Peace, Unity, and Purity... and Other Impossible Combinations

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
    righteousness and peace will kiss each other. 
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
    and righteousness will look down from the sky.  

Psalm 85:10-11

I've always loved these lines from Psalm 85, one of today's evening psalms. The psalm itself is a plea for God to restore, a prayer based in knowledge of God's nature and character. And so, even in the midst of difficult circumstances, the psalmists hopes for the wondrous day when "righteousness and peace will kiss each other."

God is often seen as having contradictory, almost incompatible attributes. God is a God of justice, who will not tolerate wickedness. God is a God of mercy and forgiveness, who in Jesus is a friend of sinners and tax collectors. A lot of people prefer one or the other of these images, and this, in part, accounts for some of the wildly different versions of Christianity floating around.

The psalmist is aware of both images, asking earlier in his prayer, "Will you be angry with us forever?" Presumably there is some reason for God to be angry. Israel has not lived as God has commanded. They in some way deserve the judgment they are experiencing, and yet the psalmist can cry out, "Grant us your salvation."

The psalmist hopes for righteousness and peace to kiss, but just how compatible are such things? Righteousness is about doing things correctly, about abiding by God's law. Does the psalmist simply mean that peace will emerge when people live rightly, or is there a hope that God's justice and love can coexist?

When Presbyterian elders, deacons, and pastors are ordained, one of the vows we make is to further the "peace, unity, and purity of the Church." It sounds lovely, but it is remarkably difficult to put into practice. Purity, like righteousness, is about doing things correctly, about living according to God's will. Peace and unity often seem to require some negotiating and compromise with purity. In the end, many congregations end up leaning one way of the other, some focused more on holy living and others focused more on loving each other and getting along. I'm not sure that either move looks very much like the psalmist's dream of a day when "righteousness and peace will kiss one another."

Perhaps we humans can never fully reconcile righteousness and peace, judgment and forgiveness, but does that mean God is bound by our limitation on this? People of faith speak of imaging God, of being the body of Christ. Surely that means that we are to move toward what God is like rather expecting God to be like us.

I suspect that most people who are serious about faith have a pretty good idea which image of God they prefer. And that means we already know about that side of God that unnerves us, that image of God we need to learn to embrace, even kiss.

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Sermon: Radically Dissimilar Hearts

Mark 10:35-45

Radically Dissimilar Hearts

James Sledge                                                                                       October 18, 2015

Our gospel reading this morning would probably benefit from a bit of context. It takes place shortly after Jesus’ encounter with a rich man who works hard to keep God’s commandments yet feels there must be something more. But Jesus’ call to sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and become a disciple, is too much.

Then Jesus and his followers hit the road again, headed to Jerusalem. The disciples don’t come off all that well in Mark’s gospel, repeatedly misunderstanding what Jesus teaches. But that is not to say that they are total idiots. They have clearly begun to grasp that danger lies ahead. The gospel says that as Jesus walks ahead of them, They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. To these amazed and frightened followers, Jesus explains for a third and final time what will happen to him in just over a week.

Then James and John come to see him. Their request seems the epitome of the disciples’ cluelessness. James and John, along with Peter, form Jesus’ inner circle, a privileged trio who’ve seen things the others have not. Now they take advantage of this. They appear to realize there is something unseemly in their request, but they make it anyway.

But perhaps this is not merely arrogance or an attempt to turn their inside connection into special favors. What if this is simply two terrified followers trying to save their own skin? They’ve started to understand that this trip to Jerusalem is not going to end well. Jesus is not going to overthrow the Romans. In fact he keeps saying people will kill him. In some ways it’s amazing that the disciples stay with him as he leads them toward Jerusalem and the cross.

Maybe because they’ve followed him this far, they decide to see it through. Maybe because he keeps talking about rising again, they hope there might be something beyond the horrible events that await. If there really is something after Jerusalem, maybe they can be part of it. “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

"The Other" and Christian Witness

"All things are lawful,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other. 

1 Corinthians 10:23-24

I read on The Washington Post website today where Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey suggested that devout Christians "should think about getting a handgun permit." This was in reaction to the shooting at an Oregon community college where the shooter seemed to target Christians.

I can understand why Christians who already are worried about the faith's place in our culture would be further unnerved by an act of violence aimed specifically at Christians (an experience other faiths know all too well). But I wonder what sort of Christian witness would be given if a gunman walked into a crowded venue and all the Christians whipped out their pistols and mowed him down.

St. Augustine long ago wrote that Christians might engage in violence and even deadly force to save another, but never to save themselves. His thought led to what is usually called "just war" theory, the idea that there are times when violence is required of those who follow the Christ who gives his own life and tells his followers to emulate him. But in such thinking, violence can never be for mere self preservation. It must be done in an act of loving the other. Just war or violence is an agonized choice to injure one in order to save others.

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Americans have a tendency to understand freedom in terms of a lack of restraints on what I want to do. I'm all for this sort of freedom - up to a point - but that is not the sort of freedom Paul or Jesus speak of in the New Testament. For them, freedom releases us from an overly selfish or narrow viewpoint, allowing us to love others more fully. Jesus goes so far as to include the enemy in the orbit of one's love and concern. This sort of freedom allows people to become Christ-like, living for God and others more than self.

You can see that in Paul's words from today's epistle. Paul's Corinthian congregation has embraced their new freedom in Christ, but they've misunderstood it in libertine and individualistic ways. Paul corrects them and reminds them that their freedom is always in service to "the other."

The American Church and body politic would both do well to listen to Paul. Both have become overly individualistic, concerned narrowly for self and those who agree with me. Add in the climate of fear which seem so pervasive these days, and "the other" is more likely to become the object of my derision or much worse than the one whose good I seek.

In the Greek language used to write the New Testament, the word translated "witness" is the root of our word "martyr." The connection of these two terms came from the way many early heroes of the faith, including its founder, maintained their faith even in the face of death. Surely there was the occasional Christian of that time who chose to pull out his sword and make a stand, but not one of them is lifted up in the Bible or early Church writings.

I do wish that someone had been able to stop the Oregon shooter. (We need genuine dialogue about the best ways to prevents such acts in the future, but unfortunately we are largely divided into political camps who spout talking points at one another.) But I will not be encouraging anyone to buy a weapon for self-defense. Christians are called to be the body of Christ, and for the life of me, I cannot picture the Jesus we meet in the Bible packing a gun.

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Sermon video: No Tokens Required

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: No Tokens Required

Mark 10:2-16

No Tokens Required

James Sledge                                                                                       October 4, 2015

If you go into our church parlor, you will find a few items from this congregation’s history displayed there. There’s an old pulpit Bible and a curio cabinet with an old hymnal, more Bibles, old photos, and other artifacts. Young congregations tend not to have such displays, but those that have been around long enough often have a history display somewhere.

I once visited an old church with an elaborate display going back to colonial days. And in one corner of this mini-museum, on a curio shelf, were some communion tokens.

If you’ve never heard of such things, they are just what the name implies, tokens that gained a person admission to the Lord’s Supper. They were used back in the days of very infrequent communion, and you got one after elders from the Session (our church governing council) visited and quizzed you about your understanding of the faith. John Calvin suggested such a practice to ensure that people correctly understood the sacrament. He worried about what he saw as magical or superstitious beliefs about the Lord’s Supper.

Calvin may have understood these tokens as a kind of impromptu communicants’ class rather than a gauge of personal worthiness, but even if he did, you can be sure that people were denied tokens for reasons other than insufficient understanding of Reformed theology. Inevitably, the elders made character judgments about church members and denied tokens to those who didn’t measure up.

Use of these tokens largely disappeared in the 1800s, but it’s interesting to wonder about what sort of moral failing would have prevented people receiving one. Could a young, unmarried woman with a child get one? How about those who were divorced? What about drinking or carousing or dancing? Tokens were done on a church by church basis, so there was likely a good deal of variety from place to place. Nonetheless I feel confident that there were plenty of congregations that would not have welcomed divorced folks to the table.

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“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” When the gospel of Mark wants to take up an entirely new topic, the writer will often change locales, but he tells us about people bringing little children to Jesus with no break at all from the teachings on marriage. Curious.

Jesus has just finished talking about how relationships would work if people’s hearts weren’t out of whack, when the disciples demonstrate, for the umpteenth time, that they still don’t get this kingdom thing. Turn back one page in Mark’s gospel and you’ll hear Jesus saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” He has already said that children in some way exemplify what it means to be highly valued in the kingdom’s way of viewing things, but these disciples are fairly slow learners, like disciples in every age.

This seems to be the only place in Mark’s gospel where we’re explicitly told that Jesus got mad at his followers, “indignant” our translation says. Surely there is some significance here. Surely we are being told to pay attention.

Not again!

It happened again today - a shooting at a school. Current reports say 10 may have been killed at an Oregon community college in the 145th school shooting since Sandy Hook. Such a number - 145 - should make even the most ardent gun collector or avid shooter say, "Something is terribly wrong."

Recently some of my "friends" on Facebook have shared a pro-gun post that talks about how Switzerland encourages gun ownership, having one of the higher rates of gun ownership in the world, and yet has one of the lower murder rates. What the post conveniently leaves out is how regulated this ownership is, with required classes and registration. There is even a regulatory process one must follow to buy ammunition, with certain types banned. But those who tout Switzerland as an example of why it is good to own guns usually insist that any regulation or registration regarding guns infringes on their rights.

Obsessing about "my rights" is a popular American pastime, one not restricted to any political persuasion. But in the case of rights related to guns, my Facebook "friends" who seem obsessed with such rights are very often the same "friends" who regularly share posts encouraging people to "share this picture of Jesus" or do some other act that confirms their faith. Yet the Jesus of whom they speak calls his followers to willingly let go of their own good, their own rights, for the sake of others.

I never cease to be amazed at the human capacity to link personal preferences, beliefs, biases, etc. to one's faith, even when the founder of that faith speaks in ways completely counter to such preferences, beliefs, and so on. And so Jesus, the pacifist Messiah ends up being pro-military, pro-self defense, and pro-gun. The Christ who speaks of wealth and greed as huge barriers to life in God's coming kingdom ends up wanting you to be successful and rich. And the Jesus who calls on a rich man to sell all he has and give the proceeds to the poor would never ask that of me.

Almost all people who call themselves Christian have ways of distorting faith to make it line up with their wants and desires. It is a sin where we all need to repent. But right now, at this point in our life together as Americans, there is a terrible and pressing need for gun enthusiasts who call themselves Christian to repent and say, I am willing to deny myself, to give up my rights, to do whatever it takes to safeguard the lives of school children and innocents everywhere.

Either that, or stop with the Jesus Facebook posts.

What Me Worry?

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. " 

Matthew 6:25

I wonder if telling someone not to worry has ever stopped that person from worrying. Jesus clearly thinks that worrying is a problem for living the life he teached, the way he calls Christians to walk. Yet we Christians sure do a lot of worrying. (We're also accomplished at fear, another thing that runs counter to the way of Jesus.)

Not that we have no reasons for worrying. Most American denominations are experiencing significant numerical decline. Congregations worry about budgets and where to cut if this year's stewardship campaign disappoints. Sports leagues and a plethora of other activities are scheduled at times once reserved for church activities. Who wouldn't worry?

Right this moment I'm doing a mental inventory of the big items on my worry list. They are a mix of the personal and the professional, which in my case has to do with church. I have the run of the mill concerns shared with many others. Is there enough money for everything? Did we pay too much for our house? Will we get enough when it comes time to sell it? Will the crazies in Congress cause another sequestration and accidentally send the economy over the edge, and the DC area housing market with it? What will this mean when it finally comes time to retire?

On the professional/church front, our stewardship campaign is just starting, and I'd be lying if I said I had no worries regarding it. Like many churches, we are disproportionately dependent on a handful of bigger givers. What if one moves or simply decides to give a lot less? And will we find the right person to fill that open staff position? And what will happen to the program if we don't? In the meantime, am I doing what I should be, or am I going about things all wrong? Do I need to learn some new trick or get a lot better at some facet of my ministry if things are to go well? There is plenty to worry about.

At the same time, I wonder how many of my worries have even the tiniest thing to do with Jesus or the the new day (kingdom) he calls people to be a part of. Jesus taught his followers to pray for "daily bread" so the sort of security he promises may have little to do with getting a good return on my housing "investment." Actually, when I reflect on Jesus' priorities, it does often help with my worries. As I think more about a different set of priorities from those that sometimes drive me, it often has a calming effect

But what about church? Church is all about Jesus, all about God's new day, and so if I'm worried about Church then my worries are of a deeper and more troubling sort (with a personal, financial component added in because the church writes my paycheck). Except that the Church is often about all manner of things having little to do with Jesus or God's new day. 

Yesterday during worship, Kerry, one of the elders who serve as the spiritual leaders of our congregation, gave a wonderful, brief "stewardship moment." In it she shared a quote from Pope Francis.  “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security."

Very often my worries about Church are worries about security. They are not concerns over how faithful we are being to Christ's call, or worries about whether Jesus wants us to do this as opposed to that. Buildings and classes and music programs and youth group may be related to our call to be Christ in and for the world, but they also can easily become things that distract us from that work. They can be the very things that keep us focused on our own security rather than our call to risky work out on the streets.

I suspect that church professionals such as myself can be especially prone to such temptations. I also suspect that many of us are good at absolving ourselves and blaming our congregations for this problem.  I wonder what might happen if pastors and congregations could together listen to Jesus, stop worrying for a moment, and take a good look at our priorities. If we discovered we were worrying about a lot of the wrong things, what might change?

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Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.  - James 5:16

As a pastor, I deal regularly in prayer. I lead prayers in worship. At committee meetings, I'm often the one who gets asked to pray. People ask me to pray for them or their loved ones in moments of crisis. Our denomination even requires that all meetings of the church's governing council open and close with prayer. Prayer is clearly a "big deal" in the church.

Prayer is a big deal in the Bible as well. Jesus is frequently shown praying, and the disciples ask for instruction on praying from him. Today's lectionary passage talks about length about prayer. I glanced at a Bible concordance, and it listed hundreds of verses featuring the word "prayer" or forms of the word "pray."

But if prayer is clearly central to the Christian life, it is also problematic. From football teams praying for victory to armies doing the same to people praying for a winning lottery ticket, prayer gets employed for questionable purposes. I once read about a boxer who prayed to win his bout. He explained that after the prayer he could feel the power of God in his fists, pummeling his opponent into submission. Really?

Thoughtful Christians who are uneasy about such prayers have every right to be. The notion that God is some sort of genie who must grant requests offered with the correct formula, or that God can be compelled to act if enough "prayer warriors" fill God's inbox to overflowing, is more than a little troubling. No wonder many Christians become uneasy and hesitant about prayer.

Of course the "prayer of the righteous" refers not to prayer offered the right way but to prayer offered from a right heart, a heart aligned with God. Many popular ideas about prayer are huge distortions of what the Bible actually says. Prayer has never been about getting God to do our bidding or convincing God to see things as I do.

But while prayer is often misunderstood and abused, I'm not sure that is the primary reason it is problematic for some Christians. Recognizing that God won't buy me a new Mercedes Benz just because I want one is not a reason to conclude that God does not respond to prayer. However, if I am convinced that God is distant and removed, never actively engaged in human life of history, then prayer may indeed seem unnecessary and even a waste of time. If God is not very real, why bother to pray?

If as Christians, we are bothered by the way prayer is trivialized and abused, treated it like asking Santa for goodies, then it will serve us well to develop a deeper understanding of prayer. As we learn about contemplative prayer, centering prayer, prayer that seeks to draw closer to God, prayer that listens more than it speaks, prayer that seeks Christ's call and the strength to live out that call... our prayer lives will become more central to our faith just as Jesus' was to his, and we will become models of prayer for others.

And if we are Christians who wonder about prayer because we have difficulty imagining that they "do" anything, then it will serve to an even greater degree to develop a deeper understanding of prayer. As we learn about contemplative prayer, centering prayer, prayer that seeks to draw closer to God, prayer that listens more than it speaks, prayer that seeks Christ's call and the strength to live out that call... God and Christ will become more present and more real to us, and we will learn about the power of God at work in our lives, and in the world.

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The Christ We Show the World

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons — not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one.    

1 Corinthians 5:9-11

Very often we Christians have done the exact opposite of what Paul tells the Corinthians to do. Paul himself seems to worry about being misunderstood. "When I wrote about avoiding immoral folks, I wasn't referring to non-Christians but to church members," he says. Paul expects followers of Jesus to be in the same places Jesus was, among the least and the lost. The good church folks of Jesus' day complained because he hung out with sinners and prostitutes, making the same mistakes many modern Christians make, doing what Paul warned the Corinthians about. Paul expected the community of faith to hold one another to high ethical and moral standards rather than worrying about the morals of those outside the church. But being "the body of Christ" requires the Church to be at work in the same places Jesus was.

We live in a time when fewer and fewer people have more than a passing understanding of what it means to be a disciple, to follow Jesus. A majority of Americans identify as Christian, but large numbers have little familiarity with church, the Bible, or basic tenets of the faith. This means that, increasingly, congregations and individual disciples become the way many people encounter or fail to encounter the living Christ.

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I live in the DC metro area, and we are currently being visited by Pope Francis. The adulation of this pope can get a bit overblown at times, but it is easy to see why it happens. (I'm smitten with him at times myself.) He seems to embody what Paul is talking about and what Jesus lives in ways that churches and Christians often do not. His harsh words are for those in power and inside the faith. But he is full of love and concern for those who are struggling: for Syrian refugees, migrants, and the poor, regardless of faith. He is a refreshing view of Christ in a world where Christians often reflect a horrible distorted image of Jesus. 

I have a number of Facebook "friends" who regularly post "Christian" memes with a picture of Jesus asking me to share his image if I love him. They post pictures pleading with America to turn back to God and pray for our wayward nation. Then they post angry rants insisting no Syrian refugees should come to America, or threatening to shoot you if you try to take their guns. I wonder what Christ people see in their "witness."

On the flip side are "progressive" Christians who speak of embracing all people in love, who criticize the idea that we can be a "Christian nation" without caring for of those who are poor or hungry or suffering. Then they post blistering personal attacks on Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to give out any marriage licenses rather than give one to a gay couple. They attack her looks, her weight, her personal failings. I wonder what Christ people see in their "witness."

What Christ do people meet through me or you? What Jesus do they encounter through our congregations? These are difficult times for many congregations in the US. Attendance is down; giving is down; our place in the culture is less secure. Churches have a lot to worry about. But I wonder if we don't need to spend a lot more time reflecting on the Christ we reveal to the world.

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Sermon video: Long Journey to Something New

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Long Journey to Something New

Mark 9:30-37

Long Journey to Something New

James Sledge                                                                                       September 20, 2015

How many of you remember having to write essays or papers in high school or college of a certain word number? Some of you are no doubt enjoying this experience right now, and some of our younger worshipers have this to look forward to as you get a bit older. What word count would you expect for a modest, high school essay? What about a term paper for a college class? How about a Ph.D. dissertation? Anyone here who’s done one and can say? Forty or fifty thousand words sound reasonable?

I ask because I want us to think for a moment about what is required to cover a major topic in a fair amount of detail and in a good deal of depth. For example, if you were going to write something that thoroughly covered what someone would need to know to live a life of deep Christian faith and discipleship, how many words would suffice?

Of course we do have a book that Presbyterians say is the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus and for life and faith. But if anyone had ever submitted the Bible as a dissertation or as any other sort of publication, surely some academic advisor or editor would have quickly returned it saying, “Get back to me when you’ve done some serious trimming and editing.”

The Bible weighs in at somewhere near 800,000 words. By comparison, Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a bit over 500,000. If you were God and wanted to explain this faith thing to folks, don’t you think you could have come up with a nice pamphlet, or at least something you could read in a few afternoons? Why on earth have something of this magnitude, a text that gets squeezed into a single book only because of tiny print and ridiculously thin sheets of paper?

The Bible is an unbelievably complex mix of stories and myths and poems and songs and rules and advice and letters and theology and teachings. Yet we Christians often examine a few verses here or there and then attempt to distill great theological truths or axioms from them. I engage is something of this sort most Sundays when I deliver a sermon rooted in a tiny handful of the Bible’s 800,000 words, 175 words in the case of today’s gospel reading.

Without some care and restraint, there is a danger of such efforts being akin to carefully examining the earlobe of the Mona Lisa with a microscope and then proclaiming to understand the significance of the entire painting.

When you think about it, the Bible is a strange and wonderful way to make God known to us, to draw us into relationship with this God. It isn’t a bit of empirical information to be learned. Rather it is an amazing array of experiences and stories that share how God has been encountered in a variety of contexts. It is not unlike getting to know another person, and without understanding context and circumstances, without knowing to whom certain words were spoken, it is easy to misconstrue or misunderstand.

Sermon video: Helping Each Other See

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.