I could go from one parade to another, not bothering with the cross and the darkness of Good Friday.

Passion Sunday intruded into the rhythms of Holy Week and Easter I learned as a child. It was something of a downer. Who wants to mourn when you could just celebrate? But can we really go straight from “Hosanna!” to “He is risen!” without the cross? 

Sermon video: Resurrection Life

During this time of COVID-19, we are not posting audios of worship, but you can find sermon videos and the church website and videos of the worship services on the church Facebook page.

Sermon: Resurrection Life

Resurrection Life

John 11:1-45

James Sledge                                                                                       March 29,2020

Often at funerals, I open with a quote from our reading today. “I am the resurrection and the life, (says the Lord). Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” The Presbyterian Book of Common Worship calls a funeral “A Service of Witness to the Resurrection,” so that seems fitting.

I also have vivid memories of using part of our gospel reading at the funeral service of my father-in-law, Roy. I had just started seminary, taking an intensive summer course in Greek before my first semester began. I had no experience or training to do a funeral, but the pastor at his church was new, and my mother-in-law wanted someone who knew Roy to speak.

I talked about the tenderness and love of Jesus who was moved when he saw Mary weeping, who despite knowing that he would shortly raise Lazarus from the dead, nonetheless wept for him. But while I was well into my summer Greek course, I still had a lot to learn about Greek and about using it to study scripture. And so I didn’t realize that I misunderstood Jesus’ emotions.

Of course there’s such a long history of reading these verses as examples of Jesus’ compassion and humanity, that even Bible translators are wary of rendering them in a straightforward manner. Our NRSV Bible says, When Jesus saw (Mary) weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. But a more direct reading of the Greek would be something like, he was deeply angry and agitated.

Sermon video: Here Is an Astonishing Thing

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Here Is an Astonishing Thing

John 9:1-41

Here Is an Astonishing Thing

James Sledge                                                                                                   March 22.2020

I want to tell you a story. It isn’t really a “true” story, at least not in the sense modern people tend to use the word. The story doesn’t report actual events, but what the story talks about has happened and does happen. In our own denomination, it happened only a decade ago. In other denominations, the “truth” of this story is still on display.

As graduation neared, a young seminary student searched for a position as solo pastor of a small church. But being female and single, many churches seemed hesitant to consider her. She preached well, but didn’t fit the image that many seemed to have for a pastor.

Finally, she accepted the call of a tiny, struggling – most would say dying – congregation in a small Alabama town. Thirty people on Sunday was a big crowd, and finances were always a problem. In three years without a pastor, they had saved up some money, but even paying her the minimum salary the denomination allowed, they worried about being able to afford her for more than a few years.

It wasn’t exactly what she had dreamed of when she entered seminary, but it was where God had led her, and she threw herself, heart and soul, into the work. She embraced and loved her congregation, people very different in culture and background from herself.  Despite their small numbers and paltry finances, she acted like they and their church mattered. She not only loved and comforted them, she boldly proclaimed God’s word and challenged them about where and how they would minister to their community.

Sermon video: Getting Reborn

Audios of worship and sermons available on the FCPC website.

Sermon video: Discovering Who We Are

Audios of worship and sermons available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Getting Reborn

John 3:1-17

Getting Reborn

James Sledge                                                                                                   March 8, 2020

I have a love-hate relationship with today’s gospel reading. It is a beautiful passage, filled with all manner of imagery and symbolism and nuance. But it also has been much abused and so has a fair amount of baggage. For too many these words are read as a litmus test. “Have you had a born again conversion experience?” If not, you’re on the outside looking in.

This passage is the rainbow wigged guy who used to go to sporting events and hold up his John 3:16 sign. But that verse also gets reduced to formula. “Believe in Jesus and you are saved.” Yet Nicodemus clearly believes in Jesus, believes he is from God, but he leaves the scene more befuddled than when he first arrived.

Nick is an interesting fellow. He comes in for his share of bad press, this guy who can’t understand what Jesus is talking about. But Nick may be a lot like many of us. He is a respected, educated member of his community, a leader in his church. He’s a bright, rational fellow who is impressed by Jesus. Clearly Jesus is someone special, and the wonderful things he does couldn’t happen if God was not with him, could they?

Churches, especially Mainline churches, are filled with people like Nick, people who are drawn to Jesus but who also struggle to embrace him completely. We’ll listen to him up to a point, but we’re often not quite sure what he’s saying, and so not quite ready to go all in.

Nick comes to see Jesus at night. That’s more than the time of day. Light and dark are symbolic categories in John’s gospel, and Nick is not ready to step into the light. Like some of us, he is drawn to Jesus but prefers to remain on the periphery, in the shadows.

I’m not entirely sure why Nick comes to see Jesus. If he has some question to ask he never gets the chance. He barely gets the chance to make his introduction. “Hi, Jesus. Great to meet you. Really impressed with what you’re doing. No doubt, God is with you.” But before he can say more, Jesus speaks. He says that no one can see the kingdom of God, can see God’s new day, without being born anothen. (a[nwqen)

Sermon: Discovering Who We Are

Matthew 4:1-11

Discovering Who We Are

James Sledge                                                                                       March 1, 2020

Jesus began his ministry in a world that was anxiously awaiting a Messiah. For a variety of reasons, expectations of a savior were high. One group, the Essenes, had withdrawn from society and set up an alternative community in the wilderness so they would be ready. From some of their writings, popularly called The Dead Sea Scrolls, we know that they expected a Messiah, or perhaps a pair of Messiahs, who looked nothing like Jesus.

In fact, ever since Israel had returned from exile in Babylon some 500 years earlier, and the hoped for glorious revival of the kingdom of David had failed to materialize, people had been looking for the One who would change all that.

People carefully examined Scripture, finding those passages that seemed to offer clues about where the Messiah would come from, how he would act, and what he would do. But there was no single image that everyone agreed on. Even today, Christian have many different images of Jesus. We agree that Jesus was Messiah, and yet we still have a warrior Jesus, a hippy Jesus, a blonde-haired blue-eyed Jesus, a meek and mild Jesus, a wise sage Jesus, a personal Savior Jesus, and so on and so on.

So if we can’t agree on the exact nature of Jesus, imagine how difficult it was for people who only had verses from the Old Testament. How did they know which verses were about the hoped for Messiah? How were they supposed to reconcile verses that seemed to suggest different sorts of Messiahs? 

Messiah simply means “anointed one.” That title, along with “Son of God,” had long be used to speak of Israel’s kings. So it’s hardly surprising that many expected the Messiah would revive the days of King David. He would throw out the hated Romans and their puppet, Herod. He would restore Israel to greatness.

Jesus knew well the varied images and expectations of a Messiah. And if Jesus is genuinely human, as Christians insist he is, then he must have wrestled with just what it meant to be the Messiah. He must have prayed and struggled to discern just what sort of Anointed One God wanted him to be.

Sermon video: Listen to Him!

Audios of worship and sermons available on the FCPC website

Sermon video: Catching the Dream

Audios of worship and sermons available on the FCPC website.