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

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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.