Patriots, Jesus, and Who Gets to Be God

Save me, O LORD, from my enemies;
     I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will,
     for you are my God.
 Let your good spirit lead me
      on a level path.              Psalm 143:9-10

These verses from the morning psalm made me think about July Fourth. Actually, they prompted me to recall a Facebook post that employed a different psalm, Psalm 33. Written in large script over an artist's depiction of an American flag was this verse. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." ("Lord" here is a respectful way of avoiding God's personal name, YHWH.)

I'm unfamiliar with the person who originally posted this picture, but I feel safe in assuming some sort of "Christian nation" perspective lies behind it. And I presume the proximity to Independence Day is not coincidence. I have to admit that some of the ways American Christianity and patriotism intersect make me a bit nervous. Not that my own faith doesn't profoundly impact my politics. It does. But a huge problem for people of faith, all the way back to biblical times, has been the attempt to enlist God in our causes rather than serve in God's.

The Facebook use of Psalm 33 may be a good case in point. This psalm also speaks of the king not being saved by his army or the warrior by his might, and it says that military prowess does not bring victory. But in my experience those who easily mix patriotism and religion also have a great affinity for military might.

One of the more startling claims of Christians is that the God whose name is YHWH showed up on earth in the person of Jesus. If one takes seriously this notion that Jesus is God in the flesh, then the quote from Psalm 33 could be paraphrased, "Blessed is the nation whose God is Jesus." Now this may not seem all that problematic, for Christians at least. But consider for a moment what it means to say that Jesus is God.

I think most religious types will agree that they are supposed to do more than simply believe God is God. God is the one of ultimate authority, the one who must be obeyed. In a way, to deliberately live contrary to what God commands would be tantamount to not believing in that God. So if Jesus says to do something and I respond, "I don't want to do that. I have a better plan," then clearly I have decided that Jesus isn't God after all. Either that, or I've decided that I'm smarter and more in charge than God.

Take a bit of time and read through a couple of the gospels. They're quite short and were likely first intended for reading aloud in their entirety to a congregation. As you read, consider all the things that Jesus says, does, and commands his followers to do. He hangs out with all sorts of sleazy types. He speaks of loving enemies and of good news for the poor. He talks a lot about the problem of money and wealth, and in Luke's gospel he declares woes or curses on those who are wealthy, have plenty to eat, and are well spoken of. He insists that following him must be more important than loving family and friends, even more important that your own life. (I'm pretty sure your own country would fall in there somewhere.) He generally gets along well with "sinners" and ruffians but is always fighting with religious folk.

Once you've taken a good look at Jesus, consider what your life would look like if Jesus is indeed the ultimate authority, as well as the ultimate example of how people should live. I doubt that anyone measures up by such standards, but still I think it important to know what it is we're supposed to be aiming for.

There's a famous quote attributed to Gandhi that goes, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." It's not clear that Gandhi ever said this, but it's a good quote nonetheless because it points so succinctly to what I'm trying to say. If people look at those of us who claim to be Christian and don't see much resemblance to Jesus, then it would seem that they are looking at people who don't actually have Jesus as their God.

Given the date, I feel compelled to add that nothing I've said is in the least bit unpatriotic or has anything against Independence Day celebrations. I'm going to celebrate by going to a Washington Nationals baseball game tomorrow, and I'll stand and sing the national anthem. (Not too loudly as I don't want to bother those near me.) I hope to catch some fireworks later. But I get really nervous when anyone starts dressing up scripture verses in red, white, and blue. This seems to lead, almost inevitably, to enlisting God in our cause. When that happens, we start trying to make Jesus look like us, and it's supposed to be the other way around.

Happy July 4th!

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Sermon video: Bricks, More Bricks

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Things I Don't Understand

Another 5-4 Supreme Court decision, a decision that likely would have gone a different way had Al Gore become president rather than George W. Bush. The Supreme Court is supposedly a gathering of the best legal minds rendering the best decisions that such an august group of scholars can muster. And yet many of its decisions break easily along party lines. If such things were completely rational exercises, surely it would not happen this way. Justices on both sides can write long and carefully supported reasons their view is the correct one. Obviously one side is wrong.

We humans like to imagine ourselves rational creatures, but I have my doubts. Rather, our rationality seems used mostly for supporting what we believe. We muster our facts and figures (and sometimes distort or create them) in order to give beliefs the air of rationality. Non-religious folk are quick, and often correct, in charging the religious with such practices, but our beliefs need not be religious ones for such tactics. The truly scary part is that whatever group we belong to imagines it is the other side who is irrational, guided only by their unsubstantiated ideology, theology, or whatever.

All that serves as something of a caveat as I say that I cannot quite fathom yesterday's Hobby Lobby ruling. I am willing to accept that some sort of rational, legal calculus can support it. I am cognizant of the fact that my own rationality is suspect. But still I struggle to understand how rights originally meant to protect individuals from being coerced or overwhelmed by powerful majorities somehow apply to corporations. Rights meant to protect the weaker from the stronger seem to be inverted here. But perhaps I'm simply captive to my own beliefs.

Speaking of beliefs, I make no apologies for operating out of my own Christian beliefs, and in my reading of both the Old and New Testaments, God seems quite intent on creating a just society that is especially concerned with the weak and the vulnerable. Modern evangelical spin somehow turned Christianity into a effort to secure a place in heaven for individuals, but the scripture itself clearly speaks of salvation in terms of a just society. The "kingdom" Jesus proclaims takes up the social promises of the Old Testament like those of today's psalm.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
     the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
     the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the strangers;
     he upholds the orphan and the widow,
     but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

Jesus proclaims the dawning of a day when the strong will not overwhelm the weak, a day of peace and restored relationships, a day when our divisions into rich and poor, important and insignificant, male and female, us and them, will disappear. It will likely offend our rationality, and it may well feel like bad news to those at the top. (See Luke 6:24-26)

Such a day seems a long way off in light of recent event in Israel. I suspect I'll find near universal agreement when I say that I cannot understand the rationality of
kidnapping and killing children as a way of furthering your cause. The murder of three Israeli teenagers is heinous and unfathomable. In what sort of warped rationality does this make any sense? Here there is no need for caveats. No version of rationality supports this. It is simply evil, or wicked, to use the psalmist's language.

None of that, however, helps me understand the rationale of Israel's response as described by Prime Minister Netanyahu. "Hamas will pay, and Hamas will continue to pay." Anger and the desire for revenge I can understand, but I don't know many who would describe those as particularly rational actions. Indeed Israel and the Palestinians seem to me a pair, each with genuine grievances against one another, who are locked in a struggle defined by irrationality on both sides. Each sides' beliefs, buttressed by certain elements of truth, end up motivating actions that do terrible harm to the other and to themselves. The horror of these latest murders provide Israel with "justification" for action, but air raids on Gaza will end up accomplishing very little, and the irrational dance simply continues. At times, my only hope is that both sides may appall themselves at some point, and began to question their own certainties and beliefs.

I am increasingly convinced that whatever our core certainties and beliefs, be they political, national, economic, religious, etc. they are not, strictly speaking, rational. Our most deeply held beliefs shape our rational responses more than our rationality shapes these beliefs. To the extent this is true, we had best be clear about just what it is we do believe. At the very depths of our being, what are the beliefs that drive us?

If such things are pre-rational or even irrational, I may not be able to modify them via rational means. But at the very least, I can take a long hard look at them, and decide if I like what I see.

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June 22 sermon video: I'm Out There

Thanks to Jodi Lingan, who preached for me when I was out of town at my daughter's wedding. Jodi is an FCPC member and seminary student.


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

Sermon: Bricks, More Bricks - Sabbath and the First Commandment

Exodus 20:1-11; Matthew 6:24-29, 11:28-30

Bricks, More Bricks

Sabbath and the First Commandment

James Sledge                                                                                                   June 29, 2014

As a general rule, I’ve tried not to talk about my children in sermons. I was never a preacher’s kid, but I imagine it would be horrifying to sit in the pew while a parent stands in the pulpit and shares some personal episode with you in a starring role. But now that she is grown and married, I suppose it’s okay to share this one from my older daughter’s childhood.

When Kendrick was a toddler, she did not like to go to bed at night. We were fine with that as long as she stayed in her room and was fairly quiet, but that wasn’t acceptable to her. She was forever coming out of her room to ask for something, to get something she’d forgotten, to tell us something that couldn’t wait, and so on. It got so ridiculous that we crafted a rule meant to subvert all the new reasons she kept inventing. The rule stated. “If you are not injured and bleeding, you may not come out of your room.”

If you were a new parent thumbing through a child-rearing book and came to a chapter on guidelines for toddlers that included, “Toddlers should not come out of their rooms after bedtime unless injured and bleeding,” I suspect you would think it, at the very least, a bit odd. The rule worked fairly well in our house, but it makes little sense without a certain amount of context. This is perhaps even more so for many of the Ten Commandments.

In recent years, the Ten Commandments have become more political symbol than rules to guide people’s lives. Few Christians can list them all, yet many have strong opinions on whether or not they belong on the courthouse wall. “They’re the basis of our civil law,” some insist, which is pretty clear evidence of not actually knowing them. Many have little connection to our civil law, and there’s one on coveting that seems to undercut a driving force of our economy. Those that do show up in civil laws probably didn’t need an endorsement from God. We surely would have had laws against murder and theft regardless.

I'm no lawyer, but I can't imagine there's much reason for law schools to cover the commandments we heard today. These are sometimes referred to as the first table or tablet of the law. They deal with the divine-human relationship, although the commandment on Sabbath occupies something of a middle ground, connecting the commandments on relationship to God with those on relations with neighbor.

Notice that the commandments do not begin with a list of rules, a concise set of bullet points suitable for framing and attaching to the walls of courthouse or schoolhouse. They begin with context. “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Without remembering slavery in Egypt and the misery of Pharaoh’s oppressive, economic system, we will likely misunderstand and misapply these rules.

Peculiar God - Peculiar Community

When Jesus begins his ministry, he says that people need to get ready because God's kingdom has come near. The term "kingdom of God" (Matthew's gospel substitutes "kingdom of heaven") is not only archaic to modern Americans, it has also taken on religious connotations that likely obscure what Jesus meant when he used these words.

Kingdom is obviously a political term, and it is easy to imagine how such a term could have gotten Jesus in trouble with the Romans. The Roman authorities in Palestine administered the kingdom of Caesar, and they did not take well to competitors.

A kingdom is not only a political thing. It is also a social and cultural one. The kingdom of Caesar was organized around certain patterns and norms. Central to this was Roman power and military might which enforced a system of taxation and assimilation. Like all societies, Rome had its pecking orders and hierarchies, its folks at the top and folks at the bottom. And there were lots of folks at or near the bottom.

The kingdom that Jesus announces also has political and social dimensions, but its dynamics look little like those of Rome, or any other nation for that matter. Jesus says his new order is good news for the poor and the oppressed, but bad news for the rich and powerful. In some ways, it surprising that Jesus survived for as long as he did.

Following his resurrection, Jesus turned over the work of this strange kingdom to his followers, to the first disciples and to those who came after them, including those of us who say we follow him today. Surely he knew what a risky move this was. After all, even those original disciples, who sat and learned at this feet, were still much better acclimated to the ways of Caesar's kingdom than they were to God's. Today's gospel makes that abundantly clear as two disciples seek a top spot in Jesus' kingdom and other disciples get angry at this maneuver that potentially drops them down in the pecking order.

Jesus tries to set them straight, tries to explain that his political and social order looks nothing like the ones they are used to. We in the church have embraced some of the words Jesus speaks here (church folk love the term "servant leader"), but we've not really taken what he said to heart. The Church often looks more like the kingdoms and republics and dictatorships in which we happen to live than it does what Jesus describes. We have our own hierarchies and pecking orders, and, all too often, we've been willing to legitimate the political and social orders where we live in exchange for favored status in those political and social systems.

But an interesting thing has happened in the last half century or so. The political and social systems in which Western Christianity lives decided they no longer needed our legitimation, and so they began to remove our special, favored status. In America, governments no longer make sure no other activities compete against us on Sunday morning, and schools no longer assist us in passing down our faith traditions.

This loss of status has created much angst and no small amount of anger in the Church. Some worry and fret while continuing to act as they always have (my own denomination tends along this path.) Others have become cultural warriors, seeking to return to a previous time of prestige and influence. The first path is heavy on denial. The second is tilting at windmills.

The Church's loss of status and prestige certainly has negative impacts on me and folks like me. Being a pastor is hardly the honored profession it once was, and the financial security that goes with it has diminished as well. It's hard not to feel anxious or angry at times when considering the ways in which the culture has ceased to be helpful. (Thanks, youth soccer, for giving so many families another place to be at the time traditionally reserved for worship.) Yet I can't help thinking that a tremendous opportunity has been given to us by our changed situation.

Jesus used every possible means, going so far as to get himself killed, to show us how the new community he proclaimed looked different from the political and social norms familiar to us. Unfortunately, we in the Church have often been tempted to abandon the strange norms of God's kingdom in order to enjoy honored status in the kingdoms of Caesar or Washington or others. But now that our honored status has been revoked, it seems to me we have an opportunity to rediscover our true identity, our true calling to be a peculiar community that enacts the peculiar ways of God's new political and social order. The world around us may well not come running to us when we do, but they certainly will get a much better picture of Jesus than the body of Christ we have so often displayed.

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"That's Not Fair!" and Other Hazards to Community

Many of us humans have a great desire that things be "fair." We are acutely aware when someone has not received their fair share, especially when that someone is us. Children frequently invoke the protest, "That's not fair!" when they think they have been slighted out of what they deem their portion.

Children learn early on about scarcity. Our world basically runs on the notion of scarce resources for which we must all compete. Parents and teachers also try to teach children about sharing, but this often runs into trouble because sharing requires giving up my access to those scarce resources. It turns out that it is difficult to worry about the other's needs when I'm anxious about my own. And this isn't just a problem for children sharing toys. If you study church offerings or charitable giving in general, you'll see the same problem at work. I cannot share much of what I have lest I run short. The same anxiety that makes me worry about getting my "fair share" makes me prone to hoard what I do have.

You can see this anxiety about fairness and sharing in the parable from today's gospel reading. In Jesus' story of "The Laborers in the Vineyard," those hired in the morning are upset to learn they will not receive more wages than those hired late in the day. They are paid the fair wage they had agreed to, but in the competition for scarce resources, it looks like a loss on their parts for others to receive the same as them without the same effort. "That's not fair!" The vineyard owner is not playing by the rules.

I've been planning a summer sermon series around the topic of Sabbath, and that has led me to a lot of thinking about the busyness and anxiety in American culture. There are so many things to be worried and stressed about. In this world of scarce resources we may not have enough for retirement. We may not have enough on our résumé to land that great job or get into that elite college. The blanks in the phrases "I may not have enough ________" or "I may not be ________ enough" can be filled in with all sorts of anxiety producing deficiencies, and God forbid someone else acquire what I need without expending the same energy and effort as me.

But as Jesus' parable makes clear, God doesn't abide by our rules of scarcity and competition. Old Testament and New speak repeatedly of a God who provides, who insures abundance for all. The laws God gives at Mt. Sinai and the new day Jesus labels the Kingdom of God are about a community of abundance, or enough for all. This unnerves us, though, because we are so thoroughly acclimated to the norm of scarcity and competition. We find many of Jesus' teachings so troubling that we have relegated them to a purely spiritual sphere. Jesus offers salvation, understood as a ticket to eternal life, as free gift to all. We can, to a degree, live with the unfairness of this, in large part because it has so little to do with our daily lives.

Yet neither God's covenant with Israel in the Old Testament nor Jesus' proclamation about the Kingdom that has come near speak of tickets to heaven. They are about transformed human community here and now, about heaven's ways taking up residence on earth rather than us escaping earth for heaven. That is why Jesus tells parables such as today's. It is why the book of Acts tells of a church community where "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need." Nothing particularly "fair" about that. Nor is there much evidence of worrying about having enough or something happening to "my share."

America was founded in part on the notion of a "common good," a notion that is not nearly so operative today as it once was. I don't have any idyllic picture of a young America. There were countless ways in which our founding mothers and fathers twisted and distorted biblical ideas about loving neighbor as well as enemy, about valuing the other and the stranger. Still, there is little doubt that our focus on individualism and competition has eroded early ideas of America as a "covenant community," ideas partly drawn from the Bible. And the Church has often aided and abetted this erosion, joining in on the focus on me and mine, my rights and my share.

The ridiculousness of churches championing Second Amendment gun rights is but one example of this. Jesus calls us to give sacrificially for the good of the other. When I am more focused on my rights (of whatever sort) over the good of the neighbor, I find myself at odds with Jesus' parable of the laborers and at odds with God's dream of true community. I do, however, find myself fully in tune with the world's notions of scarcity, insisting on whatever "fair share" I can attain, unable to trust that God can provide enough for all.

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General Assembly, Controversy, and a Family Wedding

Last week, as my Presbyterian Church (USA) was debating issues of marriage equality and divesting from companies seen as profiting from activities damaging to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I headed to Austin, Texas to attend my daughter's wedding and associated fun and festivity. (As an added bonus, The Mountain Goats, my favorite group, played a concert in Austin on Sunday evening. Something about divine providence in there somewhere.) In my only slightly biased opinion, the wedding was one of the best I've ever attended. And no, I didn't officiate. I enjoyed simply being the dad. The marriage equality votes at General Assembly had already occurred prior to the actual wedding activities, but I was not really paying attention by the time the divestment vote happened.

Even though this wedding and its related activities were incredibly well done, they were not so dissimilar from weddings that you have likely attended. There was a rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, along with tuxes, bridesmaid dresses, and a lovely wedding gown. People stood and snapped pictures with their smartphones as I walked my daughter down the aisle, and picture taking and Facebook posting continued at the reception, along with eating, drinking, dancing, and a bit of wedding cake.

I suppose someone who objected to drinking alcohol could have found fault. Perhaps someone might have disliked the band. But it's hard for me to imagine that many would not have thoroughly enjoyed themselves. There is little disagreeable, off-putting, or controversial about a lovely wedding.

I returned from Austin yesterday, and I'm in the office for the first time in a bit, digesting all the blog posts and reactions to the recently completed General Assembly votes on divestment, marriage equality, and more. Unlike my daughter's wedding, many have found the events of GA disagreeable, off-putting, and controversial. There are worries that more congregations may leave the denomination over some of the decisions. And there are numerous posts attempting to explain or clarify "what really happened."

Some of the latter are certainly needed. Mischaracterizations of the events abound, as they so frequently do on issues that are politicized with people on both sides prone to hyperbole and demonizing the other. Others have done an admirable job here, and I'll simply recommend some of those to you. Check out some of the coverage by The Presbyterian Outlook. I found colleague Steve Lindsley's open letter to his congregation helpful. And MaryAnn McKibben Dana, a colleague who ran for vice moderator of our denomination, and whose church is just down the street from the one I serve, had a couple of helpful pieces, one a post in her blog The Blue Room and the other a piece in TIME.

I was for the marriage issues, which passed easily. I was also generally in favor of divestment, although some its supporters have been prone to unnecessarily inflammatory language regarding Israel. And so I'm not one who is upset by decisions coming from this General Assembly. At the same time, I am bothered by how divisive such decisions often are and the turmoil and controversy they create. Isn't there some way that General Assemblies could be as enjoyable, agreeable, and non-controversial as my wedding fun this past weekend?

The short answer is, "No." As much as I and others may long for the theological equivalent of "Can't we all just get along?" the fact is we are struggling to follow a Jesus who created disagreement and controversy most everywhere he went. He didn't get executed because he was a nice guy who stuck to the status quo.

When I looked at today's gospel reading, I couldn't help reflect on how good the church has become  at polishing off Jesus' rough edges. Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." I've heard some rather lame attempts to make this say something other than what Jesus clearly says, but in the end, these are troubling and uncomfortable words for a majority of Presbyterians who hear them. We preachers sometimes twist ourselves in knots as we dance around their unappealing character. In the process we often embrace this prevailing notion. "Surely Jesus doesn't mean that following him will make us different, odd, unlike the world around us, and subject to name-calling, lies, and mischaracterizations?" But of course the short answer here is, "Yes!"



I presume that Jesus didn't enjoy controversy for controversy's sake. It was simply the inevitable result of his ways being so out of synch with the world's. This leads to a recurring source of discomfort for me. Why isn't the Church more controversial? Unless the ways of the world have gotten a whole lot closer to those of Jesus in the last two millennia, then those who follow Jesus should be as out of step with the world as he was. (Jesus says as much on several occasions.) And so I am left to ponder whether the Church is so often non-controversial and comfortable with the status quo because the world has drawn so near the Kingdom, that new day Jesus proclaims, or if, as seems more likely, the Church has instead drawn too near to the world.

Jesus on occasion used the image of a wedding banquet to speak of the kingdom, of that day when the world is set right Oh, how I wish that proclaiming and living into that new day were as agreeable and easy and enjoyable as the wedding I attended this past weekend. But they are not. And while I operate with a fairly high level of uncertainty regarding just what controversies we in the Church should be stirring up, I have no doubt that we fail to be the body of Christ when are simply benign, unoffensive, status quo reflections of the communities in which we live.

As for the decisions of the recent General Assembly, time will tell how true they are to Jesus and his call to follow him. But the fact that they create controversy, cause people to speak ill of us, or even to hate us, is hardly evidence of a failure on our part. It may even be evidence of faithfulness.

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Sermon: In God's Image

Genesis 1:1-5, 27-2:3; Matthew 28:16-20

In God’s Image

James Sledge                                                   June 15, 2014, Trinity Sunday

There’s a lot of commissioning and sending going on in our worship today. There are youth who will soon leave on their mission trip, rising 6^th graders sent upstairs to join the middle school youth, and graduates headed to college or the work world.

When we send people out, there is usually some mix of excitement and trepidation. Heading out to college is exciting, but making new friends, getting used to a roommate, adjusting to college academics, and so on can be challenging. Parents often share in their college students’ excitement and fear, but they may have somewhat different worries.

I knew a girl who attended a Baptist women’s college in Raleigh, NC, where quite a few students enrolled because of parents’ fears about the terrible things that might happen as their little girls went off to the morally uncertain world of college. The school had strict rules about leaving campus, men in the dorms, etc.

There were actually three such colleges in Raleigh, the Baptist one plus a Presbyterian and Episcopalian, all just a short distance from the large, public, NC State University. Guys at State had a lot of jokes about which of these women’s schools had the wildest girls. There was no clear winner, but conventional wisdom ranked all three ahead of the coeds at NC State. So much for safely sequestering one’s little girl at a religious, all women’s school.

It’s interesting to think about how some go to college, exploring, maturing and changing yet remaining essentially the same person, while others undergo transformations that leave them unrecognizable, not always for the better. Perhaps some people’s identities are more formed than others. The freedom of college lets them explore who they are, but their identity gives them certain boundaries. Others, perhaps like some of those sent to women’s colleges, having always lived within the tight confines of hovering and anxious parents, have less formed identities, and those identities provide as much in the way of boundaries.

Reconsidering Jesus

In today's gospel reading, Jesus asks his disciples who people think that he is, and they respond with some of the suggestions that are floating around. Then Jesus asks a much more critical question. "But who do you say that I am?"If you grew up in the church, you likely know that Peter gave the "correct" answer. "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."(Some Bible translations will have "Christ" rather than "Messiah," but Christ is simply a Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah.)

Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. Many church members could come up with this answer if asked the question Jesus poses to his disciples. But that is not to say these people are talking about the same Jesus. There are a lot of competing and incompatible Jesuses running around. One Jesus hates gays and lesbians but another loves and accepts them. One Jesus is a militant warrior and another is an avowed pacifist. One Jesus wants you to be rich and another calls you to give away your possessions to the poor.

Sometimes we more liberal Christians get so troubled at some of the more ridiculous pictures of Jesus that our response is barely to picture Jesus as all. A United Church of Christ pastor once told me this joke about his denomination. "What does UCC stand for?" The answer/punchline: "Unitarians Considering Christ." I've met many Presbyterians for  whom this is an accurate description. They're looking for a picture of Jesus they can live with. I think a lot of Christians would do well to do a little considering, or perhaps reconsidering, their picture of Christ. But that is different from simply painting a picture to suit us.

If conservatives sometimes create a Jesus who looks more like a patriotic Republican than the Jesus depicted in the Bible, liberals sometimes create a Jesus so benign and bland I can't imagine why anyone would want to follow him. In trying to remove some of the offensive ways in which Jesus has been co-opted into supporting America, gun rights, and free market economies, they create a Jesus with little or no offense at all. He's just a nice guy who loves everybody and does nice things for them. Trouble is, the biblical Jesus was offensive. At least he was to lots of people, particularly those with power, who ran religious institutions, who imagined they were holier than others, and who were motivated by money.

If you take some time to consider and reconsider Jesus, who do you say that he is? The answer is probably less about what words we use to describe him and more the sort of faith life we live as we seek to follow him. What picture of Jesus do people see when they look at you or me?

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Love, Freedom, Idolatry, and the Self-Made Person

Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skilful; but time and chance happen to them all. Ecclesiastes 9:11

"Time and chance happen to them all." So it says, right there in the Bible. It's not really a startling statement, but it does run counter to the cherished American myth of the self-made man or woman. Those who are struggling may not embrace it, but those who do well are happy to attribute their success to their own strength, intelligence, and skill. And quite often, they are equally willing to lay the blame for poverty on the poor's lack of initiative, wisdom, and skill. No "time and chance" involved.

To me this smacks of good old fashioned idolatry. There's a reason that the Bible links greed with idolatry. (see Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5) Those whose lives are motivated by wealth are often prone to a certain arrogance, imagining that they control their own destiny. No grace or blessing required for them. They grab, earn, take, and secure what they need and want. They dare not trust in the provision of God's abundance. The only thing they can trust are their own desires and their own efforts. There is not enough for all, and they must snatch theirs before someone else does.

Americans often speak of this as a "Christian nation," but it is a Ben Franklin version of Christian faith where "God helps those who help themselves." (That's not in the Bible. Franklin said it.) The Bible says something contrary. "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." (Psalm 127) There's no dishonoring of hard work here, but there is a warning against hard work that is simply for self, and this sort of effort describes the frenzied activity of many Americans in their endless pursuit of more.

Of course this isn't just an issue in the area of financial greed. Many of us who aren't necessarily "greedy" still have something we want, something we work very hard to achieve. (I want to be a successful pastor and an admired preacher.) And when we start to imagine that such achievements are purely a matter or our efforts, of our strength, intelligence, and skill, we wander into the arrogance of the greedy. No need for grace or blessings. No need to be sure we are building what God desires.

The American myth of the self-made person is closely associated with our love of freedom. But here again, I fear we have distorted the biblical concept of freedom. Ours tends to be little more than, "I can do whatever I want." In today's reading from Galatians, the Apostle Paul has a somewhat different notion. "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another."

What do you need to be freed from in order to trust yourself to God and give yourself others?

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Sermon video: Ordinary Pentecost

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

A Life that Matters

Those of low estate are but a breath,
    those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
    they are together lighter than a breath. Psalm 62:9

Some years ago, there was a supposed feud between David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey, and Dave had included Dr. Phil (who got his stardom via Oprah) in some of his snarkier jabs. When Dr. Phil showed up as guest on Letterman, the two engaged in a relatively light-hearted battle of wits, with Dr. Phil perhaps coming out on top.

At one point in the banter, when Letterman complained about Oprah not liking him, Dr. Phil responded with a piece of wisdom he credited to his father. "You wouldn't worry so much what people thought about you if you know how seldom they did.'' It was one of the better zingers of the night.

When we are infants, we have good reason to assume we are the literal center of the universe. A swirl of activity accompanies our every cry. There's a bit of guesswork on parents' parts regarding just what we need, but someone generally responds to any indication that we are in any sort of want or distress.

As we grow, we realize that our grand self image is an illusion, though we never totally abandon it. We still tend to prioritize our needs over those of others, our family's over others, our group, community, state, nation, etc. over others, and so on.

This factors into our religious behavior. Jesus may speak of loving neighbor as ourselves, but we generally shift that to loving neighbor after ourselves, if we've got any leftover time or money. We also expect God to be attentive to our individual needs. And while God may well be able to hear the prayers of billions simultaneously, there is something a bit odd about my praying for the light to stay green until I get through it while the poor and oppressed, people the Bible tells me are God's special concern, struggle just to survive.

The above quote from Psalm 62 is something of a corrective. On the scale of cosmic significance, none of us really moves the needle. Feathers weigh more. It's not that God doesn't love each of us deeply. Rather it is about helping us discover what it means to be fully human. Just as no good parent would let a child grow up thinking he was the center of the universe, we cannot become who God creates us to be if we imagine we are created simply to be recipients of God's love and care.

In the Presbyterian Church's Book of Order (a part of our constitution), there is a brief section speaking to the core tenants of our theological tradition. Following a paragraph on God's sovereignty, there are several bullet points, the first reading "The election of the people of God for service as well as salvation." In other words, God loves us in order to orient us toward others, to make the neighbor, as well as God, the center of our universe.

It would seem that only when we learn to live "as one who serves" (Jesus' self description in Luke 22:27), will we contribute something of significance as God measures things.

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Sermon: Ordinary Pentecost

1 Corinthians 12:1-13

Ordinary Pentecost

James Sledge                                                                           June 8, 2014, Pentecost

This may come as a shock to some of you, but church congregations are not always kind, loving, supportive communities where everyone gets along. While there is much kindness, love, and support found in congregations, there is also conflict, fighting, and even downright nastiness. Again, my apologies if I just shattered your image of the Church.

Churches find an amazing variety of things that provoke disagreement and division. Some we import straight from the surrounding culture, dividing along lines of wealth, race, political leaning, age, and so on. But we also divide over churchy things: doctrine, worship style, who can be leaders, and so on.

The Apostle Paul deals with most all these in his little congregation at Corinth. At times these Corinthian Christians sound remarkably modern: individualistic, relativistic, divided between haves and have nots, and intensively competitive with one another. Of course we don’t actually hear from them, having only Paul’s side of the conversation. He’s apparently received a letter from some of the folks there along with some first-hand reports, and Paul is not at all happy with what he’s read and heard.

So Paul writes to the Corinthians, and the moment he concludes with introductory niceties, he brings up the topic of division in the congregation. And almost the entire letter features Paul exhorting, explaining, cajoling, correcting, and flat out blasting these folks as he tries to set them straight.

Now the Corinthians’ problems are a bit different from those afflicting many present day churches. Their problem isn’t declining membership or loss of influence in the culture. They are growing, but Christianity is new and never had any cultural influence. Being new, this congregation is an exciting, exuberant place. Most everyone is a new believer who has been caught up in the Jesus movement, and there is a palpable sense of spiritual energy.

Corinth was a fairly cosmopolitan place, and this church has lots of educated, diverse people in it. If we could have visited there, we would probably have said it was a gifted, impressive congregation. But Paul thinks that this giftedness has become a problem.

Us vs Them

Despite all the statistics regarding church decline, the vast majority of Americans still profess some sort of Christian faith. So why do we seem to hate each other so? Why do we act as though anyone who disagrees with us is our enemy. And even if that were true, didn't Jesus tell us to love our enemies, too?

Today's reading from Ephesians says this. "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you." So how was it we decided this didn't apply to some neighbors? (Both conservatives and liberals seem equally good at demonizing their neighbors on the other side.)

I read a column recently that suggested American politics has become dysfunctional in part because the Cold War ended. Without a common enemy, we turned our animosities toward one another. The September 11 terrorist attacks briefly united us around a common threat, but Al Qaeda turned out not to be terrifying enough to keep us united.

Now I don't know if I want to lay all the blame for our toxic partisanship on the Cold War's demise, but it does make a certain sense. We humans seem to have an innate fear of "the other," of those who are different from us. And once we label that other an enemy, demonizing them and seeing them as sub-human, un-American, or dangerous makes it much easier to hate them. No need to discuss or consider the viewpoints of such folks.

Yet Christian faith is about becoming one with the other through Christ. Elsewhere in Ephesians it says, "For (Christ) is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us." This is referring to a Jew versus Gentile divide and hostility, but that was simply the primary dividing line the early church faced. We have our own.

The scariest part about hostility between groups is that we start to think things would be better without "them," whoever we mean by "them." We decide that we don't want them in our denomination, our neighborhood, our government, etc. Our world would be so much better if they simply ceased to be. At that point, no matter how "right" our views may be, we've ceased to be a true church, a true community,  a true society. You might even say we've ceased to be truly human because we've defined human as "like us" rather than as the beloved children God sees when looking at every single one of us, and every single one of them.

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Reminded of Our Calling

Earlier today I was flipping through the new Presbyterian hymnal, looking at the hymns it recommended for weddings. (My wife had asked if I had any thoughts on good hymns for our daughter's upcoming wedding.) One of the suggestions was a baptism hymn entitled, "I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry." As hymns go, it's a newbie, written in the 1980s, but I've heard it sung a few times and like the tune. I began to read the verses, but tears made it difficult.

I'm not certain what caused the tears. I suppose it was some intersection of thinking about a child now grown along with the notion of God always there alongside. If it gets used at the wedding, I doubt I'll be able to sing it.

That hymn and its impact on me were still fresh when I read today's lectionary passage from Ephesians, where the Christians at Ephesus are urged to "to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called..."  And I thought about my life and my family and my faith and how easy it is sometimes to live life without much sense of God there alongside or with much appreciation of loved ones. How easy it is to neglect those relationships, to take them for granted and fail to nurture and tend them. That goes equally for family relationships and the divine one.

I life worthy of the one to which I am called surely requires a certain attentiveness that I do not always practice. The busyness of work and life can push off to the sides the very things that life is all about. Jesus says the core of our lives is about love, love of God and of neighbor. (I'm pretty sure family gets counted in the neighbor part.) Yet I often find myself preoccupied with things that are not about loving God or neighbor, not even those closest to me. I get focused on tasks and addressing all the things that make me anxious, many of which are totally out of my control.

A life worthy of the calling to which you have been called... I wonder if the words of the hymn struck me so because they reminded of my truest calling, everyone's truest and deepest calling, which at its core is about love.

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Sermon video: Holy Waiting

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

Sermon: Holy Waiting

Acts 1:6-14

Holy Waiting

James Sledge                                                                                       June 1, 2014

Back in my days as a corporate pilot, I would tell people who asked about what I did for a living that I flew planes for free, but I got paid for waiting. Corporate pilots tend to take the executives somewhere early in the morning, then sit around all day. You get good at waiting.

A lot of airports had movies you could watch. Some had sleeping rooms where you could crash after an early morning flight. Me, I read a lot; I carried my running gear. Some pilots carried golf clubs. We found ways to make the time pass quickly until the return trip home.

However, passengers could make the time pass more slowly. With a 5:00 pm departure time, I would start getting ready around 4:00; file flight plans, get ice, coffee, and any catering we might have. And then I would hope the people would get there somewhere near 5:00. When they didn’t show until 7:00, those two hours often felt longer than the entire day.

After one early morning flight, the CEO said, "I’ve a quick meeting then  need to get right back. I’ll be here no later than 9:30 am." And so I didn't get out my running shoes or book. I got the plane fueled, refilled the coffee and ice, filed a flight plan, and began to wait. I waited and waited and waited. At lunchtime, I thought about running out to grab a bite but didn't dare. If I left, I knew he would show up, ready to leave that instant.

Around 6:30 that evening he walked in. "We ran a little late," he said. "Oh really," I thought . But of course I didn't say it. I just smiled and said something about that being the whole point of having your own airplane.

How many of you enjoy waiting? How many of you relish the thought of a trip to get your driver's license renewed, or a little quality time in the doctor's waiting room? At least with smartphones, you can catch up on emails, read the paper, or do something productive. Because what is worse than simply waiting and not knowing how long the wait will be?

That's where our scripture story leaves the disciples this morning. Easter is 40 days past. The disciples have seen the risen Jesus repeatedly, and he’s continued to teach them about the kingdom, about the coming of God's new day. And he has also told them to sit tight, to remain in Jerusalem and wait for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.

Yet after all the time they've spent with Jesus, both during his ministry and in the 40 days since Easter, the disciples still seem confused. "Lord is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" All that post resurrection continuing education, and they still think Jesus will toss out the Romans and bring back the glory days of King David?

“Don't worry about such things,” Jesus says to them and to us. You're obviously not quite ready, but you are going to be my witnesses in all the world. You will be empowered by the Spirit, and then you will be able to act and live and speak in ways that let people see me in you.

Then Jesus is gone, and the disciples really don't know what to do. They stand there staring up at where they last glimpsed him. I wonder how long they would have just stood there staring if angels hadn’t showed up. Then they go back to Jerusalem. And there they wait. But they don't just wait. They wait, together, the whole community. They devote themselves to prayer, together.

Doubting Disciples

If you're the churchy sort, you probably know that today's gospel reading contains the final verses from Matthew. You may also know that it's often called "The Great Commission" because here Jesus commissions the disciples, and through them the Church, for their work.

As you might imagine, the passage comes in for a fair amount of attention. I've read it countless times, and a couple of things almost always come to mind when I encounter it. The first is the disciples' doubt. They have gone to the mountain in Galilee as they were instructed in order to meet the risen Jesus, and now they do. And Matthew tells us, "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted."

I had to translate this passage from the Greek as part of a seminary assignment, and I still remember discovering that there is no "some" in the Greek. Perhaps it can be implied, but my translation said, "When they saw  him, they worshiped; but they doubted." And the professor didn't correct me. But whether some or all doubted, their doubt still pretty amazing. It's one thing for me to doubt. I never watched Jesus be executed and then saw him walking around. But these guys did. And they doubt? Interesting.

The other thing I most always think about when reading this passage is what Jesus actually does and doesn't tell them to do. He tells them to make disciples, and he goes on to explain that this gets done by baptizing folks and by "teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." But nowhere in this does he make any mention of belief.

I think the reason I so often notice doubt and disciple making in this passage is because they seem somewhat at odds with my experience of church. True, I encountered a fair amount of Jesus' teachings growing up in the church, and there was some expectation that one should follow these teachings. Still, I got the distinct impression that the real core of Christian faith was about "believing in Jesus." Faith, believing in Jesus (sometimes understood as not doubting) was what got you the divine seal of approval. And so the church's work was to create believers.

Now I won't suggest that being a disciple doesn't require a certain amount of belief, some level of trust or faith that Jesus' ways are the right ones. But the ending of Matthew's gospel depicts a Jesus less concerned about doubt and more concerned about what we do. Jesus seems to prefer doubting doers over adamant believers.

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May 18 sermon video: The Kingdom Comes

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

May 11 sermon video: A Glimpse of What's Possible

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

God of the Land

I recall reading a statement some years ago about how many a plan to read the Bible from beginning to end had faltered amidst the pages of Leviticus. Today's verses could certainly cause such a problem, not because they contain a numbing list of rules and cultic regulations, but because they feature a disturbing picture of God. God speaks of turning against a disobedient Israel and utterly destroying them. There are gruesome images of adults eating their children, which may contain hints of actual events when Israel starved while under siege by Assyrians or Babylonians.

I don't know how literally to take God's threats here. Perhaps they are a bit like those of an exasperated parent driving the car and shouting, "Don't make me stop this car and come back there!" After all, the passage ends on something of a hopeful note. If they humble their hearts and make amends, God will remember the covenants of old.

But what truly struck me in the passage was neither God's threats nor the hope that these threats might change Israel's behavior. Rather it was God's statement that "the land shall rest, and enjoy its sabbath years." It helps if you know that God not only commanded Israel to keep a weekly sabbath where Israelites as well as their animals received a day of rest (a remarkable concept in the ancient world), but God also commanded a 365 day-long sabbath for the land every seventh year. God, it seems, is concerned not just with people, but with animals and with the land itself.

It's striking how much this is emphasized in today's reading. "Then the land shall enjoy its sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its sabbath years. As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it." Apparently one of Israel's failings has been not caring for the land God had entrusted to it.

Very often religious folks argue about insiders and outsiders, about whom God favors. A lot such religious arguments are only slightly more sophisticated versions of little children arguing "Mom likes me best." Interesting how, in today's verses, God doesn't pick one human child over another. God's most tender words are directed at "the land."

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Sermon: The Kingdom Comes

1 Peter 2:1-10

The Kingdom Comes

James Sledge                                                                                       May 18, 2014

What is wrong with the world? Have you ever asked yourself that question? How could you not. Think of the terrible things that have happened, just in the last month or so. Hundreds of Korean students were killed when a ferry capsized while the crew did little to save them, and it seems there was negligence and malfeasance on the ferry company’s part.

Hundreds of school girls have been kidnapped in Nigeria by terrorists opposed to Western styled education. They’ve threatened to sell the girls as wives or slaves, and the Nigerian government did almost nothing, refusing help from the US and others, until a social media campaign created international outrage.

In Syria, shortly before an exhibit of children’s artwork was to go on display, bombs were dropped on the school. Teachers and children were killed, adding to a death toll now surpassing 150,000 people. And there is no end in sight.

What is wrong with the world?

In our own country, the economy seems to be in permanent doldrums, and the vulnerable suffer the most. Hunger and homelessness are increasing, yet our political process seems paralyzed. And the very people who yell, “This is a Christian nation,” argue for cuts in food stamps and Head Start, despite God’s repeated command to care for the poor and vulnerable.

What is wrong with the world?

Not that this question is new. It is likely as old as humanity itself. The second of the two creation stories in Genesis, the Garden of Eden story, is not really an account of events or an attempt to record history. Rather it is theological reflection, in story form, on a fundamental theological and anthropological question: What is wrong with the world?

Israel’s answer to this question is one that Jesus embraced, that shaped his life and ministry, and shaped how his followers understood his death and resurrection. Unfortunately, this answer has often been forgotten Church. Jesus became about personal salvation and getting a ticket to heaven, disconnected from his central message that was addressed to the question, What is wrong with the world?

Israel’s answer did not really try to explain how it was the world got so out of kilter, but it did address why. The problem is that the world simply refuses to accept the sovereignty of its creator, the lordship or rule of God. Israel, and the first Christians, did not understand heaven to be a place where people could go when they died. Rather it was the place where God did reign supreme, where God’s sovereignty was unchallenged. And Israel awaited and longed for the day they were sure would come, the day when God would reign supreme on earth as well. This was sometimes known as the kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven.

When Jesus begins his ministry, he declares that God’s kingdom had come near. And this coming day is central to the prayer he teaches his followers. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” In other words, reign supreme on earth as you currently do in heaven. Fix what is wrong with the world.

On Being Different

Salt and light. Jesus speaks of his followers being both. Both may have had a bit more oomph as metaphors in Jesus' day. Light is still light, but we don't know much of real darkness. We live in such a brightly lit world. We also know about salt as a seasoning, but not so much as a preservative. Oh, we've encountered cured ham and such, but salt is not nearly so essential to life thanks to refrigeration, canning, freezing, and such.

What strikes me about these metaphors is their distinctiveness from what they season, preserve, or illumine. Salt is able to do its work because it is something very different from food. So too light is distinct from the world in which it shines. Both do their work because they are different from the earth and the world Jesus says they are to salt and illumine.

I grew up in a time when being a Christian was simply part and parcel being a citizen. There was little about it that spoke of a distinctiveness, that transformed and gave life to what it touched. Instead Christian faith became about maintaining the status quo. Not that churches did not do a great deal of good, good that sometimes had powerful, life giving impact and so was salty. But being Christian was often simply about fitting in, about being like everyone else.

But Jesus says we are to be different in ways that give life to the world. We are called to be distinct, to be an alternative to the world around us. Not in some holier than thou way, and not in a way that says, "You'd better become like us or you're gonna get it." We are called to be different and distinct in the manner of Jesus, who enjoyed, perhaps even preferred, the company of the poor and the outcast.  We are called to be like Jesus, who gave himself for the sake of others, with little thought as to whether or not they deserved it.

Come to think of it, following just these two examples would probably be enough for a Christian community to look very different from the world around it, and so to be salt and light.

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Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

There's an old Warren Zevon song entitled, "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me." Like a lot of Zevon songs, its lyrics are a bit odd. The song begins by telling of a failed suicide attempt, and this chorus follows.

Poor, poor pitiful me
Poor, poor pitiful me
These young girls won't let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe is me

I suspect that most all of us feel poor and pitiful from time to time, but it's hardly a feeling many of us relish. It is surely a sign that something is terribly amiss. If we are feeling  poor and pitiful in the spiritual area, then obviously something is wrong there. We've become disconnected from God; our prayer life is on the fritz; we need to revive some neglected spiritual disciplines.

I once heard someone suggest that the beginning of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount might well be translated, "Blessed are the pitiful in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." My Greek dictionaries don't suggest "pitiful" as a possible translation, but they do have "worthless"and "miserable." That sounds just as bad, maybe worse.

When we thank God for our blessings, feeling poor and pitiful, or miserable and worthless, isn't usually on the list. Nor are a number of other things that show up on the Jesus beatitudes. When such things happen to me, I'm more likely to sing along with the late Zevon, "Woe is me."

There is more than one way to understand what Jesus says. He could be saying that God especially favors those the world finds worthless. That would fit with Jesus so often being found among outcasts and sinners. It could also be about God blessing those who are vulnerable and dependent, who cannot bless themselves. And I wonder if this one isn't a real problem for many American Christians, especially those who, like me, come from relatively well-off, Mainline church backgrounds.

Speaking personally, I'm one of those people who hates to ask for help. I like to think I'm capable of doing it myself. If I don't know how, surely I can figure it out. Such an attitude has its advantages at times, but it can be counterproductive when it comes to a relationship with God. It turns out that wanting to achieve a deep spirituality can get in the way of that desire. Deep spirituality is as much about losing ourselves as it is achieving something... self-denial, that sort of thing.

This can be even more problematic for congregations. Because they are institutions and filled with people with lots of skills and abilities, it can be even harder for them to lose their selves and give themselves over to Christ, to the Spirit.

But as difficult as it can be for me to embrace this notion that feeling poor and pitiful somehow puts me near God's blessing, my own experiences have  nonetheless proved it true. The very moments when I am at wits end, when I have no idea what I'm doing and feel completely lost, are the very moments when I have encountered God most fully.  ...So why do I keep trying to do it myself?

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Sermon: A Glimpse of What's Possible

Acts 2:42-47

A Glimpse of What’s Possible

James Sledge                                                                                       May 11, 2014

I think this is one of those scripture passages that makes a lot of American Christians a little bit nervous. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. That sounds a bit like, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” a communist mantra popularized by Karl Marx. But that’s somewhat counter to a number of basic tenants of American society.

The utopian, commune like feel of the Jerusalem church in Acts is also way outside most of our experience of faith. It is as removed from our experience as Mother Teresa’s life of faith feels distant from our own. And the preacher tempted to urge a congregation, “Be more like the Acts church,” is likely to find such efforts as ineffective as urging them to be more like Mother Teresa. Not that pastors don’t still try on occasion.

One of the problems, or perhaps better, the limits of preaching is that unless a congregation invests divine authority in a pastor – something that was probably always rare but almost never happens in our cynical age – preaching itself has very little power to change how people act or live. People may like or dislike a sermon. They may agree or disagree with it. They may even be convinced to change their mind about something from time to time, but in that sermons are little different from editorials in the newspaper, if more focused on religious rather than political discourse.

And so the typical sermon on today’s passage seeks to convince people how becoming a bit more like the folks in an admittedly idealized Jerusalem church might be a good and doable thing. Or it seeks to explain some updated practice that might be better suited to our modern world. Or it talks about how our lives as consumers are contrary to the life of those who are in Christ. Or it may even explain why this utopian vision of the early church has nothing to do with us. I’ve certainly charted a couple of these paths in sermons I’ve preached.

But the problem with such efforts is that, very often, they urge certain sorts of activity or behavior without much attention to what caused such behavior in the Jerusalem church. The people in Jerusalem didn’t share everything with one another, or devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to prayer, because a preacher, even Peter himself, urged them to do so. They did so because of a dramatic encounter with the power and presence of God that changed and transformed them.

Mistaking Temptations for Blessings

"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted..." So begins today's gospel. It seems remarkable enough to me that Jesus wrestles with his identity and sense of call. But this scripture says that the event is necessary. The Spirit leads Jesus into it. In Mark's gospel the image is even more striking. There "the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness." But regardless of whether Jesus is led or driven, it is a requirement that Jesus at least consider becoming a different sort of Messiah than the one God has in mind.

One need not believe in an actual devil to be moved by this story. In fact, I think the story has more power when the devil ceases to be a pitchfork carrying cartoon and instead becomes a symbol for genuine temptation rising up within Jesus, temptation to take a messianic path that will be easier, more self aggrandizing, or more in keeping with the sort of Messiah people wanted. Surely there was some way to bring God's kingdom while still being admired by all, getting invited to the best parties, and enjoying a nice, upper-middle-class lifestyle.

When I find myself wrestling with what it means to follow Jesus and just what I am called to do and be, it is seldom an appealing place. Indeed when the path before me seems uncertain or filled with great difficulty, it can feel like God has withdrawn from me, and I can despair over God's absence. But if this story is in any way instructive for a life of faithfulness, then such moments may be necessary. The Spirit may even have led me there.

Certainly the Church, as the body of Christ, finds itself tempted to be something less than God intends. Jesus taught his followers that they would face many of the same difficulties and opposition he did, but we sometimes think that being Christian should protect and insulate us from troubles. We may even come to see the sort of temptations Jesus resists as blessings. Consider the things we appreciate when thanking God for our "blessings." Most of us don't go so far as the Joel Osteens of the world who insist that God wants us to be rich, but we still think of our nice house and comfortable lives as blessings.

Jesus says that following him requires self-denial and taking up the cross, the very sort of thing we see Jesus doing in today's gospel. But if we consider the things Jesus must resist as blessings we should pursue, surely we will get this whole Christian life thing all wrong.

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Sermon video: Able to See the Risen One

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Put to Shame

The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
     and all the peoples behold his glory.  
All worshipers of images are put to shame,
     those who make their boast in worthless idols;
     all gods bow down before him.  - Psalm 97:6-7

John Calvin, the theological founder of my particular Protestant tradition (Reformed, of which Presbyterians are a subset), spoke of  human beings as prolific manufacturers of idols. Calvin, who lived in 1500s Geneva, Switzerland, was long removed from the days of actual carved or cast images. No one was making any animal sacrifices at pagan temples in Geneva when Calvin was its city manager. But Calvin knew that the impulse that led ancient people to create idols of metal or stone was alive and well. Indeed, it is alive and well today.

Most people need something they can believe in, can trust in. Most of us are too "sophisticated" to construct actual idols, but we have our substitutes. Obvious candidates are things such as family or nation. There is nothing wrong with such things. But when they become what we most fervently believe in and trust in, they do become problems. And they inevitably fail us and betray us when we put ultimate trust in them. Or, to borrow from the psalm, those who put their trust in them "are put to shame."

In our culture, acquiring things is an idol. Many believe that if they get enough of something: possessions, experiences, power, prestige, etc. they will be happy and content. Overtly religious folks often make idols of things such as the church or the Bible. In our increasingly secular age, ideologies make for nice idols. The Second Amendment crowd often seems to wander into idol territory. The faith that some people place in owning a gun strikes me as a greater leap of faith than that of believing in Jesus' resurrection.

I tend to run in more liberal crowds, and we have different idols. Education is often one. Not that there's anything wrong with education. I'm generally for it. But when you trust it to cure all that ails society, you've invested much more trust in it that is appropriate, and you'll end up being "put to shame."

There's a version of this sort of idolatry that especially afflicts church professionals and congregations. We sometimes believe that if we learn to do church just so, all will be well. Again, it's a good thing for pastors to learn leadership skills and churches to discover better ways of doing vital programs, but it is very easy for skills and abilities to become our idols, our gods, the things where we place our ultimate trust. And as the psalm says...

I think this sort of temptation is especially acute in denominations and congregations with highly educated clergy and members. We often find it much easier to trust in our impressive smarts and abilities than to trust in God. If you're not sure if this sort of idolatry afflicts your congregation, it may help to consider how people react when things are not going well. Do they devote more time to prayer and attentiveness to God's voice, or do they simply try to figure out what is wrong and fix it? Now clearly we can pray, listen for God, and also try to get better at church operations. These aren't mutually exclusive things. Still, it's worth asking ourselves where we place our ultimate trust. Otherwise we may find ourselves "put to shame."

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