Busyness, Suffering, and Idolatry

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
     from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation,
     my fortress; I shall never be shaken.     Psalm 62:1-2

For God alone... Hardly. All sorts of things compete with God for my attention. And I don't do much waiting in silence. As I write there is a stump grinder growling outside my office window. But I'm contributing to the lack of silence as well. I've got Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground playing on Spotify. (He died yesterday, if you haven't heard.)  I do turn the music off when I pray, but there's not much I can do about the stump grinder. Sometimes I feel the same about all the thoughts and anxieties that bounce around in my head.

Sometimes I'm amazed at how hard it is for me to get centered on God. And I work in a church. At least I have regular moments in my day that would seem tailor made to draw me toward God. I regularly reflect on scripture passages in order to create sermons. I look at hymns in planning worship. I teach a Bible study and I lead and participate in devotionals during staff and committee meetings. How different from many who worship and serve here. How much more difficult it must be for them to be attentive to God in the course of their day.

It seems to me that two very different pitfalls can emerge here, one for religious professionals and one for those living and/or working in more secular places. Spirituality and religiousness can become a job for me. They become part of a professional persona that gets divorced from the rest of my life, making it easy for me to stop being spiritual on my days off. But for others, spirituality can become a recreational activity, something only done after work or on days off. I wonder if either is all that satisfying.

My own Reformed/Presbyterian tradition has long been concerned with a rather antiquated sounding problem: idolatry. But even John Calvin all those centuries ago wasn't worried about little statues or anything of that sort. He was worried about how hard it is really to do the "for God alone" thing. Too many other things seem more inviting, convenient, and easier to manage. However, in my experience all these things end up disappointing us. In the long run, they end up failing to provide what we expected of them, contentment, happiness, meaning, or whatever it was we were hoping for.

The psalmist doesn't say so specifically, but I get the impression he or she is in the midst of some terrible difficulty. Perhaps all the things she had hoped have failed her, and she is now forced to wait for "God alone."

Many spiritual greats insist that suffering is the greatest teacher. For some weeks now, Father Richard Rohr's daily devotionals have all been on the following theme. "The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines." We don't like the sound of that. We do all we can to avoid it and to rescue our children from it. But in the end, our teacher finds us.

Have you ever noticed that when people are going through a terrible time of grief, such as the loss of a dear, loved one, they tend to keep themselves busy. In the face of death, dealing with all the arrangements that have to be made can provide a welcome diversion, providing a bit of needed cushioning from the shock. But if busyness is helpful at first, eventually we must let go of such shields. People who can't ever bring themselves to slow down and face their grief will rightfully provoke concerns on the part of friends and family.

Or course our culture can make it very difficult to slow down. Time that isn't "productive" is wasted. Even our vacations must be filled with activities. When we do sit down we pull out our smartphones and engage in a different sort of busyness. Many of us think of Sabbath as an archaic relic of history.

I don't wish suffering on anyone. The notion that all suffering is somehow therapeutic is simply wrong. But there are plenty of times when only suffering or great difficulty seems to turn me to God in any deep and meaningful way. Now if I were only a better student...

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Sermon video: Information or Good News?

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Information or Good News?

Luke 18:9-14

Information or Good News?

James Sledge                                                                                       October 27, 2013

When I first looked at the gospel reading appointed for today, the day when we make our financial commitments to God, I wondered if divine providence might be at work. Tithing figures prominently in many church stewardship campaigns, and I think it a central spiritual discipline. Yet in today’s parable, the tither doesn’t come off so well, even though he’s an ideal church  member, a regular worshipper who engages in significant spiritual disciplines and is serious about living an ethical, moral life. Where can we get some more folks like him? But Jesus holds him up as a bad example, saying that a sleazy tax collector is right in the eyes of God rather than this fellow most churches would love as a member.

If you’ve read very much in the gospels, you’ve surely noticed that the Pharisees have a hard time embracing Jesus. There’s been a tendency over the years to think of these Pharisees as evil, bad guys, but in reality, they were the dedicated church folk of their day. They were a reform movement with much in common with our Protestant reformers of 500 years ago. They opposed what they saw as corrupt, priestly Judaism and its focus on ritual and sacrifice. They urged believers to get back to the scriptures and follow them. Some of their teachings were very similar to those of Jesus. So why did they end up in conflict with him? Why didn’t his good news sound good to them?

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Some decades ago, I encountered an essay by the great southern writer, Walker Percy. “The Message in the Bottle” is part of a book by the same name containing essays about  language and the human condition. This particular essay describes a fellow who is shipwrecked on an island with no memories of his life before he washed up there. This island has a quite advanced society, and the castaway is welcomed and cared for. He goes to school, gets married, has a family, and becomes a contributing member of society. Being a curious and educated fellow, he is intrigued by the large number of bottles he discovers washing up on the shore, each with a single, one sentence message corked inside.

These messages say all sorts of things. “Lead melts at 330 degrees. 2 + 2 = 4… The British are coming… The market for eggs in Bora Bora [a neighboring island] is very good… The pressure of a gas is a function of heat and volume… A war party is approaching from Bora Bora… Truth is beauty,”[1] and so on.

This scenario forms the basis of a long discussion about language and how we understand and make sense of all the information we receive. Percy discusses various ways we might classify and organize these messages, and how we might judge what’s true, important, or significant. But he says that many such schemes may not work for our castaway because they fail to acknowledge the difference between “a piece of knowledge and a piece of news.”

Oct. 20 Sermon video: Committed to God's New Day

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Where Is God? Better Sight Lines

Hear my prayer, O LORD;
    give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
    answer me in your righteousness.
Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
    for no one living is righteous before you.
For the enemy has pursued me,
    crushing my life to the ground,
    making me sit in darkness like those long dead. 
Therefore my spirit faints within me;
    my heart within me is appalled.         Psalm 143:1-4

You likely know this, but pastors go to lots of church meetings. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Many of the groups I meet with have great people in them, and we often have very enjoyable meetings. Yet even in enjoyable church meetings, it is often difficult to get much sense of God being a part of them.

Graham Standish, in his book Becoming a Blessed Church, describes how church meetings often begin by asking God to bless what is about to happen but then take place as though God has left to get a cup of coffee while the business is actually transacted. Later, God will be invited back in to bless whatever was decided during that time. There's nothing sinister going on here. We simply get focused on the tasks at hand. That and we aren't quite sure how to let God's presence impact the proceedings.

This only gets worse in times of conflict. I've been to my share of presbytery meetings over the years (That is the representative, regional governing body in our denomination.) where we were considering difficult issues that divide us theologically. In the last couple of decades this was most often around issues of ordination, sexual orientation, and biblical interpretation. And in our heated debates over whether or not to ordain people in same sex relationships, a casual observer might have been hard pressed to think God was present at all. To be certain, talk about God along with verses from the Bible were heard frequently. But Bible verses were wielded as weapons, and God was referred to but never inquired of. People on both sides already "knew" what God wanted.

If you asked pastors and elders at a presbytery meeting, or leaders in most Presbyterian churches, they would surely insist that God is present at their meetings and, indeed, everywhere. Our tradition insists that God is not only omnipresent but also directly available to all people without need of mediation via priests or other sorts of intermediaries. So why does God so often seem to be on break when we are in a meeting?

I wonder if the psalmist quoted above isn't also struggling to find God's presence in a difficult time. Perhaps the words simply plead for God to be understanding and merciful, but I hear a bit of desperation, someone calling on a God who seems absent at the moment. It's easy to see why the psalmist might feel this way. Caught up in some sort of great, perhaps mortal difficulty, all the psalmist can see is danger all around. Those troubles obscure any glimpse or sense of God.

If God is indeed wherever we are, what is it that gets in our sight lines and obscures God's presence from us? In moments of crisis or great danger, our focus on these may hide God from us. But what is the problem in a more run-of-the-mill meeting? Might not it be much the same thing, our focus on the business at hand?

Many of us have learned how to be attentive to God in certain circumstances. In the midst of worship, in a time of quiet retreat, or in a moment of private devotion, we may clearly sense something of the divine. But if God's presence evaporates the moment we are doing anything else, how are we to carry Christ into the world in some way?

Surely some of the disdain the Church encounters in our world, the charges of hypocrisy and such, are related to this. If we can't actually invite God into our discussions, debates, and meetings, then we will have a hard time showing God to others except in our worship and private devotion.

Think about that the next time you are in a church meeting, or any sort of meeting for that matter. How might things go differently if everyone there was aware of God present in that meeting? Would we make different decisions, listen to one another differently, even question our own certainties, if we could see and hear Jesus sitting at the table with us? And if we cannot see or sense him, what does that say?

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Baby Birds and Power

What does it mean to be powerful? Thinking of it a different way, who would you put on a list of powerful people in the world today, and what is it that qualifies them for that list?

One of today's morning psalms, Psalm 147, describes God as "abundant in power." There is mention of God controlling weather, and that's certainly sounds powerful to me. But most of the attributes in today's verses don't fit so neatly into the qualities I associate with power. God gathers outcasts, binds up wounds, lifts up the downtrodden, feeds animals, and hears baby birds when they cry. Sounds a little like St. Francis, and that's not a name that comes immediately to mind when I consider the topic of power.

I'm reasonably well versed in the Bible, and so I know that the Apostle Paul writes how the Lord said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." But that doesn't quite fit into the understanding of power I learn from living in our world. Which I suppose is largely the point.

For some reason, I've never heard this morning's psalm in quite the manner I did today. Clearly God's strange notions about power are not some New Testament innovation that shows up with a cross. God's apparently had some rather odd notions about power for a long time.

Seems a strange way for a god to act. Of course that sentence might make a rather catchy title for the story of Jesus.

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God's Love and Performance Anxieties

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
      for in you my soul takes refuge;
 in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
      until the destroying storms pass by.          (Psalm 57:1)

I was somewhat startled to read this quote in a column from the Washington Post's faith section, something said a few years ago by Dr. Richard Leahy, an anxiety specialist. “The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.” The column went on to lament how the church too often creates the same sort of performance anxiety that is so pervasive in today's culture.

As a pastor, I've sometimes felt this way about all the "help" that is available to those in my field. I recently attended a very good conference from The Alban Institute, designed to help pastors become better at supervising and directing those on church staffs. I learned a great deal and hope to implement some of it. I do want to be a better leader in the church. Yet at the same time, I worry that all the books and conferences and resources devoted to helping me improve start to create an ethos that says, "Everything would be fine in our churches if we were just a little (perhaps a lot) better at what we do." Talk about performance anxiety, especially in a day when many church congregations are struggling.

As I reflect on this, I have little doubt that my own attempts to "help" folks with preaching, teaching, and so on produce a similar impact. As that Washington Post piece notes, I can make Christianity more about what we do, about our performance, than about what God does in Jesus. And if people think the church's primary message is, "Perform better," no wonder a generation already weighed down by performance anxieties is less than enthralled with our message.

I also wonder if this isn't especially problematic in progressive, Mainline congregations. Pastors and members in such churches are often highly educated, valuing creative scholarship, complexity, and nuance. That may make it easy to minimize the part of our faith's message that seems embarrassingly simple and un-complex. God love us. God is for us. God embraces us without regard to our level of performance. Period.

I hope to continue learning how to be a better pastor, and I also appreciate learning things that help me follow Jesus more faithfully. But in the midst of that, I dare not forget that how God views me and others has virtually nothing to do with the quality of our performance. It's pretty much all about the quality of God's love.

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Sermon: Committed to God's New Day

Luke 18:1-8

Committed to God’s New Day

James Sledge                                                                                       October 20, 2013

Last Saturday I was watching the football game between Ole Miss and Texas A&M. It was a pretty exciting contest, and Ole Miss was looking like they might pull off a big upset. But Texas A&M had come back to tie the game. Then with time running out, they moved the ball down the field to set up a potential game winning field goal on the last play.

Time out was called, and the field goal unit prepared to come out on the field. As the TV cameras panned around, trying to capture the intensity of the moment, one camera spotted the Texas A&M quarterback gathered with a small group of teammates. They were in a sort of semi-circle with their helmets off. Each was down on one knee, holding the hand of the player next to him. Then the quarterback said something and bowed his head. He seemed to be leading the group in some sort of prayer.

I couldn’t hear them, of course, so I don’t actually know what they were praying about. There had been an Ole Miss player carried off the field on a stretcher earlier. I suppose they could have been praying for him, but I doubt it. I feel pretty confident they were praying for their teammate to kick the ball squarely through the uprights. And when he did just that a few minutes later, they ran onto the field rejoicing, their prayers answered.

One of my least favorite moments in sports is the post-game interview where a winning player thanks God for the victory. I recall one boxer some years ago who went so far as saying he could feel Jesus in his fists helping him knock the other guy out. With such eloquent spokespersons, no wonder Christian faith is struggling.

Actually, I don’t think Christianity has much of a problem because of  people who thank God for the home run they hit to win the game. It would be easy enough to dismiss such utterances, that is if they didn’t fit into a larger pattern of seeing God as a cosmic sugar daddy, or seeing religion and faith as consumer items intended to make our lives a little bit better.

Glossolalia and Partisan Politics

I had just finished writing yesterday's post when I heard that the Republicans had "blinked." A default was avoided, and the government shutdown would be ending. All that pain, all that rancor, all the damage to people's lives and to the economy, and nothing really had changed.

I had just finished writing about the Apostle Paul's insistence that the good of the whole had to be considered above personal edification. Speaking in tongues was all well and good with Paul, but not if that little moment of personal, spiritual ecstasy did nothing to help others. And he continues such thinking in today's passage, "Let all things be done for building up."

Yesterday I was thinking about how church fights over worship style too often neglect Paul's advice, with "What I like" becoming the final arbiter of what should be done. But as soon as I heard about the default being averted, it struck me how this was even more so for many in Congress.

Perhaps this is simply the ugly side of American individualism, but we seem to have more and more difficulty as a culture putting the good of the whole first. "Let all things be done for building up" is not a mantra that will win many elections.

But what I find even more troubling about all this is how some, who seem the least willing to consider the good of the whole, trumpet their faith. Some incredibly immature, hateful, and destructive things were said and done in the name of righteousness. Surely Jesus weeps.

I offer no easy solution. But perhaps it wouldn't hurt if all our political leaders read Paul's letter to the Corinthians, listening as though it had been written specifically to them.

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Glossolalia and Worship Squabbles

People who've worked in church congregations over the last few decades are likely familiar with the term "worship wars." It describes the squabbles and fights over style, over whether to add a contemporary service, bring guitars or a praise band into the sanctuary, or add new and different types of songs to the congregation's repertoire. And as with all disagreements over things related to worship, these fights can get quite nasty. As the old adage goes, "Some of the worst fights in congregations are over the color of the carpet in the sanctuary."

Paul faces a worship war of sorts with his congregation at Corinth. This was apparently a quite active and exuberant bunch, prone to get carried away from time to time. In today's portion of Paul's letter to the church, the topic is glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. It seems that this was a particularly valued "spiritual gift" among the Corinthians, a surefire sign that they were had a deep faith. But Paul is not so sure.

Paul does not object to the practice per se, even claiming to have had the experience more than any of them. But he questions the value of it, at least in public gatherings of the faithful. Speaking of the fact that others may have  no way of understanding this speech, Paul writes, "For you may give thanks well enough, but the other person is not built up." In other words, Paul says that as much as the Corinthians may enjoy speaking in tongues, if it doesn't help build up others, it is more a problem than a good.

When I have witnessed squabbles over worship, they very often seem to take on some of the same dimensions Paul saw in Corinth. Church members often judge questions about musical style purely from a personal preference standpoint, without much thought as to whether of not it builds up others. In extreme cases, congregations are more concerned with "what we like" than they are with their calling to share God's love and build up the body of Christ.

I don't mean to make an endorsement or indictment of any particular style or form of worship. I simply raise the question of what criteria we use in making decisions about style. Which is more important: what I like, or building up the body?

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Sermon: A Strange Pep Talk

Luke 17:5-10

A Strange Pep Talk

James Sledge                                                                                       October 6, 2013

Think for a moment about a time in your life when you were asked to do something that you weren’t sure you could accomplish. Or think of a time when you were considering a big change in your life, but you just didn’t know if you had what was needed to pull it off.

There are all sort of such events in my life, some big and some small. I remember how I would thumb through my new math book each year at the start of school, horrified at the problems I could not understand, wondering how I would make it through the year. I vividly recall the first time I took the controls of a jet aircraft and found it much more difficult than the planes I was familiar with. And I wondered if I would be able to progress any further. And I remember many times when I felt totally inadequate as a parent.

There are probably many of you who know that last one well. A lot of people put off having children because they’re not sure if they’re “ready.” Of course, no matter how many books you read or classes you take or financially secure you become, you’re never quite ready.

To a much greater degree than in Jesus’ day, we live in a culture of experts. Name any field or activity, and there are experts who will teach you how to do it better, more efficiently, and with improved results. And in this culture of experts, a fear of failure often prevails. We’re never sure if we have enough training, enough advice, enough carefully laid plans that take into account every possible contingency. I have a hard time imagining many of us responding the way those first disciples did when Jesus said, “Follow me.” Not until we did a lot of checking, a lot of planning, a lot of calculations, and maybe some career counseling.

But Peter and James and John and the others had simply gone with Jesus. But if they were not nearly so risk averse as us, they still had their limits, and today, the magnitude of what they’d gotten themselves into seems to hit home. The straw that breaks the camel’s back is Jesus telling them that they must not cause any of those in their care to stumble, and they must forgive over and over and over. It’s all too much, and they cry out. “We can’t do all that. We don’t have enough faith. You’ve got to help us, Jesus!” At least that’s how I hear their cry, “Increase our faith!”

Sermon video: Healing the Blind

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Go Ahead; Cut the Baby in Half

In this space, I normally post sermons and reflect on the daily lectionary passages. But today a scripture passage not from the lectionary readings keeps popping up in my head. It's the story of King Solomon judging the case of two mothers who each claimed an infant as her own. There were no witnesses, nothing but each woman's word, and so Solomon famously ordered the child cut in half with each mother would receiving a share. Of course the true mother could not bear to see this happen, and offered to give the child up, thus revealing to Solomon who she was.

What calls this story to mind is the current situation in Washington, DC. The difference is that the two quarreling parties both seem willing to let the child be cut in two. In the current situation of an impending government shutdown, I have no problem labeling Republican behavior the more egregious. But while the Democrats and the president have the moral high ground on this one, I don't have much more confidence in them when it comes to the life of the child. Both sides are so intent on winning, so concerned about how everything might play in the next election, that no one seems much concerned with what is best for all.

Many like to say that this is a "Christian nation." Republicans seem especially fond of the designation. But at the very core of being a Christ follower is the notion of self-denial and concern for the other. Being a disciple has always been about us becoming servants in God's work, and such work is always marked by love. Speaking of such love, the apostle Paul writes, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth."

These words are not about romantic love and weren't intended for weddings. (Such love is most beneficial in a marriage however.) These words are about the costly self-giving that Christians are called to live out. They are about a concern for the other and the community that is willing to subvert my own desires for the good of the other. And at this moment, it is hard to imagine such a pose describing many involved in our national governance.

This is not an indictment of politics per se. Politics can be a high calling, but few in our current political climate seem to regard it as such. It has devolved into polarized sides of remarkable arrogance and certainty, each willing to resort to almost any sort of distortion and outright lying to achieve victory. No one seems the least bit interested in truth, much less love.

Unfortunately, those of us in the church aren't necessarily in a position to show our nation, as Paul says, "a more excellent way." We have our own examples of sides, of arrogance and certainty, of distortion and lying in order to win. As with much of the political bickering in our country, we often seem to be better at demonizing and hating than we are at loving.

So what to do? This may seem simplistic and trite, but most of us need to become less certain of our stances, while getting to know Jesus much better. Yes, there are times when we need to make judgments, to say something is wrong or even evil. But we also need to know Jesus on a deep enough level to realize that our positions are not simply the same as his. Many of us who claim to be Christian are far to quick to enlist Jesus in our causes, yet inclined to ignore him when he says things we don't like.

A bit more prayer wouldn't hurt either.  May I suggest, "Not my will, but yours."

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Sermon: Healing the Blind

Luke 16:19-31

Healing the Blind

James Sledge                                                                                       September 29, 2013

We’ve been hearing a lot of parables from Jesus lately. Many of Jesus’ parables are beloved stories, but I rather doubt today’s is anyone’s favorite. The basic story is not original to Jesus. Most all cultures have folk tales celebrating reversals of fortune, and this one resembles an Egyptian tale. Its outline was probably familiar to Jesus’ original audience. The images of Hades and such were stock ones, and so they would not have thought that Jesus was teaching anything new about life after death.

Surely, however, they were surprised to learn the poor man’s name.  No other character in Jesus’ parables is named, and this fellow seems a most unlikely candidate for such an honor. Wealthy people get their names on things, not some homeless, poor person who sleeps under a bridge.

That first audience may also have puzzled over the lack of details about the rich man. Along with us, they probably would have liked to know more, to hear about his sweatshop that took advantage of poor people like Lazarus, to know that he was some heartless corporate bigwig who put profits over everything else. But Jesus says nothing of the sort. For all we know, he tithed at his church, ran a foundation that funded worthy causes, and donated money for the new wing at Jerusalem Memorial Hospital.

All Jesus says is there was a very rich man, and poor one in terrible distress. It’s just how things are. No blame is assigned; no fault. It just is.

If You Love Jesus...

There are an awful lot of "Christians" on Facebook who seem not to have read Jesus' words in today's gospel passage. He warns his followers, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them." Of course a certain amount of judgment is required here. After all, Jesus also talks about not hiding your light under a basket. But when it comes to such judgments, it seems to me that we often get them exactly backwards. Trivial displays like those on Facebook are commonplace, but sharing the light of Jesus by living as he did is more of a rarity.

In reading the gospels, one thing I never observe Jesus doing is manipulating people. He is much more straightforward than that. He speaks hard truths that many do not want to hear, but these truths are not about the things religious folks tend to find important. Jesus is much more concerned about healing the sick and proclaiming good news to the poor than he is with religious observance. I have to think that Jesus would get very tired of folks who post on Facebook about how much they love him, right next to their posts about cutting food stamps or how they have a gun and aren't afraid to use it. Along with today's verses on public practices of piety, they might want to also recall Jesus words about loving enemies. Even more, recall these words. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."

And lest this seem to be a rant against more conservative Christians, I should add that Christians right and left tend to find something about Jesus that is easy for them to do. For some this might be more overt language about loving a personal savior, but for others it might be about loving everybody. Many liberal Christians reduce Jesus to a message of tolerance and charity because those are things they already like doing.  Our public piety -- or light on a lamp stand if you prefer -- is almost always something that is easy and comfortable for us and our group. Christians on the right and the left often find it impossible to leave their camp even if following Jesus seems to require it. All too often we are virtually indistinguishable from the political company we keep, and loving Jesus rarely calls us to risk anything, to step out and deny ourselves for the sake of God's new day, what Jesus labeled the kingdom.

If you love Jesus... What does loving Jesus really require of us? And before we answer with the stock phrases of our particular group, we would all do well to take a long hard look at what Jesus says, paying special attention to those words we like to ignore or explain away.

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On Being Different

What is it that makes Christians distinctive? Some may think this an odd question. Obviously Christians believe in Jesus. But while this is true, is it what primarily sets us apart? Jesus does not seem to think so.

Jesus raises this very issue in the teachings found in today's gospel. Some of these teachings are well known -- turn the other cheek, love your enemies, etc. -- but they have precious few practitioners. We find it much easier to "believe in Jesus," be reasonably good and moral, and do a little charity, than we do to take up the radical commands of Jesus.

There is something downright strange about the term "Christian" coming to signify little more than beliefs. The term originally implied becoming Christ-like. It expected that people would get a glimpse of Jesus by looking at us. But the image of Jesus reflected from us often looks little like the biblical Jesus.

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Lately Pope Francis, the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has made quite a splash in the news. He's become something of a sensation, even a media darling. He has done so by calling the church to be more Christ-like, and by practicing some of what he preaches. He drives around in an 80s model Renault and lives a quite simple life. This sincerity and integrity have impressed people, both Catholics and others, which says something about how unusual it is.

I have to imagine, however, that there are many in the church hierarchy who are not happy with him. I mean no slap at the Catholic Church by that. The institutional structures and functionaries in most denominations and many if not most congregations would be less that thrilled with a leader who emulated the radical ways of Jesus too closely. "Bad for business," they might say.

Curious how most of us feel the need to domesticate Jesus, removing his more radical tendencies, presumably to make him more palatable. And yet there is more excitement and interest in the Catholic Church right now than in quite some time, all because of a pope who decided not to play that game.

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Help from God

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
     for in you my soul takes refuge; 
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
     until the destroying storms pass by.            Psalm 57:1

Today has had lots of phone calls, the sort that are familiar to all pastors. People call looking for food, help paying rent, a hotel room for the night, and more. Some days I get no such calls, but today there have been many.

These calls always leave me feeling inadequate and uncomfortable. I want to help, but I rarely have enough for the help to be sufficient. I want the limited funds I do have to go to those who are truly needy, but I have no sure-fire way to determine whose needs are genuine or most pressing. Often I find myself doing a lot of apologizing.

As happenstance would have it, today I also received an email containing a draft of the church's 2014 personnel budget. It's a lot of money, a great deal more than the small amount in the overall budget to help people with food or rent. For that matter, it's a great deal more than all the money budgeted for mission and outreach.

There's nothing unusual about this. Church budgets are usually dominated by personnel and building costs. Sometimes staff and buildings make direct contribution to helping people who are hungry or poor or homeless, but that tends to be a minor role for staff and structures

_____________________________________________. 

I did not read today's morning psalm until the afternoon, and so I heard the words about taking refuge under God's wings as a person feeling inadequate and troubled at my inability to help people. People come to churches looking for help because they have some notion that we do God's work. We say we are the body of Christ, and people were always clamoring around Jesus looking for healing or help. And I can't recall a gospel story where Jesus said, "Sorry, I'm all out of assistance cards," or "You're too late, there's no more food."

I'm realistic enough to know that some people abuse the help this congregation and others offer, but that doesn't change the fact that I turn away people who are genuinely in need, and neither I, nor scarcely any member of this congregation, are worrying about our next meal.

I don't really have any keen thoughts or observations about any of this. I'm just having one of those existential faith crises that hit me from time to time. What does it mean to follow Jesus? What does it mean to be the church? And is it reflected in my personal budget or our church budget or that personnel budget, my own salary eating up a big chunk?

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Sermon video: The Crisis of God's New Day

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: The Crisis of God's New Day

Luke 16:1-13

The Crisis of God’s New Day

James Sledge                                                                           September 22, 2013

Jesus has just finished telling three parables about God’s desire to seek out and welcome the lost, parables about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a prodigal son who has squandered his father’s wealth. These parables were directed at the good, religious folks who complained about Jesus hanging out with undesirables and riff raff.  But now the audience changes.

Jesus now addresses his followers, who presumably includes us, and we meet another character who has squandered someone else’s money. This fellow is a manager who works for a very wealthy man, presumably an absentee landlord. There is some sort of arrangement with tenant farmers who owe a portion of their crop to the landlord, and the amounts here are quite large. The manager is the one who keeps watch over all this, and there were surely many opportunities for him to cook the books or skim off more than the cut that would have been considered his share. Or maybe this manager isn’t a crook but simply bad at his job.

Lots of commentators and interpreters want to rehabilitate this manager in some way, for pretty obvious reasons. Not only does this manager get commended by his master at the end, but Jesus tells us to be more like him. So surely he cannot simply be some bad guy.

This is a difficult bit of scripture, made more so by the sayings joined to the parable. Trying to tie it all together in a way that makes good sense has troubled people this the earliest days of Christianity, and has provoked all sorts of creative efforts.

Some suggest that the manager doesn’t cheat his master when he reduces the amount of wheat or olive oil owed, but takes it out of his own cut. Some even suggest that the manager is simply removing interest charges, ones that were forbidden by the law of Moses. Thus he was righting a wrong and not committing one.

The wide variety of opinion on this passage makes me cautious about speaking with much certainty, but still I doubt that the disciples would have listened as creatively as later scholars feel the need to do. Presumably they would have heard a more obvious meaning, especially since the praise from the master and Jesus urging us to be more like the manager are surprise twists that come at the end.

Doing as Jesus Says

At various times in my life I have found myself searching for clarity, for certainty. Was I supposed to attend seminary? Should I leave one congregation and go to another? Were the things church leaders were talking about doing the things God wanted us to do? For those seeking to lead lives of faith the question, "What does God want me to do?" is a huge one, one that demands prayer and careful discernment.

There are times when what God expects is not clear, but more often than not, clarity is not the biggest hurdle to my following Jesus. Jesus is remarkably clear about many things, about how to respond to my enemies or to people in need. He pulls no punches regarding the danger of money and possessions to the life of faith. Clarity is not the issue here, but rather an unwillingness or inability to trust that Jesus knows what he's talking about.

In today's gospel, Jesus calls the first disciples. "Immediately they left their nets and followed him... Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him." Immediately. That doesn't happen all that often among people of faith. In the gospels we hear that the winds and the wave, demons, and evil spirits all obey Jesus, but people often don't. For various reasons, we're not quite ready to acknowledge his authority over our lives.

The first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, one of my denomination's foundational creeds, begins thus. "Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death? A. That I belong--body and soul, in life and in death--not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ..." But such a statement is fundamentally at odds with the norms of our culture. I may be convinced of the rightness of some of Jesus' teachings if they are explained in a certain manner. But I, and I alone, am master of my own life, captain of my soul.

Jesus says, "Follow me." My response: Send me a proposal, Jesus, with a clear-cut explanation of the costs and benefits, and I'll get back to you. As I said, clarity is not the issue here.

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Overwhelmed by Brokenness

I've been clicking on The Washington Post website with much greater frequency today, checking for the latest updates on the horrific shooting at the Navy Yard in DC. Nothing is known about possible motives as I write, but there is a sickening regularity regarding such events. "Not again," people are saying, and not for the first time.

Today's lectionary readings did not feel particularly comforting or  helpful in today's context. A story of a corrupt royal couple abusing power to get what they want, the church in Corinth split by divisions, and Jesus tempted to be a different sort of Messiah than God would have him be. At least Jesus stays true to his call.

The world daily reminds us that all is not well. For all the modern (and perhaps receding) faith in progress, ancient stories about corrupt power or nasty fights in churches don't feel ancient at all. On some level, nothing much has changed. Despite frequent claims that the US is a "Christian nation," the rich are doing splendidly while the poor are struggling mightily. The gap between rich and poor is growing rapidly, but Jesus said he came with good news for the poor. He speaks regularly about wealth as a curse. People laughed at him when he said such things. We don't actually laugh at him, but our actions and the way we structure our society do. Nothing much has changed.

I occasionally find myself thoroughly depressed by the brokenness that is so apparent in the world, and I think that being a pastor sometimes accentuates that. After all, I am supposed to have "good news" to proclaim. On days like today, that seems more difficult. That difficulty is only made greater by the suspicion that many people are seeking "good news" that will somehow drown out days like today, that will let us return to our happy, suburban illusions that all is well.

The extreme individualism that marks American culture only adds to this problem. We tend to view all things through the lens of self, and so religion's job is to make something better "for me." There are many different spins on that, from more successful to more fulfilled to more spiritual to happier to a reward after death and so on. But "make my life better" seems so shallow on a day like today, and a faith so narrowly focused seems totally inadequate to the broken world that cannot be denied right now.

My own Reformed/Presbyterian tradition has a long emphasis on a doctrine of vocation. The term has sometimes been perverted to mean "occupation," but I'm using in the sense of a calling. Our doctrine says that all Christians are called, we have vocations or callings that are given to us that further the work Jesus came to do. Calling may indeed be fulfilling, but they are not primarily about personal fulfillment. (Jesus' own wrestling with his calling in today's gospel and in the garden of Gethsemane makes that clear.)

Today's devotion from Richard Rohr ends with this. He doesn't speak of calling or vocation, rather of "choosing," but I think he is talking about something similar.

God is always choosing people. First impressions aside, God is not primarily choosing them for a role or a task, although it might appear that way. God is really choosing them to be God’s self in this world, each in a unique situation. If they allow themselves to experience being chosen, being a beloved, being somehow God’s presence in the world, they invariably communicate that same chosenness to others. And thus the Mystery passes on from age to age. Yes, we do have roles and tasks in this world, but finally they are all the same—to uniquely be divine love in a way that no one else can or will.

This is the best answer I have to the world's brokenness. God has better dreams for the world, but God (for reasons I cannot fully fathom) gets incarnated, gets en-fleshed by those who are called to work for God's new day. And if the churches that claim to be the body of Christ will not live into this calling, then we well deserve the insignificant and irrelevant status we increasingly enjoy in our society.

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Sermon video: The Jesus Pub

Audios of sermons and worship can be found at the FCPC website.

Sermon: The Jesus Pub

Luke 15:1-10

The Jesus Pub

James Sledge                                                                           September 15, 2013

A few weeks ago, Shawn and I decided to take a little getaway, and so we headed up to Gettysburg. We got there in the afternoon and decided to walk around a bit in the town. By the end of our walk it was past supper time, and so we looked for somewhere to eat, nothing fancy, just a place to eat. We peeked into a few places as we passed by and finally settled on a place right on the square.

It was called the Blue & Gray Bar and Grill, so it obviously catered to tourists. We didn’t want to wait for a table, so we grabbed a couple of seats at the bar which turned out to be populated more by locals. They seemed to be regulars, carrying on a lively conversation with the folks working behind the bar.

I’m not sure if it’s because of alcohol, or simply the nature of bars, but we eventually found ourselves included in the lively conversation. There wasn’t really anything in the way of formal introductions, but somehow we ended up as just a couple more in the fellowship at that end of the bar.

A few years ago the New York Times travel section had a piece on the pubs of Oxford, England. In the intro it said, “A good pub is a ready-made party, a home away from home, a club anyone can join.”[1] I think that applies to a lot of bars, too, and Shawn and I experienced a bit of that “ready-made party, club anyone can join” feel in Gettysburg.

Jesus apparently gives off a very similar vibe, a “ready-made party, club anyone can join” feel that, well, gets the religious folks’ noses bent out of  joint. For some reason, religious people often think unkindly about bars. Sometimes it’s an objection to alcohol, but it’s also a suspicion about people who frequent bars. Bars can have their share of unsavory sorts, and bars tend not to be judgmental places. Most anyone is welcome.

But Jesus is a religious person. Followers call him Rabbi, and he is teaching about how to live as God wants us to live. So what’s with the bar vibe? Why is he hanging out with and embracing these folks who’ve not seen the inside of a church in years? Why is he having a beer and a burger with them like they were his best buddies?

How to Remember

I've not really done much to remember 9-11. I don't mean that I somehow missed that today was the 12th anniversary of those horrible terrorist attacks, but so much of the remembering seems to get politicized and caught up in different agendas. I still feel a great sadness connected to this day, and I can only imagine how hard it must be for people who lost loved ones at the twin towers, the Pentagon, or in a field in Pennsylvania.

I appreciate the honoring of first responders that happens each 9-11. Some of the formal, somber recollections seem quite fitting. But there is a lot of strident and angry remembering. There is a lot of us-versus-them remembering.

Here in Washington, DC, along with numerous official ceremonies, there were dueling, angry ones. Dueling is the wrong word. The so-called Million Muslim March - its official name was long ago changed to "Million American March Against Fear" - struggled to make any sort of showing, managing a few hundred people at best. And while I have some sympathies for their cause, their timing was simply abysmal.

The "Two Million Bikers to DC" rally, conceived in part as a response to those million Muslims, managed a bit better showing. While some conservative news outlets spoke of 800,000 bikers, realistic estimates were closer to 8000, enough to cause a few traffic snarls, but not the traffic paralysis that nearly a million motorcycles would have caused for the area's already gridlocked highways.

To be honest, I'm less certain of the exact cause championed by the biker rally, perhaps because there seemed to be a lot of different ones. Officially it was about remembering those who died and who served in the military after 9-11, but their Facebook page is filled with talk of taking back America, defending the Constitution, and a few anti-Obama rants. I should add that the group was well behaved, apologized in advance for any traffic tie-ups, and urged their riders to obey all laws and be respectful. Still, I think their timing was also abysmal.

Both groups obviously have every "right" to do as they did, but I think this sort of remembering dishonors those who died, people of different nationalities, politics, religions, and viewpoints. When remembering gets caught up in a particular agenda, when it becomes a means to further someone's cause, it co-opts other people's pain and sadness, a pain and sadness that belongs to all Americans and many beyond America. And for me, at least, it adds a sadness to this day that has nothing to do with the events of 12 years ago.

That's probably why I found today's reading from Philippians so striking. Paul borrows words from an early Christian hymn to reinforce his exhortations to Jesus' followers. The words are very familiar to me, but some of them caught me differently today.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
   who, though he was in the form of God,
          did not regard equality with God
          as something to be exploited,
   but emptied himself,
          taking the form of a slave,
          being born in human likeness. 

Regard others as better; look to the interests of others; be like Jesus who took the form of a slave. Surely remembering looks very little like some of the events commemorating this day when done from this point of view.

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What Are You Afraid Of?

What are you afraid of? I don't mean that as a challenge but a genuine question. What are the things that worry or frighten you? It seems to me that we live in a culture that is often driven by fear. Advertising on TV plays on our fears: fears about not enough to retire, homes being robbed, not getting into a good college, not getting a good  job, not being popular enough, not being in control, not being successful, getting old, getting sick, being alone, etc.

Sometimes it is difficult to know where the line is between reasonable caution and fear that keeps us from living the lives we should. I fasten my seatbelt in the car and wear a helmet when on my motorcycle. Both these seem reasonable to me, but I also get stuck in comfort zones that feel safe to me. I sometimes won't try something new and exciting because I fear it won't work, that I will look stupid, appear foolish, or seem not to know what I'm doing.

Fear figures prominently in today's gospel, Mark's story of the resurrection. Serious students of the Bible likely know that verses 9-20 in today's reading are not from the same hand that wrote the rest of Mark's gospel. Perhaps the original ending was lost or perhaps the writer intentionally left us with one that just hangs there. "So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." (The ending is even more awkward in the original Greek, ending with the word "for.") Regardless, we're left with a most unsatisfactory ending, one that later writers attempted to rectify. (These are often labeled "The Shorter Ending of Mark" and "The Longer Ending of Mark" in Bibles.)

"And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Entrusted with some of the most wonderful news ever spoken, these witnesses kept it to themselves because they were afraid. Presumably something eventually helped them overcome that fear, or the story of Jesus would have ended there.

In my experience, church congregations are often rather timid places. They tend not to do much that looks bold or risky. They want assurances that any new program or effort will be successful and not fail. Here again, it can be difficult to know exactly where the line is between reasonable caution and fear that keeps us from living out our call to follow Jesus, but I think it clear that we often go way beyond caution. Very often, we act as though we have no resources beyond ourselves, no Spirit or spiritual gifts. Perhaps herein lies one of our greatest fears, that we can't actually count on God to come through when we seek to be faithful.

So what are you afraid of?

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Sermon video: Membership Class

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Membership Class

Luke 14:25-33

Membership Class

James Sledge                                                                                       September 8, 2013

Next Sunday we begin a new worship schedule and Christian Education activities resume. The beginning of a new program  year means the start of a new Confirmation Class, and we’ll have a New Member Class later in the fall as well.

Classes for confirmation or new members have some similarities. In a way, both are about what it means to be an active, participant in the Jesus movement as that is lived out at Falls Church Presbyterian. At their conclusion, many in both classes will decide whether or not to “join,” to make a profession of faith, perhaps be baptized, and promise to be a faithful disciple here.

Given this, now would seem a perfect time to share with potential confirmands and members some of Jesus’ thoughts on joining him. In our gospel reading, a crowd is following along with Jesus. They are clearly intrigued. They’ve signed the “Friendship Pad” and checked that they are interested in membership. Jesus says to them, “If you don’t hate your mother and father, your siblings, your spouse and children, and even your own life, you can’t come with me. If you don’t carry your own cross and go wherever I go, you can’t come with me. If you don’t give up all your  possessions, you can’t come with me.”

Come to think of it, maybe we don’t want to use this with a new member or confirmation class. I’m all for full disclosure, but come on, Jesus. One of my favorite preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor, in a sermon on today’s gospel said, “After careful consideration of Jesus’ harder sayings, I have to conclude that he would not have made a good parish minister.”[1]

Non-violence, Just War, and Impossible Questions

Yesterday a church member asked me if I was going to be preaching on the situation in Syria and the President's request that Congress authorize military action against the Assad regime. I told him that I was genuinely unsure of what to say, that I have some very conflicted feelings about what, if anything, can be done to help end the terrible suffering there.

Based on the Facebook and Twitter posts of my friends and colleagues, I seem to be in a minority, at least in the sense that I do not dismiss any possibility of military intervention out of hand. At the risk of getting my liberal credentials revoked, I have to admit that I have considered whether or not notions of "just war" might apply in this case. Not that I have concluded that is the case (as I said, I'm conflicted), but I do find myself wondering whether it is right to stand by as thousands of Syrian civilians die because I believe in peace.

I probably should back up and say that on this last point, the use of chemical weapons is less the "red line" for me. My issue is that some 100,000 have died without America, or anyone else, feeling much need to do anything significant about it. And while there are Christian relief agencies doing difficult and dangerous work with refugees from the Syrian violence, a fair amount of Christian concern only seems to have emerged over the possibility of US intervention.

US intervention might indeed be a fool's errand, one that makes things worse instead of better. But I confess to being a tad suspicious of peacemaking and non-violence that consist of nothing beyond saying "No" to military intervention. Jesus says I must not strike back at the one who strikes me. But that is a witness that I choose to take up. But as a follower of Jesus, what responsibility do I have to those being oppressed and killed by a brutal dictator? Can I appoint them the sufferers who pay the price for my non-violence?

In today's gospel passage, Jesus is led off to be crucified, an event we Christians speak of as being salvific in some way. Jesus, the innocent one, takes up that cross, but what of Syrian children or victims of the Holocaust perpetuated by the Nazis in World War II? And if I have the power to stop such atrocities (by no means a certainty or even likelihood in Syria), is the greater evil to take up military force or to let the deaths continue?

For me these are not rhetorical questions to change the mind of someone reading this. They are the questions I find myself wrestling with, questions for which I have no easy answers, and I am suspicious of those who do. I also have this nagging feeling that my discipleship should be more difficult and costly to me than it is to children in the suburbs of Damascus.

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Stirred Up Crowds

"But the chief priests stirred up the crowd..." and thus ended Pilate's weak attempt to free Jesus. Mark's gospel says nothing about how the priests managed to stir up the crowd, but it's a plausible enough story. We're well aware of how crowds can get stirred up.

Most of us probably have memories of going along with something we never would have done on our own. Perhaps we joined in tormenting some unpopular kid in our class along with "everyone else." Perhaps we tolerated or even laughed at racist jokes in our workplace to go along with the crowd. We often have great disdain for politicians who seem to have no real principles but have to check the prevailing political wind before deciding where they stand on an issue. But crowds are easily stirred and, once stirred, they are difficult to resist.

Of course most of us seem to need a crowd, a group we can belong to. And so we have to find a group, a crowd that we feel comfortable around most of the time. If we can't resist a stirred up crowd, the least we can do is associate with one that shares our morals, convictions, biases, and preferences. Then we can laugh at the foolishness of those others crowds, often without much awareness of our own. Republicans, Democrats, liberal Christians, conservative Christians, atheists, agnostics, Millennials, Gen X-ers, and Baby Boomers, all have things that stir our group up, and we have prejudices about what stirs up those in other crowds.

Right now I'm thinking about the difference between crowds and true community. Community seems to me a much bigger thing than a crowd or group, and so presumably it needs something that binds it together which is larger than the sorts of things that tend to stir up crowds. We Christians speak of a unity "in Christ." In practice, however, we tend to have a different Christ for each crowd, and we  snicker at the other crowds' mistaken image of Jesus.

When Jesus says that those who would follow him must "deny themselves," I wonder if a big piece of that denial isn't letting go of those things that make me part of a crowd rather than member of the human race, a brother or sister to all the other children of God.

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Sermon video: Be a Blessing

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Be a Blessing

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Be A Blessing

James Sledge                                                                   September 1, 2013

In an article on today’s gospel, Emilie Townes, American Baptist pastor and professor of theology at Yale Divinity School, recalls something she heard many times as child from her grandmother. “I just want to be a blessing. That’s all I want for my life, is to be a blessing to others.”[1] Dr. Townes relates how her understanding of what “blessing” means developed as she grew up, evolving from a simplistic notion of rewards given to good little boys and girls to a complex, nuanced, difficult, and deeply theological understanding.

If you are familiar with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, you may already have some appreciation for the complex and difficult nature of blessing. “Blessed are you who are poor… Blessed are you who are hungry now… Blessed are you who weep now… Blessed are you when people hate you…” And there is a corresponding list of woes or curses for those who are rich, full, laughing, and spoken well of by others. 

When I first read those words from Dr. Townes’ grandmother, I immediately thought of a moment from my time in seminary. I don’t know if this happens with other people, but sometimes when I experience a powerful moment of insight or discovery, it becomes a vivid memory that stays with me. And I have one of those connected to the topic of blessing.

It came in my introductory class on the Old Testament. Our assignment was to translate God’s call to Abram in Genesis 12. If you looked it up in your pew Bible you would find this.  Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

It was a passage I knew well, and so I was surprised to find that the Hebrew had something very different from the words I knew. Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so be a blessing. “Be a blessing.” It was an imperative command, just like the command, “Go,” a command that Dr. Townes grandmother had somehow taken up as her own.

Gettysburg, Justice, and Lost Causes

My wife and I just got back from a short vacation. It was just the sort of vacation I like, one without an itinerary. The day often got off to a very late start, which is not to say we didn't do anything. We went to Gettysburg, PA (less than a 2 hour drive from the DC area), and one can't possibly spend time there without taking in some of the history of that place.

I'm something of a history buff, and I knew the outlines of the three day battle at Gettysburg pretty well. But it is hard to visit the battlefields and museums without picking up new insights and information, or without being moved by the level of suffering and death that came to that little town some 150 years ago.

As I said, I'm a history buff, and I know the Civil War story fairly well. I'm also a native southerner, although I somehow failed to acquire that same level of veneration and worship of southern Civil War heroes as many of my neighbors. I've long thought that southern attempts to recast the war so that slavery played little part to be misguided. But in a way that I never had before, I found myself more and more troubled as I visited the various Gettysburg memorials. It worked on me to the point that I almost became angry. What bothered me so was the notion, one that found occasional support in the various interpretive exhibits, that both sides, north and south, were somehow fighting in service to a noble cause.

I have no trouble honoring the sacrifices of soldiers on both sides. It is highly likely that, had I been alive at the time, I would have ended up fighting for some regiment from NC. But the simple fact is, the cause of the south was not just. Apologists may insists that the south fought for the noble cause of "states' rights," but of course the right they were primarily concerned with was that of maintaining the institution of slavery. That was conveniently forgotten by southerners after the war, but it was made clear at its beginning. Speeches and documents from the formation of the Confederate States of America make quite clear that the primary reason for its existence was the preservation of slavery.

And southern churches joined right in. As denominations split north and south right along with the nation, southern denominations often made a point of saying that the heretical views of northerners required them to break away. That heretical view was denying that the Bible sanctioned slavery, even demanded it.

That southerners wished to see themselves as members of a noble, lost cause rather than defenders of the horrific institution of slavery is easily understood. None of us wants to think of ourselves as in league with evil. Our enemies perhaps, but not us. Still, it is a bit surprising the degree to which the official view (in service to reconciliation?), has tolerated and even embraced the noble, lost cause language of the south.

I've already noted that I was emotionally affected by all this during my Gettysburg visit, so that more than likely colored my reading of the lectionary today. But as I read the famous story of King Solomon deciding who was an infant's true mother via the threat to chop the child in two, I was seized by the story's assessment of Solomon as one who had the wisdom "to execute justice."

American Christianity's obsession with individual salvation very often covers over the Bible's insistence on justice, especially for those on the bottom. Couple that with the Bible's and Jesus' repeated talked of releasing the captive and lifting up the oppressed, and it is hard to think of a cause more contrary to God's than the southern one during the Civil War.

Now all this may seem nothing more than an academic, historical exercise, but I think not. Our remarkable skill as humans at recasting injustice into something excusable, even noble, is hardly restricted to southern apologists for the Civil War. Point to any systemic injustice or oppression in our own day, and there is no shortage of people who can explain why it is not injustice or oppression, and why it is even in the best interest of those who seem to be oppressed or denied justice. (I find that arguments for not raising the minimum wage are often examples of this.)

Not that I am immune from this tendency. If correcting injustice or oppression means any sort of difficulty or, worse, suffering for me, then I may well find myself trying to minimize the problem or, at the very least, minimizing my contribution to it.

But as a follower of Jesus, I am called to something different. Jesus says I am to deny myself, to be willing to lose myself, even my life, for the sake of a new day where the poor are lifted up and the oppressed are freed. I am to become something new, a new creation who loves God and neighbor and even my enemies. Surely this requires that I worry much less about my reputation or about casting my own or my own group's failings in the best possible light. Surely it demands that my ways become transformed by God's ways as Jesus has shown them to me. That's probably why both Jesus and John the Baptist begin their ministries with a call to repent, to turn and begin to learn a new way. But we love the old ones, don't we.

Click to learn more about the lectionary.