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.”

Sermon video: Hearing the Shepherd

 Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Hearing the Shepherd

 John 10:22-30
Hearing the Shepherd
James Sledge                                                                                      May 8, 2022

The Good Shepherd, 5^th century mosaic,
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

 "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." It seems a reasonable enough question that some people ask Jesus. They know he is something special. He’s attracting crowds and there are reports of miracles. He is teaching as a rabbi, and many are mesmerized by what he says. But his teachings tend to be enigmatic with more than one possible meaning. Spell it out for us, Jesus.

I suspect that there are more than a few people in our day who would like a little clarity, too. Jesus’ identity can be hard to pin down, what with so many variations of him running around. For some Jesus’ primary purpose is to get individuals into heaven. For others Jesus came to inaugurate the kingdom, God’s new commonwealth on earth. For others Jesus is a dispenser of wisdom that can guide you into a meaningful life. For still others Jesus is a worker of miracles for those who have sufficient faith.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus would clear all this up? Wouldn’t it be helpful if Jesus said, “I’m this one but not that one”? Come on Jesus, tell us plainly exactly who you are.

Jesus tell his questioners in our scripture, "I have told you, and you do not believe,” which is a little strange because Jesus has done no such thing. Read John’s gospel carefully up to this point and you won’t find any place where Jesus says, “I’m the Messiah,” I’m guessing that’s why Jesus also says, “The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me.”

Jesus hasn’t said he’s the Messiah in so many words, but the things he is doing should provide all the answer that is needed. Jesus seems to think this is clear and compelling testimony as to his identity, but there is a catch. Apparently this testimony isn’t convincing to everyone, only to those who belong to his sheep. Jesus is actually quite blunt on this. “…but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”

Sermon: The Story Continues

 John 21:1-19
The Story Continues
James Sledge                                                                                                 May 1, 2022

Peter Koenig, Breakfast on the Beach, 20^th Century,
Parish of St. Edward, Kettering, UK

from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

 When a movie ends, the scene fades to black, “The End” appears, and the credits begin to roll. But rare is the movie where we don’t know it’s the end without these cues. 

Music works in similar fashion. More often than not, we can detect that the piece has ended even when we’ve never heard it before. Any musical tension and dissonance resolve into something that feels complete, finished, and we know we are at the end.

In movies, in plays, in novels, in music, this pattern is familiar to us. Things need to be brought to a conclusion. The war must be won. The broken relationship must be repaired.  The killer must be caught. The jury must come in. The lovers must find one another. The last note must be played. Otherwise we are left with a sense of loose ends. 

The gospel of John has dealt with its loose ends. Jesus has been raised from the dead.  Mary Magdalene has seen him. Then he has appeared to the disciples, commissioned them and given them the Spirit. Finally he has appeared again so that Thomas, who was somehow absent when Jesus appeared that first Easter evening, might see and believe.

And then the gospel ties up the last loose ends and plays the final note. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. Fade to black.

But just as we prepare to get up from our seats, suddenly the story resumes. After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. It’s all rather jarring. Just when we thought we understood exactly how things came out, the story starts up again. It breaks into the feeling of completeness. All that dissonance that had been resolved is stirred up again.

Sermon video: Wait a Minute, Jesus. Are You Sure We're Ready?

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Wait a Minute, Jesus. Are You Sure We're Ready?

 Wait a Minute, Jesus.  Are You Sure We’re Ready?
John 20:19-23
James Sledge                                                                                                             April 24, 2022

Holy Spirit Window
St. Peter's Basilica

 Last Sunday, we celebrated the news that Christ is risen. We filled the place with flowers.  We had special music and sang for joy that Jesus Christ is risen today. Alleluia! But the very first Easter seems not to have gone much like ours. There is little fanfare. There is little in the way of celebration. In fact, our scripture reading finds the disciples in hiding.

It is the evening of Easter. Mary Magdalene met the risen Jesus by the tomb earlier that morning. She returned to the disciples with the wonderful news that she has seen the Lord. But the evening finds the disciples huddled behind locked doors. They are not out proclaiming the good news. They are not rushing to tell everyone that Christ is risen. They are afraid of the authorities, and they are in hiding.

It is not a terribly impressive scene that the gospel paints for us—frightened, cowering disciples, trembling behind closed shutters, drawn curtains, bolted doors, with the lights turned down low. But into this unimpressive group comes Jesus with words of comfort.  Twice he says, “Peace be with you.”

This is much more than a greeting. Jesus is giving them God’s shalom: spiritual wholeness, peace and harmony with God and with others. This is a profound blessing that gives restoration and the assurance of being held in God’s love. “Peace be with you.”

Does that seem at all odd to you? Doesn’t it seem like Jesus would comment on their lack of faith, their lack of understanding? Jesus has taught them, told them what would happen, told them he would be killed and rise again. Now it has all happened. Mary has told them that he has indeed risen. But they hide. Don’t you think Jesus must have been disappointed? Don’t you think he must have wondered if these were the right folks to carry the news to the world, to continue his work in the world?

But it only gets more strange. Not only does Jesus not fuss at them, Jesus commissions them for their work. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” As the Father sent Jesus, he now sends them. Jesus is entrusting them with the very same job God had entrusted him. In the very same way that he embodied God’s love, these disciples are to embody God’s love in the world. And they are empowered to forgive sins just like Jesus.

Hold on a minute, Jesus. Are you sure? Do you really think these folks are ready? They haven’t demonstrated much reason to trust them. Why only a couple of days ago Peter, the leader of the disciples, was denying even knowing Jesus. Even after the resurrection they remain in hiding, and now Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”?

Easter sermon video: Living Presence

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Easter sermon: Living Presence

Luke 24:1-12
Living Presence
James Sledge                                                                                     April 17, 2022

Easter Morning,
Cara B. Hochhalter

 Early on a Sunday morning, several women return from the empty tomb and tell the others what they had just experienced, how they had found the tomb empty and encountered two men in dazzling clothes. Presumably these were angels, and they had told the women that Jesus was risen. When they tell the others, however, the women do not find the most receptive audience for their account. Says the reading, But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

Over the years, many have commented on the role gender may have played in this. After all, it was a patriarchal society where women’s voices did not carry that much weight, and the women’s words perhaps seemed an idle tale because men didn’t trust women as reliable witnesses. I’ve no doubt commented on this dynamic in some of my past Easter sermons.

But it turns out that Luke’s gospel does not report some women bringing a report back to male disciples. Instead, it tells of female disciples who bring back a report to the eleven and to all the rest. And no doubt all the rest included more female disciples.

At numerous places in his gospel, Luke depicts women in the role of disciples, and in our passage this morning, the angels confirm this. They say to the women, “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” These women were among the disciples Jesus had instructed on the way to Jerusalem and the cross.

Now if these women are disciples, and if some of those hearing their report are also female disciples, then judging the report an idle tale isn’t about not believing female witnesses. Rather, it seemed an idle tale because it was too difficult to believe. Dead people stay dead. No one goes to a cemetery expecting to meet anyone once buried there, and most of us would think anyone who said they had needed to see a psychiatrist.

Sermon video - Christian Identity: Cross Shaped Lives

 Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Cross Shaped Lives

 Luke 19:28-40; Philippians 2:5-11
Christian Identity: Cross Shaped Lives
James Sledge                                               April 10, 2022, Passion/Palm Sunday

      Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

What might it mean to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus when we are talking about Palm Sunday? What do you think was on Jesus’ mind as he paraded into Jerusalem with his disciples shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"

Jesus had to be thinking very different thoughts than those of his disciples. Jesus had been clear for a long time about the fate that awaited him in Jerusalem. But he also knew that his disciples had never really understood what he had told them, and at that moment they were still hoping for a conquering Messiah, a new king to ride in and take over the throne of David. But Jesus knew that his throne was a cross.

The Pharisees don’t understand any better than the disciples, but they do want the disciples to be quiet. These Pharisees seem to think that Jesus would agree with them, would object to what the disciples were shouting. Perhaps they think it sacrilegious to speak of Jesus this way or perhaps that are simply worried about how dangerous this would sound if the Romans heard of it.

But Jesus insists that the shouts of “Blessed is the king,” must be made. Jesus is the king arriving for his coronation. That must be announced, even if the disciples don’t understand the odd sort of king that Jesus is.

It is easy to join in the disciples’ confusion. When I was a child, Palm Sunday was a day of unbridled celebration. We would wave palms and shout Hosannas with nary of thought about a cross. Oh, we knew about the cross, but it was little more than an unfortunate detour on the way to the glory of Easter. We rushed from Palm Sunday parade to Easter parade with only a quick glimpse of the cross.

Sermon video - Christian Identity: New Priorities

 Audios of sermons and videos available on the FCPC website.

Sermon - Christian Identity: New Priorities

 Philippians 3:4b-14
Christian Identity: New Priorities
James Sledge                                                                                                 April 3, 2022

Ruins at Philippi

 A little over 20 years ago, Nicholas Cage was in a somewhat corny, somewhat trite movie called The Family Man. For those who never saw it, Cage stars as a young man who has become a highly successful businessman and financier. He is an incredible deal maker who has a salary to prove it. He lives in a luxury high rise apartment, drives a Ferrari, wears the finest of clothes, and has beautiful women at his beck and call. As far as he is concerned, he is living the ideal life. But then everything changes.

He wakes up one morning to find himself a New Jersey suburban husband and father, living in a little three-bedroom house, and working as the assistant manager in a tire store. At first, he thinks it’s some sort of terrible dream, a nightmare. But as time wears on and the reality of his new existence sinks in, he begins to feel as if he’s died and gone to hell. He finds a bottle of scotch in his desk at the tire store and says to whomever’s life it is that he now finds himself living, “You must have really needed this.” He is sure that no one would choose such a life for himself, and he sets out to work his way back to being a player in the financial life of New York City.

The movie is nothing but predictable so you can probably guess what happens as the movie unfolds. He gradually begins to fall in love with his wife, a woman whom he had once given up in order to be a Wall Street player. And he comes to love his children, to love playing with them and caring for them. He even comes to love his middle-class existence, including hanging out with neighborhood buddies and bowling in the local bowling league. It’s a far cry from the life he had lived.

But just as he has begun truly to appreciate this new life, he wakes up back in his luxury apartment in the city, a gorgeous woman knocking on the door. He has all his fine clothes and his fancy Italian sports car again. All those things that he valued so much, all those things he had worked so hard to achieve were his again, but all he could think about was that mundane, middle-class life he had briefly experienced.

He makes a desperate attempt to get back his suburban New Jersey life. He locates that woman he had not married. He jeopardizes a huge deal his company is working on when he rushes to the airport to intercept her before she leaves for an extended overseas stay. He makes a fool of himself trying to get her to delay her departure, and the movie ends with him talking to her in the airport bar, trying to find something he’d once been sure he didn’t want.

This old movie came to mind as I thought about Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. Paul speaks of having lived two different lives himself, and like the Nicholas Cage character, he was certain that the first life was the one he wanted. He had all the things that he thought mattered. He was from the right ethnic group, from the right family, and had been to the right schools. He belonged to the right political party and had attended the right church. He had been certain that all of this was the right way to go, and so he was zealous about how he lived his life. He pursued it with a single-minded devotion born of the certainty that his life was just as it should be. He could not imagine any other sort of life.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Realizing We're Lost

 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Christian Identity: Realizing We’re Lost
James Sledge                                                                                                 March 27, 2022

Forgiving Father,
Frank Wesley, 1923-2002

Recently I spotted an article from the Religion News Service on The Washington Post website with a headline drawn from the piece that read, “If there is anything remotely ‘helpful’ about the Ukraine conversation, it is simply this: It has resurrected the concept of evil.”[1]

I only skimmed what turned out to be a blog post, but I had a pretty good idea where the author was going. The notion of evil, along with its close cousin, sin, fell out of fashion some time ago. For many, things once labeled as evil can be explained in terms of inadequate education and opportunity or perhaps mental illness. And much termed evil could be eliminated if all its causes were dealt with.

I’m all for addressing inequities in education and opportunity, and everyone should have access to mental health services, but I’m not so sure that evil is simply a problem to be solved if enough resources are brought to bear. Russia’s vile war against Ukraine cannot be blamed on one man’s mental illness or lack of adequate education and understanding. The actions of Putin and a whole host of Russian political and military leaders speak to a more fundamental, existential problem with the human creature, the problem of human sinfulness.

I had a pastoral care professor in seminary who like to define sin as distortion. All of us have a tendency to misperceive ourselves, others, and the world around us and so to act in ways that are not in our own best interests, those of others, or of the world we live in. This tendency is remarkably resilient and resistant to the cures we devise for it, and so we are prone to mess up in ways minor and ways spectacular. We are prone, in ways large and small, to live in a manner that is counter the image of God that lies buried within each of us.

Sermon video - Christian Identity: Trusting the Gift

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Trusting the Gift

 Isaiah 55:1-9
Christian Identity: Trusting the Gift
James Sledge                                                                            March 20, 2022

Still Life with Bottle, Carafe, Bread, and Wine,
Claude Monet, c. 1862/1863, National Gallery of Art

When I was twelve years old, my family moved out to “the country.” It was old family land that had once been a farm. It had not been farmed in decades, but when we moved out there we were able to put up a fence so we could have horses. And we didn’t just have horses. We also had a pair of donkeys named Angelo and Annabelle.

How it was that we acquired those donkeys probably qualifies as one of those “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” moments. Somehow my father had found out about an elderly woman who had seven or eight of them. I think she was moving into a retirement home, and so she was trying to find good homes for her pets. We took two.

We tried to ride them a few times, with very limited success. They either just sat there, or they threw you off. And so they were little more than novelties or conversation pieces. They weren’t really good for anything. However, they could bray so loudly that you could hear them for miles. And they were quite good at escaping.

Our horses would occasionally get out, but they would normally just eat the grass on the other side of the fence. The donkeys, on the other hand, would go on excursions. I bet I’m one of the few kids who got pulled out of school to go home to help catch donkeys who were trotting down the road and startling drivers.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Urgent Questions

 Philippians 3:17-4:1
Christian Identity: Urgent Questions
James Sledge                                                                                                 March 13, 2022

The Apostle Paul
Rembrandt, 1633

   There is a famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that says, “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?’” The quote pops up regularly on social media, and it always draws lots of likes and shares. But is that really our most persistent and urgent question?

I ask because I don’t know that I see very much evidence that people’s lives are driven by questions of what they are doing for others. Think about it. What are the most persistent and urgent questions in your life? For a young person they might be, “Where am I going to college,” or “What am I going to do with my life?” For others they might be about money. “Can I cover expenses until the next paycheck?” “Do I have enough in my 401k?” “What did the stock market do today?”

For some the most persistent question might be about raising children. For others about getting that new position at work. Some people might be focused on finding a life partner. I have questions about what I’ll do when I retire, whether we saved enough, and what sort of world my grandchildren will grow up in. I sometimes think about what I should be doing for others, but I’m pretty sure that’s not my very top, my most persistent and urgent question.

I started thinking about such questions when I was ruminating over today’s scripture passage and thinking about the theme of Christian identity that I’m exploring in my sermons as we work our way toward Holy Week and Easter. What sort of questions need to be near the top of your list if you’re going to have a legitimate, authentic Christian identity?

In the part of his letter to the congregation in Philippi that we heard, Paul contrasts two very different identities. One lives as an enemy of the cross of Christ, and the other has its citizenship in heaven. One’s god is their belly, a reference to a life driven by every want and desire, and the other lives in way that imitate the Apostle Paul.

Perhaps it would be helpful to say a little something about this first identity that has upset Paul to the point of tears. These people are Christians, but they seem to have misunderstood or misconstrued Paul’s basic proclamation.

Sermon video - Christian Identity: Being Truly Human

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon - Christian Identity: Being Truly Human

 Luke 4:1-13
Christian Identity: Being Truly Human
James Sledge                                                                                                 March 6, 2022

Briton Rivière, 1840-1920. Temptation in the Wilderness,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

I think I was in ninth grade when the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, burst onto the scene. It was a huge cultural phenomenon, with some of its songs becoming pop hits. I had the two-album soundtrack and played it frequently. At the time, there was a certain subversive quality to the musical that appealed to a young teenager.

One song that especially appealed to me was a catchy, comic number sung by King Herod when Jesus, freshly arrested, is brought to him for trial. The sarcastic lyrics Herod sings to an unresponsive Jesus include a verse that goes,     

So, you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ
            Prove to me that you're divine - change my water into wine
            That's all you need do, and I'll know it's all true
            C'mon, king of the Jews! 

Another verse issues a different challenge to Jesus.   

So, you are the Christ, you're the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you're no fool - walk across my swimming pool
If you do that for me, then I'll let you go free
C'mon, king of the Jews!

I share these lyrics because there was a time when I saw today’s gospel reading as a similar situation. A smug, sarcastic devil, complete with horns and pitchfork, issues challenges to Jesus. “Come on, Jesus. Do a trick for me, and then I’ll believe you really are the Son of God.”

I suppose that my image of the devil became a bit more sophisticated as I grew older, but it was not until I entered seminary that I realized the devil never asks Jesus to prove who he is. His challenges are nothing like those of Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar. The devil in this story knows full well exactly who Jesus is. His challenges don’t ask Jesus to prove anything. Rather they force Jesus to wrestle with just what it means for him to be Son of God.

Sermon video: In the Presence of God

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: In the Presence of God

 In the Presence of God
Luke 9:28-43a
James Sledge                                                  February 27, 2022 – Transfiguration Sunday

Cara B. Hochhalter, Transfiguration,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
aproject of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

 I hope I haven’t told you this story before, but when I was in seminary, I was part of a group that spent three weeks in the Holy Land and Greece. During the trip, we visited the site traditionally held to be Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments. There’s no real proof that it is actually the same place, but pilgrims have been coming to the site since the time of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.

Standard procedure for tourists and pilgrims is to arise very early in the morning, around 4:30 or so, in order to reach the summit while it is still dark. The idea is to witness sunrise from atop Mt. Sinai. Our group gathered at the base of mountain where we climbed on camels, accompanied by the requisite jokes about the Camel-lot. Following a dark ride where you could only barely make out the steep drop-off just beyond the narrow path, we dismounted and walked the remaining 30 minutes or so to the top.

We all found spots where we had an unobstructed view towards the east. As the predawn glow began to light up the horizon, you got a sense of what a stark, severe landscape it was.  Other mountains jutted up all around, rocky peaks with little or no vegetation.

Everyone got their cameras ready as the pink horizon grew brighter. Little was said as the sun slowly emerged from behind one of those other peaks. In the desert haze, it was an orange-pink ball that was well up into the sky before becoming bright enough that it bothered your eyes to look directly at it.

Before I took this trip, I had talked with classmates who’d gone in previous years. I’d seen photographs of the sun rising over those same peaks and had heard people talk about what a moving experience it was, and I was ready for an experience of my own. I did get some pretty decent pictures, but I must confess that I was a little disappointed in the moving experience department.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a gorgeous and fantastic vista. I’m very glad I went and would recommend it to anyone, but I was disappointed that I didn’t feel something. I was truly hoping for some sort of religious experience, as, no doubt, were many others who were there with me. Instead I got some nice pictures, a story to tell, and beautiful view of that part of the Sinai Peninsula. 

Some of those in my group did experience what I had hoped to. I don’t know why they did and I didn’t. After all they saw the same scene that I saw. Still, they experienced something. There was no explaining it. It’s not as if they could have told me where or how to look at the sunrise in order to sense what they did. It was something beyond explanations, something that must be experienced to really appreciate.

Sermon video: Embracing Resurrection

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Embracing Resurrection

 1 Corinthians 15:35-57
Embracing Resurrection
James Sledge                                                                                     February 20, 2022

Portion of the frescos
in the Visoki Dečani Monastery,
Kosovo, ca. 1335

 When I began thinking about a sermon for today, I discovered that I have never preached on this passage from 1 Corinthians during my twenty-six plus years as a pastor. I’m sure there are other passages that share this distinction, but this passage does discuss something rather critical to Christian faith: resurrection.

Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I’ve ever preached a sermon on resurrection at all. Oh, I’ve preached Easter sermons that proclaim, “He is risen!” I’ve preached sermons where resurrection is assumed or is lurking around in the background, but I don’t think I’ve ever preached a sermon where resurrection itself was the focus.

For that matter, I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard a sermon that was about resurrection, that talked about what it is and what it means. It seems that we in the church often operate as though everyone already knows what resurrection means and what it is, yet in my experience that is far from the truth.

The Bible itself may contribute to this problem. All four gospels are quite emphatic about the fact of resurrection, but none of them describe it or tell us how it happened. They don’t explain how the risen Jesus is different from the pre-Easter Jesus, although they do indicate that he is different.

So how do you understand resurrection? What do you mean when you say the words of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in… the resurrection of the body”? If someone who knew nothing about Christianity asked you to explain resurrection to them, what would you say?

Sermon video: Joining the Parade

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Joining the Parade

 Luke 5:1-11
Joining the Parade
James Sledge                                                                                     February 6, 2022

Draft of Fishes, Peter Koenig, born 1947,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

I suspect that many of you have a picture in your mind of Jesus calling his first disciples. I know that I do. In my picture Jesus begins to teach, to proclaim God’s coming kingdom right after he is baptized and then tempted in the wilderness. As he travels along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, he encounters a few fishermen. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people,” Jesus says. And they drop everything and go after him.

In this picture there is simply something about Jesus and his invitation that draws these fishermen from their old life to a new one. It is incredibly dramatic. One minute they are making a living by fishing. The next minute, a stranger speaks to them and they are forever changed. And I think this picture has had a significant impact on the idea of evangelism as a dramatic event where one meets Jesus for the first time and is changed forever.

My picture of Jesus calling his first disciples comes straight out of Matthew and Mark’s gospels. But today we heard a very different story from Luke. Over the years Christians have often tried to harmonize these stories, but I think that misses the point. The gospel writers were often less concerned with telling precise history than they were with making a point. Luke writes for a different audience and paints a very different picture than Matthew and Mark, one that may actually have more contact with some of our lives.

To see Luke’s picture, we need to step back a bit and glimpse the entire canvas. As with Mark and Matthew, Jesus has been baptized and tempted in the wilderness. But then he has begun his ministry, taught in his home synagogue at Nazareth, come to the region of Galilee and healed a man with an unclean spirit. Then Jesus has visited Simon Peter’s house, cured his mother-in-law of a high fever, and then cured throngs of sick who were brought to him there.

In Luke’s picture, Simon already knows Jesus, has already met him prior to finishing a long night’s work with nothing to show for it. But then Jesus asks to borrow his boat. Surely Simon is tired and wanted to say, “No.” But after all, Jesus had cured his mother-in-law. 

Luke seems uninterested in what Jesus taught the crowds who gather on the shore. He skips over that, moving quickly to where Jesus tells Simon to put out into deep water. Once again, Simon would rather not, but he obeys this remarkable rabbi. In an instant there are more fish than anyone has ever seen before. Suddenly, Simon is frightened of Jesus and wants to be far away from him. Simon has met Jesus before and knows about his ministry, but all of a sudden Simon senses that he is in the terrifying presence of God. Simon, a rough, uneducated, hard living, hard swearing, dirty and sweaty fisherman, finds himself where ritually purified priests fear to tread, and all he wants to do is escape. “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

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Sermon video: Scandalous Grace

 

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.