Sunday, December 3, 2017
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Sermon: Sheep, Goats, Identiy Politics, and the Way
Matthew 25:31-46
Sheep, Goats, Identity Politics, and the Way
James Sledge November
26, 2017 – Christ the King
In
the past, I’ve questioned whether it might be time to retire the term
“Christian.” To my mind it has become a meaningless label that anyone can
bestow on themselves. The label tells little about how a person acts. Quite
often it does not mean that the person diligently seeks to follow the teachings
of Jesus. It’s simply a label that wants to claim some bit of divine blessing
for that person and their views. Hillary Clinton says she is a Christian.
Donald Trump says he is one. Some members of the alt-right insist they are
Christian. And Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore claims to be a champion for
Christians.
Speaking
of Roy Moore, the recent controversies around charges that he preyed on high
school students when he was in his thirties, along with ardent support for him
from some evangelical Christians, have prompted a number of articles and blog
posts about the term “Christian” losing its usefulness. Moore helped this
process along when he was the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice. He insisted
on a display of the Ten Commandments, even after the US Supreme Court ruled
that unconstitutional. In so doing, he only drug the term “Christian” further
from any notion of doing what Jesus said, instead coopting the term as one more
label in the identity politics that have so divided our culture.
When
you think about it, the Ten Commandments are a rather odd choice for a
Christian symbol, Yes, the commandments are in our Bible, but there is nothing
distinctly Christian about them. They don’t come from any teaching of Jesus.
Why not the Beatitudes? Why not “Love your enemies.”? Why not, “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.”?
We
seem to have reached a point where “Christian” is such an empty label that we
have to modify it to give it any real meaning: Evangelical Christian, Mainline
Christian, progressive Christian, and so on. And even then, these labels likely
tell us more about people’s politics than about how serious they in actually
following Jesus.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Sermon: Entrusted with a Great Treasure
Matthew 25:14-30
Entrusted with a Great Treasure
James Sledge November
19, 2017
If
you’ve ever explored the buildings here at Falls Church Presbyterian, you’ve no
doubt noticed that things have been added onto many times over the decades. The
back of the sanctuary, the narthex, and steeple date to the first construction
in the 1880s. Since then there’ve been a number of additions, expansions, and
renovations, the last being the new Fellowship Hall, kitchen, and classrooms
added less than fifteen years ago.
As
with many congregations, these building and renovation projects involved
stepping out on faith. Would there be enough money to pay the mortgage? Was the
hope that the church would grow well founded? Prior to seminary, I was on the
Session of a church that decided to build a new sanctuary. It’s now clear that
was a great decision, but at the time, it was a difficult one. Many were
worried about the cost and the risk the congregation was taking on, not to
mention worries that growth might change the character of the congregation.
I
was not here for any discussions about whether to build or renovate, although I
was here for the discussion on hiring a full time youth director. That’s not permanent
like a building, but it also involved stepping out on faith, of saying this is
an investment in the future and we trust that the money will be there.
When
you’re part of a church that isn’t brand new, you inherit a treasure from those
who came before you. You’re entrusted with structures, a music program,
children’s programs, Christmas Eve and Easter traditions, and so on. That means
that most churches have to decide how to take good care of their treasure and
how to utilize it well, But decisions about utilizing treasure sometimes run
afoul of the desire to care for and protect it.
In
the first church I served as pastor, the Mission Committee wanted to find a
significant, ongoing project that would engage a lot of volunteers on a regular
basis. Such an opportunity almost fell in our lap. A local homeless ministry
was building a day center not from us that would allow them to accommodate more
people, and they were seeking additional churches to host five homeless
families for a week at a time, multiple times a year.
It
was quite a system. On Sunday afternoon, a truck arrived with portable beds and
mattress that had been taken out of another church early that morning.
Volunteers would set up five bedrooms for families who arrived that evening and
left around seven each morning. Supper and breakfast were provided, along with
bag lunches for the day. The following Sunday morning, volunteers would turn
bedrooms back into classrooms and put the beds back in the truck that would
move on to another church later that afternoon.
It
seemed a perfect fit. We had a number of classrooms that were not used during
the week. The day center was less than a mile away, making transportation back
and forth easy to manage. It needed a lot of volunteers to set up and tear
down, serve as hosts, make supper and bag lunches, spend the night, tutor
children, etc. It was exactly the sort of opportunity the Mission Committee was
looking for, and so they brought a recommendation to the Session that we become
an Interfaith Hospitality Network congregation.
Many greeted this as a wonderful
opportunity, but not everyone. Some were worried about added wear and tear on
our building and added risks from families and children we didn’t know using our
classrooms and kitchen as their home for a week. For some, the need to take
care of the treasure bequeathed to us made this a risk they did not want to
take.
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