Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Sermon: Big Rocks First
Mark 12:28-34
Big Rocks First
James Sledge November
4, 2018
As
seminary student, I did my summer internship at a small town church in eastern
North Carolina. They provided housing for me in a mother-in-law suite attached
to the home of a widowed, Jewish grandmother named Reba. As far as I know, Reba,
her son, and his family constituted the entire Jewish population of that town.
Reba’s
house and my suite shared an enclosed porch, and she and I would sometimes sit
out there and chat. On one occasion she offered that differences between faiths
didn’t really matter. As long as people believed in God and tried to be good, that
was enough.
Now
I don’t know that Reba actually thought there were no significant differences
between Jews, Christians, Muslims, and so on. Her statement may have been a
mixture of her being very hospitable to me combined with a tactic she had long
used to blend in as a religious minority. I don’t really know. But there are
many people who see the “All faiths are basically the same” idea as a good way to
bridge religious differences.
Given
the problems some religious folks cause, it’s tempting to think that blurring
the distinctions between groups might help. But a vague, blurry, Christian
identity turns out to be difficult to pass on new generations of believers. It doesn’t
require liturgies, worship services, or institutions. And I wonder if the
widely held notion of Christianity as intolerant, anti-gay, pro-Republican, and
so on, isn’t partly the result of more liberal Christians having blurred our
identity to the point that the Christian part isn’t really visible to others.
If
someone who had not grown up in a church walked up to you and asked, “What does
it mean to be a Christian? What’s non-negotiable?” how would you respond? What
would you tell them beyond, “Believe in God and try to be good”?
When
Jesus is asked about what is non-negotiable, he answers by quoting from Scripture,
our Old Testament. He starts with the Shema from Deuteronomy.
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and will all your soul (or life), and with all
your mind, and with all your strength.”
But
Jesus doesn’t stop there. He was asked for the commandment that is “first
of all,” but he adds as second, from Leviticus, “You shall love our neighbor as
yourself.”
Monday, October 29, 2018
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Sermon: What Do We Want from Jesus?
Mark 10:46-52
What Do We Want from Jesus?
James Sledge October 28,
2018
Along
with The Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Westminster Confession of Faith, and
others, our denomination’s Book of
Confessions includes something called A Brief Statement of Faith. Written
in the 1980s, it has three, distinct sections, one for each person of the
Trinity. The section on the Holy Spirit contains these words. “In a broken and
fearful world the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness
among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church
and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with
others for justice, freedom, and peace.”
The
Spirit gives us courage to live as disciples. If we are the Church, if we are
followers of Jesus, the Spirit will help us to do these things. And today’s gospel
has me thinking specifically about courage “to hear the voices of peoples long
silenced.”
In
recent years, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Me Too movement have
tried to lift up voices long ignored, silenced, and disregarded. Some folks have
listened, have become more aware of the systemic ways that black voices, female
voices, and other voices from the margins have been ignored and discounted.
Others, however, resent this demand for
marginalized voices to be heard. For a variety of reasons, ranging from benign
to malicious, some do not want the disruption these new voices cause. They’re
happy with how things are, privileged by how things are, or just accepting of
how things are, and would just as soon leave it alone.
_____________________________________________________________________________
In
our gospel reading, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus demands to be heard, but
“many” among the crowd and disciples insist that he be quiet. His voice is an
intrusion that they do not want to hear, although the gospel story isn’t clear on
why. Jesus has made a name for himself by healing people. It’s a big part of
the show that crowds come to see, so why shut down Bartimaeus?
Monday, October 22, 2018
Sermon: Beloved and Invited to New Life
Mark 10:35-45
Beloved and Invited to New Life
James Sledge October
21, 2018
I
read an column in The Washington Post
the other day entitled, “As Jesus said, nice guys finish last.” It quoted a
tweet from Jerry Falwell, Jr., president at Liberty University. “Conservatives
& Christians need to stop electing ‘nice guys’. They might make great
Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at
every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps
& many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!”[1]
The
column went on to note that it is hardly a new thing for religious folks to want
powerful politicians to support their agenda. For much of European and American
history, faith and power have had something of a symbiotic relationship. Rulers
made sure that the population participated in the faith, and the faith gave
spiritual blessing to the ruler.
This
sort of deal almost always ends up compromising and cheapening the faith. In
our American experience, Christianity ended up being used to buttress slavery,
sanction the genocide of Native Americans, and support imperialism in Africa
and Asia. More recently, evangelical leaders were singing the president’s
praises on the very day that thousands of migrant children were moved, under
the cover of darkness, to a detention facility in Texas.
This last event prompted The Washington Post columnist to write,
“This is disturbing and discrediting. How can anyone supposedly steeped in the
teachings of Jesus be so unaffected by them? The question immediately turns
against the questioner. In a hundred less visible ways, how can I be so
unaffected by them?”[2]
_____________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Sermon: Fake Questions and Kingdom Ways
Mark 10:2-16
Fake Questions and Kingdom Ways
James Sledge October
7, 2018
I
don’t think we’ve done it here during my time as pastor, but both of my
previous congregations did a stewardship program called the “Grow One
Challenge.” This challenge was based on the fact that very few church members
tithe. Never mind how often a pastor calls for the offering with “Let us bring
our tithes and offerings…” statistics show that tithers are as rare as liberal
Republicans.
And
so the “Grow One Challenge” is a plan both to help church members move toward
the biblical notion of the tithe, giving the first ten percent, the first
fruits, to God. Recognizing that the typical Presbyterian gives something
closer to two percent, this challenge knew that asking people to jump from one
or two percent to ten was an impossible task. And so people were encouraged to
grow one, one percentage point that is, toward the tithe. The pledge cards
accompanying the program even had little charts on the back that would help you
do the math.
The
program seemed to work pretty well. We had some pretty big jumps in giving when
we first used it. But I also had a rather experience. It happened in both
churches and it happened repeatedly. People
asked me, “Am I supposed give ten percent of my income before or after taxes?” They
almost always grinned as they asked.
I
don’t think there was ever I time where this was a real question. They weren’t
filling out their pledge card and wanting to know if it was this amount or
that. More often it was just a joke, but sometimes it was a way of muddying the
waters, of charting loopholes.
The
Pharisees in our scripture aren’t making a joke, but they may well be grinning.
Their question is not a real one. They already know what the law says. They’re
merely hoping Jesus’ answer will make some folks angry. There were
disagreements in Jesus’ day, not about whether divorce was legal, but about
valid reasons for it. The Pharisees hope Jesus will come down on one side and
upset those on the other.
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Sermon: Getting Our Mojo Back
Mark 9:30-37
Getting Our Mojo Back
September 23, 2018 James
Sledge
I
spent much of my childhood and youth in Charlotte, NC, back in the days when TV
had a total of six or seven channels. Of these, the CBS affiliate dominated the
local market and also owned the largest radio station. It had a number of high
profile, charity events each year, but the one I recall the most vividly was an
annual on air blood drive.
They
advertised it heavily. Corporate sponsors provided food, refreshments, and
gifts. Radio and TV personalities worked the event. CBS sent in stars from
various shows, and all during the day they would have live broadcasts interviewing
donors, talking about how easy is was, how almost painless it was.
The
event was always a huge success with more than a thousand people donating
blood. The Red Cross blood bank would be as full as it ever got, but this blood
drive never seemed to convert many into regular donors. Year after year, most
of those interviewed were first time donors, and year after year, it wasn’t
long before the Red Cross was making pleas to the public about critically short
blood supplies. The gifts, glitz, celebrities, and chance to be on TV drew in
lots of people, but when it was all over, they went back to old patterns, ones
that didn’t include giving blood.
A
similar pattern showed up in the early Jesus movement. The gospels report huge
crowds coming out to see this miracle working, charismatic,
teacher-prophet-messiah. But by and large, the crowds saw the show, perhaps got
a healing, and then went home to their old lives.
The
early reflected this. It was a small movement, and you see that in the New
Testament. In his letters, the Apostle Paul deals with questions about what parts
of normal, civic participation are out of bounds for followers of Jesus,
questions that arise because the Christians are a tiny minority. So too some of
the gospels address communities struggling to remain faithful when doing so may
get them ostracized from polite society.
We
tend to think of the Bible as a public book, but the individual components of
the New Testament – which didn’t really exist as we know it for a few hundred
years after Jesus – were not understood that way. They were not used to spread
the Christian message but to help existing Christian communities deal with
issues that they faced. The books that would become the New Testament weren’t
for the masses, but for the dedicated few.
It’s
easy to see why the early Jesus movement tended to be small. While Jesus might
have made a big splash and attracted a lot of gawkers, people hoping for a
healing, or a political messiah to take on the Romans, many of Jesus’ teachings
were not real crowd pleasers. The teachings we heard this morning are no exception.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
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