Something to Eat

Reading today's gospel made me think about how often feeding miracles shows up in the gospels. All four contain one, and Matthew and Mark have two.  Six miraculous feedings.  No missing that Jesus provides food for the hungry.

So many occurrences suggests this was a very well known story. No matter what sources a gospel writer had, there it was.  And Mark had two different accounts (apparently replicated in Matthew). Perhaps they were the same event via different sources, or perhaps they were stories of different feeding miracles.  Either way, Jesus feeding the crowds features very prominently in the story the early Church told.

Our course meals figure prominently in other ways. Huge portions of the synoptic gospels are devoted to Jesus' last meal with  his followers. A banquet was a well worn metaphor for the coming of God's reign. And the early Church came together around a meal.  (The typical dry cubes and thimbles of juice in the Lord's Supper I grew up with bore scant resemblance to such meals, much less to a banquet.)

Eating a meal with someone is a significant act. Most of us are pretty picky about who we invite over for dinner.  In our day of fast and easy food, we may not spend much time reflecting on the act of eating, but we still have favorite foods and restaurants. And while going to the movies is a safe first date, dining together at a nice establishment is a much more intimate event.

Church suffers a huge loss when the experience of worship is more like the movies or a concert than like joining others for dinner.  Not that movies or concerts cannot be deeply moving, but they lack the intimacy of a meal.  They lack the sense of receiving something one cannot live without, nourishment and companionship, community if you will.

I suspect one reason so many young people find traditional worship unappealing is that it feels more like going to something than it feels like receiving something you deeply need.  The pendulum swing in my tradition back toward more frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper perhaps senses this lack. But I am not sure that simply doing communion more often, especially in services with lots of people, changes things very much.

I once new a church member who I liked a great deal. When he would leave Sunday worship, he often commented on my sermons.  If he had really liked one he would make a point of saying, "I really enjoyed the lecture today." I never objected.  I knew he meant it in the kindest possible way, but it always unnerved me a bit.

Jesus taught, he told stories, he healed, and he fed people and ate with them, and the early Church and the gospel writers seem quite captivated by the food part.  Jesus offers food for those who are hungry, and he gives it to his followers to distribute and share.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Afraid

God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble. 
Therefore we will not fear, 
          though the earth should change,
     though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 
though its waters roar and foam,
     though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

Psalm 46:1-3

"We will not fear." So says the psalmist.  But the fact is that most of us live with a fair amount of fear and anxiety. If you read newspapers or watch the news, there are plenty of reasons for fear and anxiety. But you would expect people of faith to have less trouble with fear, wouldn't you?  After all, God is on our side.  And so we won't be afraid even if the earth changes, the mountains shake, and the waters roar and foam. Right?

Yesterday I read Tom Ehrich's blog post, "Speaking of Fear." Tom is a writer, Episcopal priest, and church consultant, and he was speaking of fears that often impact Christians and their churches.  In particular, he listed "fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of losing control, fear of conflict, and fear of change." These fears often paralyze church congregations.

When Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, he tells his followers that the Spirit will abide with them and strengthen them and teach them all they need.  Therefore we should not have troubled hearts or be afraid. And yet the fears Tom Ehrich lists do afflict us and keep us from doing what Jesus calls us to do. Churches are often afraid to try anything new or different, sometimes out of fear of change and sometimes over fear of failure. There are remarkable exceptions, but churches are often some of the most timid organizations around, afraid to try anything they don't already know how to do.

And pastors' fears can be just as problematic.  If we're not control freaks afraid of delegating anything, we are needy and afraid people won't like us, not daring to speak what we think to be the truth. Or our messiah complexes make us afraid that our congregations will lose their way if we don't make sure everything is done in theological or ecclesiastical purity.

All of these fears, I fear, have a common denominator.  All of them have difficulty trusting God with anything of much significance.  If we can't think of it, control it, manage it, and accomplish it all on our own, we're pretty sure, or at least very afraid, that it can't happen. Practically speaking, we do not believe that God is with is us in any significant way, and we certainly don't believe in any power or assistance from God the Holy Spirit.

1 John says, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." Perhaps the timidity and fearfulness of congregations and pastors is less a faith problem and more a love problem. We've never quite encountered God's love in so vivid and tangible a way that it has cast out all fear. We're worried, even afraid, that God might not love us so much that our failings couldn't drive God away.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

On Receiving a Scary Letter

Imagine that your congregation received a communication from a prophet who had just had a vision.  And that communication said, "Some of you are about to be put in prison on account of your faith. You will likely be tortured, and it will be terrible for 10 days.  But remain faithful until death, and you will conquer."

I'm not sure I can imagine such a thing.  It is so far outside any religious experience in our culture.  So if such a letter arrived at our church, no matter whom it came from, I would likely think the person a crackpot, some Tea Party sort who had gone completely off the deep end.

But what if, by some remarkable circumstance, I or you could be convinced that this communication was true?  Perhaps I'm wrong, but I feel reasonably certain that the vast majority of American congregations would lose over 90% of their members instantly.

The book of Revelation is a letter written to Christians facing just such difficult circumstances.  And unlike many modern Christians, they understood that this letter meant to assist them in remaining faithful under very trying circumstances.  It wasn't giving detailed predictions about the future or the end of the world.

Revelation was written in a very different time and to a very different Church.  Those Christians understood themselves to stand outside prevailing culture to some degree. They experienced a fair amount of tension between their new life in Christ and what it took to fit into Greco-Roman culture. 

When I was growing up, it was very difficult to separate Christian faith from the prevailing culture. There was a symbiotic relationship between the two, although I've often thought that the Church sold its soul in that bargain.  My Presbyterian/Reformed Tradition often spoke of Christ/Church as a transforming presence in the culture.  To be sure, some of that happened, but it cut both ways.

Over the years and centuries, Church became a very worldly institution, and like all institutions, it is often more fixated on preserving itself than anything else.  When the culture realized it no longer needed or wanted a symbiotic relationship with Church, the watered down thing we had become began to struggle without the stores and malls being closed on Sunday morning or religious indoctrination conducted by the public schools. (I think that the origins of the "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" I mentioned yesterday emerge from this transition.)

In the last 50 years or so, membership in Mainline churches has dropped by half.  And most who left did not join other denominations or mega-churches.  They simply left.  This group of "Nones," as some have labeled them, is huge and growing. "Nones" make up an estimated 20% of American adults, and the percentage is surely much higher among young adults.  But church congregations often seem blissfully unaware unless they are experiencing a big loss in membership and therefore worrying about how to get more people to come so their congregation can survive. 

In the staff meeting at this church today, I asked folks an identity question. (I borrowed it from a book on church planning by Kenneth Callahan.)  How would our neighbors finish this sentence?  "Falls Church Presbyterian, it's that church that___________." It's hard to know for certain if their answers accurately reflect what non-member neighbors would say, but I suspect they are fairly accurate.  Suggestions included something about our nice buildings, the Scouts that meet here, community events that we host, our great music program, or our once a month "Welcome Table" where we offer a free meal along with gift cards for a local grocery store and other items to people in need. 

As I looked over the list, it struck me that many congregations might have prompted a very similar list.  It also struck me that only the last item - and it was one of the last suggestions from the staff - had a direct connection to anything Jesus called us to do.

There are times when I wonder if the "institutional church" can actually be the Church. Sometimes it seems the best it can do is to house and nurture occasional episodes of Church, of Christ's body present to the world.  But the bulk of its energy and resources get tied up by the institution and its edifices, regardless of whether those do much to further the work of Christ in the world.

Perhaps I'm just having "one of those days" and being too hard on this thing we call Church.  What do you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Pondering a Miracle

Upon reading today's gospel where Jesus turns water into wine, I have a profound sense that I am missing something. It seems a rather odd story for John's gospel, which is not all that big on miracles, instead featuring great speeches and teachings by Jesus.  But here is a spectacular miracle with no teaching at all.

More liberal types like myself sometimes get tied up in knots over readings such as today's gospel. We're troubled by the miraculous, especially a miracle so blatant as this one. It is so foreign to our scientific worldview, and there is no moral or spiritual lesson to be easily generalized from this episode. And so we have trouble taking this text seriously because to do so feels like fundamentalist literalism to us.
Banquets, wedding banquets in particular, get used in the Bible to speak of the abundance that God will provide, of the plenty and goodness that will mark God's coming reign. Surely today's gospel insists that even though Jesus' "hour has not yet come," God's abundance and provision are fully present in him. The steward in the reading remains blissfully unaware of this, attributing the abundance to some hyper-hospitality on the part of the groom.  But the disciples "believed in him." They saw God's abundance in Jesus, and so they could do nothing less.

But do we liberal and progressive Christians actually believe in God's abundance? (The question is probably valid for conservatives as well.) Can God provide in any real and tangible ways, or is God restricted to my interior life, and perhaps to something after death?

In her book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church, Kenda Creasy Dean discusses the normative faith of American teens, something a huge national study labeled "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism."  This notion that there is a God, that we should be "good," that God sometimes bails us out of personal jams, and that we go to heaven when we die, is not something teenagers produced by perverting the teachings they learned at church, says Dean. Rather, this is precisely what they learned at church.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism doesn't know what to do with Jesus changing water into wine, nor with God entering into and transforming history. These sorts of things simply have no place in the benign, innocuous, "Christian-ish" notions that teenagers have learned because that is what many churches have peddled.

Another finding of that national study is that teenagers, by and large, don't have much animosity toward religion. They don't reject church as something bad. They simply cannot fathom why they would invest much energy in it. After all, believing in God, trying to be good, and praying now and then don't require church membership or participation. And why would anyone worship and sing songs to a vague, distant, not-really-involved-involved-in-the-world God?

When people encounter our congregations, do they encounter anything of a God who is bending the arc of history toward God's purposes, whose providence sustains the universe, and whose grace intrudes into human life and history?  Or do they find some nice people trying hard to do some good things and enjoying a little spiritual boost from the rhythms of worship, but without much sense that God is there and up to something. (I realize that I'm making an either/or question out of something where there is a huge continuum of possibilities.)

I frequently cite a quote I believe to come from someone at the Alban Institute (Roy Oswald perhaps?). Speaking on the troubles of Mainline churches this person said something to the effect, "People come to us seeking an experience of God, but we give them information about God."

It is very hard to share an experience of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It's a nice enough notion but not the sort of thing you would give yourself over to.  And if God cannot intrude into our lives and our world in ways that violate our expectations, that defy our notions of what is possible or plausible, if God cannot turn water to wine, then why are we church folk here? 

There's an old joke that goes, "What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian?" Answer: "Someone who knocks at your door but isn't sure why he's there."  And I sometimes wonder if many church congregations don't operate on a similar principle. We keep doing our thing, but we're not really sure why.

I know from serving three churches as pastor, and from working with a number of other congregations via denominational committees, that we often function as though God was not really part of the equation.  We say that we are doing what Jesus calls us to do, but we are no bolder in that work than we are at any other organization, from the workplace to PTA to Scouts to a local charity. We make decisions and undertake projects with absolutely no expectation that God/the Holy Spirit will add anything to the effort. If we have sufficient funding and volunteers and expertise, fine. Otherwise, it's just not possible.

But what if God's abundance and provision and grace really do enter into human experience in the person of Jesus?

I did not start out to write anything of the sort I just did. Strange where you end up when you stop to ponder a miracle.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Sermon video: Now What?

Sermons also available on YouTube.

Sermon audio: Now What?

Sermon and worship audios also available on church website.

Sermon: Now What?

Matthew 2:1-12

Now What?

James Sledge                                                                           January 6, 2013, Epiphany

Our family went down to see relatives in South Carolina after Christmas.  We’ve always done Christmas at our house, and then traveled to the grandparents.  But now it’s over.  We made the drive back on Tuesday.  There are still remnants of Christmas morn lying around at the house, but more and more are being put away.  The tree is getting pretty dry.  Time to haul it out. When we had an artificial tree, we sometimes left it up till late January.  But no one acted like it was still Christmas.  Christmas is over, and we all know it.  Now what?

Although many of us like to attach the Wise Men to the Christmas story, adding them to our nativity scenes, they are a post-Christmas story.  The shepherds are all gone.  The angels are all gone.  In fact, they never even made an appearance in Matthew’s gospel.  There is no stable or manger.  Mary and Jesus live in a house, and Jesus is no longer a newborn.  He crawls or perhaps even walks around the house, getting into things like any toddler does.

 In his gospel, Matthew doesn’t say very much about Jesus’ actual birth.  It is noted only briefly in the story of the angel telling Joseph to wed the already pregnant Mary. He took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. Jesus has been born and been named with a name meaning “he saves.”  God’s anointed is here.  Now what?

The story of the Wise Men is a “now what?” story, and so it may be a good thing that the story has gotten attached to Christmas.  As much as we may enjoy the Christmas season and as much as it may touch us, there is a tendency simply to bask in its warmth, to drink in its hope and promise without ever asking, “Now what?”  But the story of the Wise Men won’t allow that.  It alerts us to choices that must be made, to powers that do not want God’s new day.  It warns us of danger.

It Can't Be That Simple

The metaphors are flying in today's gospel. Jesus is the gate, while others are thieves and bandits. Then Jesus is the good shepherd as opposed to a hired hand.  And bouncing around within these metaphors is an "I AM" that gets lost in English translations.  This grammatical structure, one not really available to English, is a kind of divine marker.  And so these become more than metaphorical description. They are windows into the heart of God.

And those windows reveal a divine motivation that has been clearly stated in John's gospel from early on. God acts out of love, "For God so loved the world..."  God acts in order to give life. God is willing to go to incredible lengths, willing to die for the sake of the sheep.  And God is not concerned only with my particular flock. God longs for our petty divisions to disappear once and for all.

It's all right there, so clearly, so simply. But if I preached a sermon and said only this, I would feel like I hadn't done my job.  I wouldn't have unpacked the text enough.  I wouldn't have been creative enough.

God loves the world. In Christ, God would go so far as to die for us. It's so plain and simple, but it is so hard to accept. It can't be that simple.  There has to be some catch.  I have to believe the right things. I have to be good enough to deserve such love. And surely God isn't talking about loving "them," whoever we understand "them" to be.

"I AM," God, is the gate, an opening to abundant life.  "I AM", God, puts my and your well being over divine welfare.  God willingly undergoes great anguish within the heart of the divine self for my and your sake, simply because of who God is. 

It can't possibly be that simple, can it?

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

It is somewhat rare that I preach on the Sunday following Christmas.  Pastors often travel to visit family after Christmas day, and substitute preachers are in big demand on this first Sunday following the celebration of Jesus' birth.  And so I'm not sure if I've ever dealt with today's gospel in a sermon, and I'm not at all sure what I would say.

The first thing that comes to mind when I read these verses is the terror that Jesus' parents must have experienced. I once "lost" one of my daughters.  She was still preschool age and decided she would head on to the grocery store, our next stop, on her own.  I looked up from the shelves in the drug store to find she was no longer beside me. I looked on the adjacent aisle, and then the next, and then ran back and forth all through that store as a feeling of total panic began to rise up inside me.  For a brief moment I think I experienced the most terror I have ever felt. (In desperation I rushed over to the grocery store and found her getting the free cookie the bakery there gave to small children.) Jesus' parents must have felt what I did many times over. Rather than a few minutes, they could not locate Jesus for days. 

This is the only childhood story the Bible has about Jesus.  And while it does highlight the exceptional nature of Jesus, it also puts his parents through great agony. It's nowhere near so terrifying as Matthew's story of Jesus' family fleeing the slaughter of all the young boys in Bethlehem, but like it, Luke's account of Jesus' arrival quickly takes a troubling turn.  Maybe that is why our culture and our congregations, for all the attention we lavish on Christmas, turn away from it almost the moment the day arrives.  The Christmas story is not the saccharine sweet thing we want it to be. The story immediately encounters the world's enmity along with hints that following Jesus will demand loyalty exceeding that given to family, country, etc.

Our gospel says that Jesus' mother, Mary "treasured all these things in her heart."  I wonder what she found to treasure about this episode. I also wonder if this is the best translation.  Another possibility is that Mary "carefully remembered" all these things, and that seems more likely to me. She knew they were important, but I wonder if she would not have gladly given them up in order to prevent what would happen to her son.

I suspect that this sort of "treasuring" is an unavoidable part of faith. In a world that is out of step with God's ways, it is inevitable that taking up those ways will cause us pain and struggles over loyalties.  And if we do not realize this, we may have misunderstood the whole Jesus business. Maybe that is why Matthew and Luke (the only gospel writers who mention Jesus' birth) immediately attach dark and foreboding episodes to the story of Jesus' arrival.

It makes me wonder about the careful remembering that I need to be doing, the reflecting on things troubling and disturbing that I need to hold close if I am to understand what Jesus is asking of me.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.

On Lighting Candles

I've never preached on Christmas Eve, but these were the "instructions" for the candle lighting at our service tonight.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." In the darkness... On Christmas Eve we gather in the darkness. Some of us do so every year, but the darkness seems to press in a bit more this year.  Whether it is a dysfunctional Congress more bent on partisan bickering than actually helping the American people, or the terrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, or the horrible violence in places like Syria and the Congo, it is hard to deny the awful reality of the darkness.

If you were here last week for our Service of the Longest Night, you heard Diane remind us that the Christmas story is a dark story.  That sometimes gets lost in all the sentimentality and nostalgia and celebration, but it is still there. A couple forced by imperial power to travel, even though a birth is imminent. A birth far from home in a dirty and smelly place meant for farm animals. And as the story continues, this new family becomes refugees, fleeing those who would kill a newborn Messiah.

To say the light shines in the darkness is no act of sentimentality. Rather it is a bold assertion that the light that comes as a vulnerable baby, the love of God that comes in vulnerability and weakness, is somehow stronger than all that darkness.

And so as we light our candles and bask in their glow, it is much more than an ooh-and-aah moment. It is an act of defiance in the face of the darkness, an act that says we trust and hope in the power of God's weakness and vulnerability over all the terrors of the darkness.

The light, the vulnerable light of a newborn baby, shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. Let us embrace that light, and carry it with us, that we might share it with a broken and hurting world that desperately needs it.

A Vulnerable God

We in the Church make far too much of Christmas, and far too little at the same time. We expend too much energy on Christmas extravaganzas and pageants that mirror the secular frenzy surrounding Christmas. Many seem to feel that Christmas-themed religious hoopla needs to keep up with the ever expanding secular hoopla.  I'm not sure why. Perhaps to hold on to some notion that all this energy is related to faith in some way.

But at the very same time, we sometimes get numbed to how remarkable the Christmas story is. The baby Jesus makes the briefest of appearances in the Bible, actually seen only in Luke's gospel. But the implications of that moment manifest themselves throughout the New Testament. God's love and power comes, not with earthquake and thunderbolts, but vulnerable and at risk.

What is more at risk than an infant? At Christmas God incarnate is totally dependent on others, just like all babies. Some Christians have always struggled with such notions, imagining that the baby Jesus wasn't like real babies. But nothing in Scripture would seem to support such a notion. A truly human baby, totally dependent on his parents, would grow to be a truly human adult who suffered and bled and died like other human beings.  He was, as the Apostle Paul wrote, God's power made perfect in weakness.

The notion of a vulnerable God seems to run counter to basic assumptions about God. God should be powerful, not vulnerable. So it's not surprising that the first big theological fight among early Christians was over the nature of Jesus' humanity.  Surely he only appeared human. God cannot be vulnerable or experience mortal jeopardy. And many modern Christians, living long after such debates were "settled," still struggle, picturing the biblical Jesus as some sort of aberration, a historical blip necessary to fulfill a salvation formula. But Jesus isn't like that anymore. And, they point out, when Jesus returns he will be just what you'd expect a god to be like, all powerful, no more meek and mild and vulnerable.

Expecting a returning Jesus who won't be such a disappointment in the godly power department seems to echo expectations of a conquering Messiah from 2000 years ago. But I think Christmas and the Incarnation reflect God's deepest nature. I see that nature on display in today's reading from the book of Revelation. Many presume Revelation to be violent predictions of God's coming wrath. But not only does Jesus still appear in it as one who is slain, but the closing of the book sounds much like the gospel Jesus.

"It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let everyone who hears say, "Come." And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

"Water of life as a gift" seems totally consistent with the vulnerable love we meet in the gospel Jesus, that story whose beginning we rehearse tonight. The story of a manger is the story of a God who enters fully into our vulnerabilities, who confronts the pain and brokenness of our world with a remarkably vulnerable love. We've still not fully embraced this love or this God. In many ways, we still prefer coercive power to vulnerable love.

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes the flash and pomp and magnificent displays of Christmas seem the sort of things that should accompany celebrations of worldly power such as coronations or inaugurations. There's a kind of dissonance between them and the story of a baby in a manger that reminds me of how I feel when I see the Pope, in all his royal finery, engaging in ritual foot-washing on Good Friday.

But even if the vulnerable baby gets lost amidst the bright lights and pageantry, he is still there. We just need to look beyond the pageantry and attend to the story itself. In the context of Rome's imperial might, a most vulnerable human act occurs, a birth. And this most vulnerable act occurs away from the safe confines of home, dependent on the hospitality of strangers who are able to provide only marginal accommodations. And there, God is.  There, with this act of remarkable vulnerability, God beckons us to become vulnerable ourselves, and to become bearers of God's love.

May you encounter the vulnerable God of Christmas as we remember and celebrate our Savior's birth.

Click to learn more about the Lectionary.

Sermon audio: A Strange Day in Zechariah's House

More worship and sermon audios on Falls Church Presbyterian website.

Sermon video: A Strange Day in Zechariah's House

More sermon videos available on YouTube.

Sermon: A Strange Day in Zechariah's House

Luke 1:39-55

A Strange Day in Zechariah’s House

James Sledge                                                                                       December 23, 2012

It was a strange day in the house of Zechariah as two women, both pregnant, greet one another.  They are relatives of some sort.  I’d always heard that they were cousins.  The old King James translation says as much, but in fact, Luke doesn’t specify how they are related, only that they are.

They are a study in contrasts.  One is six months pregnant; the other hasn’t even begun to show.  One is old, too old to have children, so old that her pregnancy can only be described as a miracle.  The other is young, so young that she is not yet married in a culture where girls were often married by 14. 

As the door opens, the very pregnant, very old woman greets her very young, barely pregnant, barely out of childhood, niece or cousin or whatever she is. It must have been quite an encounter. They’ve not seen one another in a long time. Mary had just learned of Elizabeth’s pregnancy from the angel Gabriel.  Elizabeth has no way of knowing that Mary is pregnant, yet she knows.  Imagine the greeting, the screaming, the joy, the tears. 

Imagine poor Zechariah.  Two pregnant women in the house and he can’t even talk, struck mute by the angel Gabriel for not believing that he and Elizabeth would have a son so late in life.  I wonder if Zechariah headed out to the local tavern to escape the screaming and yelling and singing of these two pregnant women.

I also wonder why Mary went to see Elizabeth.  Is she seeking reassurance, going to confirm what Gabriel told her about Elizabeth and so confirm what Gabriel said about her own pregnancy?  Is Elizabeth is the one person who can understand, who she can talk with about these strange goings on?  Is Mary just scared, wondering why she ever said “Yes” to Gabriel, wondering what she will do when she starts to show?  Is she wondering how to tell Joseph?  Did she come to sort all of this out, or perhaps to borrow some maternity clothes.

As I said, it was a strange day in Zechariah’s house.  All these things going on.  All these unanswered questions, not to mention the more run of the mill questions about morning sickness and mood swings and midwives.  So much to discuss and talk about, yet we hear none of that.

Mary walks in, and Elizabeth’s baby jumps in her womb.  I still remember putting my hand on my wife’s abdomen and feeling a kick.  It’s an amazing thing, to feel that life moving.  You might even call it miraculous, but it’s a fairly routine miracle.  It happens all the time.  I’ve heard people try to interpret these fits of activity.  Some say that a loud noise can trigger it.  Some try to predict a child’s gender based on how vigorous the activity is.  Some claim that spicy food can send their child into all sorts of flip and flops. 

Elizabeth has a different take on her baby’s movement.  It’s a rather novel interpretation , but Luke tells us that she is filled with the Holy Spirit, so I suppose it is to be trusted.  Elizabeth fairly screams out to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”   And she calls Mary “the mother of my Lord,” all because her baby jumped or kicked.  As I said, it was a strange day in Zechariah’s house.

Curses and Blessings

Finally the Daily Lectionary starts to talk about Christmas, or at least giving us the preliminaries.  Zechariah the priest and his wife Elizabeth are getting on in years, but they have no children.  This can be extremely difficult for couples in our day, but in Elizabeth's time, a woman's worth was measured by children. She was, in ancient biblical parlance, cursed.

But as so often happens when God acts to bless or save, the story moves through those one would least expect. The messenger who prepares the way for a Messiah will come from this cursed one, this one who has endured disgrace because of her childlessness.  Strange that the Bible sometimes speaks of barrenness as a curse where God has closed a woman's womb, but then those "cursed" wombs become instruments of blessing.

Even though God routinely works this way, Zechariah (and we?) has trouble believing it, leading to his being rendered mute.  It seems a fit of pique by Gabriel.  People in the Bible routinely ask for a sign when they have a divine epiphany.  Moses asks for several.  Perhaps we shouldn't consider it entirely as punishment.  It would be a daily reminder to Zechariah of God's blessing on him and Elizabeth. Even before his wife began to show, he would not be able to forget or question God's promise. Sometimes I wish God would give me such an unavoidable and unambiguous sign as this.

Zechariah is an interesting case.  He is a priest, an important person in important circles.  But his wife is "cursed." And as this new chapter in salvation history unfolds, the angel Gabriel will go through even more unexpected channels - a not yet married teenager from a backwater town. 

In a few days, we will celebrate another Christmas in our decorated sanctuaries with all the musical fanfare we can muster.  Television will broadcast Mass and services from huge cathedrals with magnificent choirs and ornate finery.  And we'll hear these old stories of a God who goes through back channels and brings blessing and hope in unexpected ways, through unexpected people, even those who are "cursed." And we'll rejoice as we remember the birth of one who became cursed for our sakes.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Frightened of Atheists

I confess that when I read the Daily Lectionary passages (I'm subscribed so that they are emailed to me each day.), I almost never make it to the Evening Psalm.  I read the morning psalms and other passages on most days, but stop at the gospel. I almost never make it back in the evening and didn't mean to do any differently today, but as I finished the gospel, my eyes caught the beginning of Psalm 53. "Fools say in their heart, 'There is no God.'"

I've heard a lot of Christians who seem terrified of atheists. I've never understood this, but some of them seem to think there is no bigger threat to faith than atheists. It's as though the fact of some not believing is contagious.  I'm a little suspicious that the mere fact of atheists opens a window they would rather not acknowledge, poses a question that they are afraid to consider for themselves.

There certainly are many things that work against a meaningful and deep Christian faith, but I'm not sure atheists are a significant one. I could perhaps understand feeling sorry for an atheist, hoping he might come to realize what he's missing out on, but even the more obnoxious and militant sort, those who try to convert others to their view and belittle people of faith, pose little threat to faith that has any substance.

I've heard Psalm 53 quoted as proof that God is as repulsed by atheists as some Christians are, but the psalm doesn't seem to speak of atheists at all. The fools of this psalm say there is no God "in their hearts." Nothing here about public professions of non-faith.  The psalm's ire is directed at those whose actions betray an inner disposition that doesn't acknowledges God. It does not address the sort of atheists some Christians seem to fear so much. Rather it addresses the sort who belong to churches and perhaps even attend them with some regularity but whose lives produce little evidence of being shaped by God's priorities.

The prophets and Jesus, not to mention a few psalms, regularly chastise religious folks, and almost never for failing to do worship correctly or for believing the wrong doctrines. They save their ire for those who faithfully maintain worship and religious observance but do not live in ways that demonstrate God's concern for the lost and least, the vulnerable and oppressed, the outsider and the lowly.

Most of us have likely known some atheists or agnostics whose lives seemed to reveal hearts that are canted toward God, or at least toward the desires of God.  I wonder what the psalmist would say about such folks. If they are not fools, are they in some ways wise?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Beginning to Dream Again

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
     the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
     and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
     their young shall lie down together;
     and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
     and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.
They will not hurt or destroy
     on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
                                                                    as the waters cover the sea.     Isaiah 11:6-9


They will not hurt or destroy...  What a wonderful vision. What a wonderful dream. But is that all it is, a vision, a dream?

A world without violence certainly seems like a dream. Most of us don't dare imagine such a thing. We'd be happy with less violence, with only occasional hurting or destroying on a small scale. Not hurting or destroying at all, even in just one city? That seems impossible.

I wonder if only prophets can see such things.  I don't restrict prophets to the Bible. I'm certain Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet.  He dreamed things that many could never imagine happening.  It hasn't happened all the way to what he dreamed, but even non prophets like most of us can see it partially now.  I suppose that's a bit like the first Christians beginning to glimpse what Isaiah had dreamed.  In Jesus they saw enough to join with Isaiah saying, "Yeah, I see it now, too."

Jesus was certainly a dreamer and a prophet.  He read a passage from Isaiah, "(The Lord) has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And when he'd finished reading he said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

All the oppressed weren't freed, and the year of God's jubilee didn't really take hold in full, but Jesus could apparently see it, the way that only prophets can.  And those who drew near him began to glimpse it, too.

But somewhere along the line, Christianity lost sight of its dreams. Maybe it was when it became "Christianity," and institutional religion rather than simply followers of the dreamer, Jesus. Regardless, we traded in Jesus' dream of a new day, what he called the kingdom of God, for a ticket to heaven if we believed the right things. We relocated Jesus' dream to another place even though Jesus clearly was able to dream it and see it right here on earth.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians that no one can say Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit. (I assume he talking about actually meaning it and not just saying the words.)  And he insists that all members of the body of Christ are given gifts of the Spirit, including some who are given the gift of prophecy.  I think we would do well to discover who they are in our churches, and see if they can't help us begin dreaming again.

Even within church congregations, we often seem unable to imagine anything but the possible, the things we can manage on our own, the things that seem reasonably doable. No visions and dreams, just doable action plans, the same sort of things devised in company offices and corporate boardrooms.

We say "It's only a dream" to dismiss something, to write off an idea as impossible. But prophets, including the prophet Jesus, dream dreams.  And they call us to catch their dreams, their visions.

God, we need some dreams.  Help us to dream again.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

What To Do?

I'm still not sure about what I preached yesterday.  I don't mean I thought it was a bad sermon (at least no worse than the norm). Rather, I'm not sure if it was the correct response to the horrific events of Friday.  Should I have spoken more directly to the events? I really don't know.

I had already written a sermon on John the Baptist, and perhaps I didn't want to "waste" it.  But I did think it fit is some ways. It talked about the "What then should we do?" question asked by those who came out to John in the wilderness, those John called snakes. Maybe I wasn't specific enough, but I think that question is an appropriate one in light of the Sandy Hook shootings.

John says, "Bear fruit worthy of repentance." And some of the specific actions he recommends begin to equalize society. Those with two give to those with none. It has a rather socialist feel to it, as does a great deal of Luke/Acts.  And this is the repentance, the change John calls for to get ready for the one is who coming.

Today's gospel lection describes Jesus' arrest. It ends with Jesus saying to the authorities, "But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!" Darkness still seems to be exercising a great deal of power.  So what does it mean to stand for the light at such a time?

Perhaps yesterday's sermon only hinted at it, but I do think the question, "What then should we do?" is about how to stand for the light. It is about bearing witness to the light, to a new day, a redeemed society, a different world. And contrary to many religious voices, this new thing does not involve a going back. It is not a nostalgia for bygone days.  It is a hope for days that have  never been, at least not fully.

"Putting God back in the schools," whatever that actually means, does not get ready for the light in any significant way. That is so much religious window dressing, the very sort of thing that prompted John to say, "Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor.'" John wants to see something much more substantial, much more concrete.

Exactly what needs to happen with regard to better gun regulations or better access to mental health care will require serious discussion and debate, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that an essential move toward the light is less concern about me and my rights and more concern about the needs of the other, including the safety of young children. 

In the Apostle Paul's famous words on love (not romantic love by the way), he says love is at the top of the list, above faith and hope. And love "does not insist on its own way." At some fundamental level, rights are about protecting people and not running roughshod over them. But at the level they often operate in our society, they are about "I want it my way, and I don't care what impact that has on anyone else."

I don't have well formed answers for how events like those of last Friday could happen or why God didn't intervene in some way. That we are about to celebrate the birth of a Messiah born into a hostile world, nearly killed himself as a child, and finally executed by the state with assistance from his own religion, surely says something about God's way of entering into our world.  But yesterday, I wanted to hear from, John who yells at people, "Do something!"

We may never be able to fully answer the "Why?" questions, but we can surely set about making such events less likely.  We can surely create a world where it would be much more difficult to shoot scores of people, and we can surely create a world where it is easier to get effective mental health treatments for those who need them. Just as we could create a world with less poverty and hunger if we truly wanted to.  And that sounds to me just like what John the Baptist says we need to be doing if we are to "get ready."  We cannot bring the kingdom, that hoped for new realm of God, but we can point toward it. We can aim in its direction.

There is still darkness, and its time is not fully run out. But it did its best against Jesus and failed. And so we who follow him must surely be about the work, the doing, of that which reveals light.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sermon video: Of Snakes and Imperatives

More sermons available on YouTube.

Sermon: Of Snakes and Imperatives

Luke 3:7-18

Of Snakes and Imperatives

James Sledge                                                                               December 16, 2012

I’ve never been very big on poetry and never much cared for the practice of pastors quoting poems in their sermons, something I heard a bit of growing up. But I am drawn to song lyrics, my version of poetry I suppose. And a song from my favorite group, The Mountain Goats, immediately came to mind when I first read today’s gospel.

I’m not about to attempt singing it, so I realize that, for all practical purposes, I am going to subject you to the sort of poetry reading I never much cared for growing  up.  Sorry about that.  An even bigger concern; I’m not at all sure what the song means.  It has a connection to our gospel reading, but I’m not really clear about its message.  That might argue against using it, but I’m also somewhat puzzled by our gospel reading today.  So I’ll go ahead and recite some puzzling song lyrics.

Sun just clearing the tree line when my day begins.
Slippery ice on the bridges, Northeastern wind coming in.
You will bruise my head, I will strike your heel.
Drive past woods of northern pine, try not to let go of the wheel.

Dream at night, girl with the cobra tattoo
on her arm, its head flaring out like a parachute.

Prisms in the dewdrops in the underbrush.
skate case sailors' purses floating down in the black needle rush.
Higher than the stars I will set my throne.
God does not need Abraham, God can raise children from stones.

Dream at night, girl with the cobra tattoo
And try to hear the garbled transmissions come through.[1]

Along with haunting music you didn’t hear, there’s a lot going on in these verses. A tattoo of a snake, a viper.  A line borrowed from the Garden of Eden story.  A line from Isaiah’s taunt of those who foolishly imagine themselves equals to God, right next to an echo of John the baptizer’s warning to “children of Abraham.”  Not to mention the line about garbled transmissions, which could sometimes describe my prayer life. 

I’m not at all sure what to make of it. Is it about someone drawn to the devil, to evil? Is this someone who finds himself fated to enmity with another, even with God. Is it a lament over patterns in which he is trapped? I don’t know, but nevertheless I feel myself drawn to it.

At times I feel much the same about Luke’s picture of John the Baptist.  Last week Luke told us that John was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And today we hear that crowds came out, drawn to that message.  Now if I were holding a tent revival in the wilderness and huge crowds showed up, I’d think that a good thing. But John calls them snakes; not some of them, but all of them; a brood of vipers, children of serpents.

Beginning to Live

Today's meditation from Fr. Richard Rohr contains this quote from C. K. Chesterton. "When a person has found something that he (she) prefers to life itself, he (she) for the first time has begun to live." This is little more than a paraphrase of Jesus insisting that we find our life only when we are willing to lose it for the kingdom.

In the soul searching that is going on following yesterday's tragic shooting in Connecticut, perhaps we would do well to think about what it is that gives us life, life in any real sense.  What are those things that matter to us more than life itself?

The unbelievable horrors of yesterday have spurred many to say we must talk seriously about guns in our culture. Why is it that you are so much more likely to be killed by a gun in American than in any other developed nation? But inevitably this conversation raises the issue of "rights," the right to bear arms, the freedom to do as we choose.

Perhaps the concept of personal rights and liberties is that thing some prefer to life itself. But so many of the voices I hear are concerned primarily with "my rights."  That stance is by no means restricted to the issue of guns. The insistence on "my rights" permeates our society in a way that is corrosive. It often has little interest beyond the self. It is not about building a better world, a truer community, or anything in the least bit resembling the new realm Jesus proclaims.  It is about protecting what's mine. And if Chesterton and Jesus are correct, such as stance is not life giving, but life draining.

Some religious sorts have responded to yesterday's shootings with, "Well this is what happens when you take God out of the school." But besides the problematic logic of such statements, there is something terribly formulaic about them. They reduce God to a cosmic Santa Claus who either rewards us when we are good or leaves us an awful lump of coal when we are not.  (And "good" here is rarely defined as Jesus defined it, loving neighbor and caring for the neediest.)

But it seems to me that a commitment to building a better world, one that is more just, safer, more caring of the needy, more focused on the good of all - a commitment to something that sounds like Jesus' kingdom, even if it is a secular enterprise - is much more life giving than any call to put prayer back in the schools.

For many, perhaps most people, yesterday's horror yanked us out of ourselves; out of our small preoccupations and petty concerns.  Most of us were confronted with something so much more terrible than anything we face. And if there is any chance to bring something resembling life out of such a tragedy, perhaps it would be simply not to turn back inward. Can we find something that is bigger than us to work for and serve, something that can begin to give life?

A Borrowed Prayer

It's difficult to find any meaningful or helpful words in the wake of the terrible shooting in Connecticut. For this moment, perhaps prayers are the best thing.  I found a prayer by Walter Brueggemann that had been edited for today's tragedy and posted by a friend on Facebook.  Here it is

Had we the chance,
we would have rushed to Bethlehem
to see this thing that had come to pass.

We would have paused at that barn and pondered that baby.

We still pause at that barn--
and ponder that all our babies are under threat,
all the vulnerable who stand at risk before predators,
our babies who face the slow erosion of consumerism,

our babies who face the reach of sexual exploitation,
our babies who face the call to war, placed in harm's way,
our babies, elsewhere in the world,
who know of cold steel against soft arms
and distended bellies from lack of food;
our babies everywhere who are caught
in the fearful display of ruthless adult power.

We ponder how peculiar this baby at Bethlehem is,
summoned to save the world,
and yet also, like every child, also at risk.

Our world is so at risk,
and yet we seek
and wait
for this child named "Emmanuel."
Come be with us, you who are called "God with us."

-- W. Brueggeman, shortened and edited, in light of the elementary school shooting

Advent and Christmas Crosses

At a gathering of pastors this afternoon, the question of whether we were singing Christmas carols yet in our congregation came up. Answers varied, but the general consensus seemed to be that carols began to sneak in on the 3rd Sunday in Advent, and generally arrived by the 4th.  But the Daily Lectionary hasn't yet gotten the memo. Today the gospel reading tells of preparation for Jesus' last supper, and the lectionary will not take a decisive turn toward Christmas until the end of next week.

For many people it seems odd to be reading about Jesus' arrest only days prior to Christmas Eve services. But of course, the heart of the Christian story is in Holy Week. Neither John nor Mark feels any need to mention Jesus' birth in their gospels. And the "Christmas story" is only in Luke.  That in no way diminishes the Christmas story, but it reminds us that Christmas is only an opening scene in a story whose plot revolves around the cross.

Many people would rather not have crosses at Christmas, unless they are pretty, decorative ones. I think I've written here before about how I once took the rough cross we used during Lent and leaned it against the empty manger that sat in our sanctuary during Advent. A lot of people were very offended and told me so.  I didn't do it again in the years that followed, but I wondered if perhaps I should have, at least occasionally. 

Many are familiar with the term "Christmas and Easter Christians."  These are folks generally not seen at church except for these celebrations. They, understandably, want to participate in the joy of Jesus' Incarnation and his Resurrection, but they would rather skip over the road he walks and the cross that stands at the end of that road. And even a lot of us year round Christians prefer to do the same, even if we do so in a less literal manner. We prefer the "cheap grace" that Bonhoeffer wrote about 75 years ago, "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross."

I don't want to dampen the celebration of Christmas. That Jesus enters into human history demands that we celebrate and give thanks, but we can never detach that celebration from the call of Christ to follow him. To do so is to deny ourselves the newness we are promised in Christ. It is for God to leave us right we are, doing nothing more than patting us on the head and saying, "There, there. It's alright."

But the birth of a Messiah heralds a wonderful and new thing, a whole new realm that is breaking into the world as we know it.  And only in following Jesus do we begin to experience and live in that new realm, that kingdom of God, now.

“In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night… Now the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death.” These verses from different parts of Luke may jar and even upset us when set side by side. But perhaps that is nothing more than the jarring difference between the realm where we currently live and the realm that we begin to know in following the way of Jesus.

Clickto learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sermon video: Searching for Wilderness

Other sermon videos also available on YouTube.

Darkness, Light, and "Merry Christmas"

I learned of a pastoral situation today that reminded me of the world's darkness, the ways in which terrible things that make no sense tear apart people's lives.  Such darkness defies easy explanation and shatters quaint platitudes such as, "God never gives us more than we can handle." (That's nowhere in the Bible, by the way.) Sometimes such darkness feels overwhelming.

Religious people sometimes have more trouble with darkness than agnostics or atheists. If there is no God then it's no one's fault. It's simply a matter of chance or fate or unfortunate chains of events. But we who proclaim a God must wrestle with why God lets things get this way.  And we who follow the Messiah must contend with why the world seems not much changed from the one prior to his arrival.

We religious sorts have devised all sorts of explanations and blame for the darkness. It's the devil's fault or the result of "The Fall."  The world is trapped in sin that propagates darkness. Sometimes such explanations help us make sense of things, but they sometimes provide small comfort when the darkness strikes us. 

Religion sometimes spends so much energy defending or arguing its explanations for darkness and the means of escaping it that it provides little help to those actually struggling with darkness.  That seems to happen in today's gospel where religious authorities are so loyal to their rules and explanations that they have no concern over the darkness that envelopes a woman caught in adultery. And they are frightened and threatened by Jesus, who is remarkably free of their conventions and explanations.

We religious folks often seem to think we can fight the darkness by getting all our explanations and rules and rituals just right. We fight amongst ourselves over doctrines and worship styles and ordination standards with a passion that suggests the kingdom will arrive the moment we get everything clarified. Meanwhile we ignore countless people who are swept up in darkness while we busily tend to our little religious institutions, too busy to offer much light.

I think the ridiculous battles over "Merry Christmas" are a trivial example of this. As foolish as I think this fight is, I can only imagine how it appears to a non-Christian. In the face the darkness of war and poverty and homelessness and disease and meaninglessness and more, some Christians only want to chastise those who utilize the wrong seasonal greeting.  What a ray of light in the midst of the darkness. Jesus must feel honored.

For the last 15 years or so, I have read these verses from John's gospel as a part of worship on Christmas Eve.  "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

Interesting that the darkness is entered into but not eliminated. It is presumed but not really explained, and no blame is assigned. And in the midst of all this, the light shines and persists, a hope that cannot be consumed by the darkness. It does not flail against the darkness or seek to beat it into submission. It simply shines, confident that this is enough.

At those Christmas Eve services, we dim the sanctuary lights as we pass the flame from candle to candle. In a darkened sanctuary, we lift our candles, their small lights punctuating the thick darkness. The candles and their flames are small, but the light is impressive, even more so aswe lift them high. The light shines in the darkness.

Unfortunately, we blow them out before we leave.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

On Doing

Ah, you who join house to house,
   who add field to field,
until there is room for no one but you,
   and you are left to live alone
   in the midst of the land!  
The LORD of hosts has sworn in my hearing:
Surely many houses shall be desolate,
   large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

Isaiah 5:8-9

The disparity between rich and poor in the US has grown significantly over the last few decades. The question of what, if anything, needs to be done about this may be a political one, but the situation itself is a matter of fact. So too is a widening gulf between CEOs, college presidents, and other executive types and the typical worker. It's not as though America has never had fabulously wealthy titans in the past (see names such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt), but there were reactions to their immense wealth and power that changed American business and politics. 

I thought of this situation while reading today's passage from Isaiah. The prophet blasts the rich who acquire more and more while leaving less and less for others, insisting that this has moved God to act. Not having lived in the time of Isaiah, I don't know closely our situation mirrors that of ancient Israel, but there are certainly some similarities.

I also saw this this morning in Richard Rohr's daily devotion. "The Scriptures very clearly teach what we call today a 'bias toward action.' It is not just belief systems or dogmas and doctrines, as we have often made it. The Word of God is telling us very clearly that if you do not do it, you, in fact, do not believe it and have not heard it."

As a pastor, it feels like I do a lot more talking than doing. Perhaps writing sermons, preparing worship, and preaching is a kind of doing. But where do I do the good news I proclaim? Where do I enact good news for the poor, release to the captive, and freedom to the oppressed? Where do I do Jubilee, the coming of God's favor?

Modern people don't much expect God to "do" anything over situations like that Isaiah describes. We have God safely sequestered in the spiritual realm, able to impact us only internally. God doesn't do anything in history, or so we imagine. And so our Advent expects only another Christmas, nothing new. And I talk and talk.  

But what is God calling me to do?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.