Easter Sermon: As Good as Dead

Mark 16:1-8

As Good as Dead

         James Sledge                                           Resurrection of the Lord                                   April 1, 2018

If you had a pew Bible open as I read our scripture, you may have noticed a heading “The Shorter Ending of Mark” just past where I stopped. And if you looked two sentences further another heading reads, “The Longer Ending of Mark.” Both of these endings got attached many years after the gospel was originally written, presumably in an effort to “fix” that rather unsatisfying, So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The end.

Scholars debate whether the original ending of Mark got lost along the way, or if the author intentionally ended things in such abrupt fashion. But regardless, for they were afraid is the only ending of the original gospel that we’ve got.

This ending doesn’t fit very well with our Easter celebration. Not a lot of fear and silence today. Instead there are shouts of “Christ is risen!” and the biggest crowds of the year at worship. The music is glorious, accompanied by special musicians, and there is a bright, festive mood. Nothing remotely like, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

In Mark’s gospel, there is no joy on Easter morning, no shouts of “He is risen!” only terror, shock, fear, and silence. Not all that surprising when you think about it. Centuries insulate us from the drama of that morning, the raw emotions of going to a friend’s grave and finding it open and empty, a strange young man sitting there, saying our friend has been raised.

On top of that, we aren’t much worried about meeting our now risen friend. Jesus is not going to be there when we get back home. No chance that he’ll say anything to us about our behavior after he was arrested. We’re not worried about what to say to Peter, who denied Jesus all those times, or the other disciples, who all ran and hid. We’ve got Jesus safely confined to heaven, not running around loose where we might bump into him.

For many of us, Jesus might as well be dead. We’ve heard about him, learned stories about him, are perhaps impressed by some of his teachings, but he doesn’t really intrude into our daily lives. Jesus may be no more alive to us than family, friends, and loved ones who’ve died. He’s gone to heaven, unseen by us. In a sense, he’s as good as dead.

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Amnesia, Dismembering, and Remembering

In his book, Sabbath as Resistance, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, "The reason (Israel) will be tempted by autonomy is that the new land will make them inordinately prosperous. Moses knows that prosperity breeds amnesia. He warns Israel about amnesia: 'Take care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.' (Deuteronomy 6: 12)"

Over and over in the book of Deuteronomy, set just prior to their entry into the Land of Promise, Israel is urged to remember. As Moses recalls the covenant God made with them at Mt. Sinai, the command to remain faithful and obedient is repeatedly accompanied by the call, "Remember that you were a slave in Egypt." In actuality, none of those listening to Moses ever lived in Egypt, yet it is critical for them to remember, for their parents' and grandparents' experience to become theirs.

The people are also instructed that when, in the future, children ask about the covenant with its laws and statutes, their answer shall begin, "We were slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand." Similarly, when Jews today celebrate the Passover Seder in their homes, a child asks why this night is different, and the answer begins, "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Eternal One, our God, brought us out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm."

Remembering is critical lest Israel forget who she is, a people rescued by God. All this effort to encourage remembering is an attempt to stave off the inevitable amnesia. When Israel begins to prosper in the Land of Promise, they will be tempted to see it as their own accomplishment, forgetting that God brought them into the land. As forgetting continues, those who prosper the most will imagine themselves better than others, and the bonds of community will begin to break down. Rich will exploit poor. The land that God gave as an inheritance will become a possession to be bought and acquired and hoarded. 

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The Apostle Paul, in an attempt to correct we he saw as abuses at the Lord's Supper, gave the church in Corinth what we now call the "words of institution." Integral to these words is the command, "Do this in remembrance of me." The synoptic gospels indicate that Jesus' last meal with his disciples is a Passover meal. At a meal of remembering, Jesus institutes another meal of remembering. Such remembering is just as critical for Christians as it is for Jews, and the tendency to amnesia just as problematic. 

Christians are to remember that we are "saved," in some way made new and whole, by the gracious acts of Jesus. In our baptisms, we all are joined to Christ, and so we all become sisters and brothers to one another. But the consumer culture we live in is an agent of amnesia. It seeks to break down the bonds that join us all into one family, dismembering us one from another as we acquire new identities rooted in acquisition and competition. We matter, not because we are joined to God's love in Christ, but because we are rich enough, thin enough, pretty enough, accomplished enough, got in the right school, wear the right clothes, and on and on. Our very sense of self is dismembered as our true identity as God's beloved children is obscured and hidden.

Such dismembering fractures not only the bonds joining together the body of Christ, but also the bonds of our larger communities and culture. We are not all in this together. Too often, our neighbor is the object of our love only under certain conditions. Ours is a world of anxious striving where neighbor may be our competitor, may be suspect because of their political views, or may be feared for "taking our jobs." 

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"Do this in remembrance of me." I've often been uncomfortable with those words. My Presbyterian tradition has at times reduced the Lord's Supper to nothing more than a recollection of a long ago event with no sense of Christ's presence in the meal. And so I have tended to focus on encountering Christ in the meal, downplaying the remembering part.

But remembering is crucial. Remembering is an antidote to dismembering. It lets us recover our true identity, one not dependent on acquisition or accomplishment, an identity as those whom God so loved that Jesus gave himself to us and for us. Remembering can cure our amnesia, restoring the bonds of community as we realize that we are all God's beloved, and so we are all one family.

Remember. Remember you were slaves in Egypt and God brought you out with a mighty hand. Remember you are God's beloved child, one so deeply loved that Jesus would risk even death for you, and for every one of your and my neighbors. Remember, we are joined together in our baptisms, joined into a new community, a new family that is to be known for its love of one another. Remember.

Palm Sunday, Cheap Grace, and the March for Our Lives

Growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I had never heard of Passion Sunday. For me, it was Palm Sunday, all palms, all celebration. It was the warm up for the big celebration the coming Sunday. As a child, the celebration of Palm Sunday faded directly into new spring clothes, girls and women in new spring hats, Easter egg hunts, special music at church, and Easter baskets filled with goodies. I was aware of the events between Palm Sunday and Easter. I may even have attended a Maundy Thursday service at some point as a child. But for me, Holy Week was celebration leading to celebration, joy leading to joy.

I suppose that Passion Sunday got paired with the palms to help with this, to deal with the common problem of getting to Easter without suffering, without pain, without a cross. This childhood pattern of mine in some ways epitomized the "cheap grace" Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke against in his famous book, The Cost of Discipleship. Wrote Bonhoeffer, "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

I found myself reflecting on cheap grace and costly grace yesterday evening. I was going through the pictures I took at the March For Our Lives in DC earlier in the day and looking at others' pictures and posts on social media. I thought of those young people, some children, others barely out of childhood, participating in something that requires them to keep reliving those horrid moments they surely would love to forget. I watched a replay of the speech by Emma Gonzalez, including its long, painful silence. As I watched, I also watched the stream of comments that were regularly interspersed with the most hateful remarks directed at her and the other youth with her.

I thought about a broken world than can only be healed by a cross, a broken world that needs the deaths of scores of children before it can begin to act. I thought about costly grace that does not shy away from pain and difficulty. I thought about all those thousands gathered yesterday in our own version of a Palm Sunday procession where signs replaced cloaks and palms.

The youth on the stage seemed to get the idea of costly grace, perhaps because this has already cost them so dearly. For them yesterday was not a magical moment that fixed anything. It was merely a step in a difficult and painful discipleship sort of walk.

I wondered about me and all those others there, about how many of us were ready for a costly discipleship, about how many of us might go home feeling good about the day, and wanting that to somehow make it all better. I wonder if I and others were more interested in cheap grace "we bestow on ourselves," proud of having participated but now ready to move on, not so interested in costly discipleship.

On one of those social media posts from yesterday's marches, I saw people carrying a sign that has often been used as a benediction in church worship services.

Go out into the world in peace; have courage; hold on to what is good; return to no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak, and help the suffering; honor all people; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes... this.

Sermon video: Rejecting the System

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website

Sermon: Rejecting the System

John 12:20-33

Rejecting “The System”

James Sledge                                                                                       March 18, 2018

The first church I served was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a member happened to be the clerk of the House of Representatives. Occasionally she would ask me to offer the opening prayer when the House went into session. One of those times was when then President Clinton addressed a joint session of the General Assembly in the House chambers.

I said my prayer and took my designated seat on the podium right up front. Then members of the Senate came in, and the pastor who opened their session came and set next to me. Guests and dignitaries then came in and were seated in extra chairs added for occasion.

It seemed a bit odd to be seated up front while important dignitaries sat far away in folding chairs. I could look over the President Clinton’s shoulder and see his notes. I wondered if someone had made a mistake seating us, but apparently there is a designated place for the chaplain, right next to the Sergeant at Arms, a vestige from an earlier time when religion played a more prominent role in public life.

Even as religion becomes less central, rituals such as my opening prayer persist. Our culture still wants a bit of religion here and there. Governing bodies, football games, and such still enjoy a hint of religious sanction, a little like parents with no interest in church who still want their children baptized.

My colleague and I both understood our role in this. We offered bland, generic, prayers that offended no one. If either of us had decided to be prophetic and speak truth to power, I don’t know that anyone would have stopped us, but I’m certain we would have never been invited back. And we both behaved and did what was expected of us.

From the beginnings of society, the powers that be have wanted religion to play a support role, to promote public morality, give divine sanction to rulers, and generally support the status quo. In the modern version, pastors, rabbis, and imams are supposed to provide chaplaincy services for their flocks, to care for souls and stay out of politics.

To make matters worse, American Christianity has become excessively personalized and individualized. It’s about my getting into heaven, my personal relationship with Jesus, my personal spirituality, or my salvation, things far removed from a biblical faith.

In the synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – Jesus’ central proclamation is about the coming of God’s kingdom, God’s new day where the world is set right. John’s gospel rarely speaks of the kingdom, preferring to speak of the conflict between Jesus and the world. But as so often is the case in John, this term is symbolic, not literal. The world is not a place but rather a situation or condition where creation is at odds with its creator. The world is a culture that prefers to live in opposition to God’s ways, an outlook, a way of living, that draws us away from God.

I once read a commentary on John that suggested translating the world as the system. That might help understand what Jesus says in our gospel reading. Jesus calls his followers to “hate their life in this (system).” Speaking of his coming death on the cross, Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this (system); now the ruler of this (system) will be driven out.”

In John’s gospel, the cross is not a sacrifice or Jesus taking our punishment on himself. Rather it is Jesus’ glorification, an event that both judges the system and breaks its power. To be a believer, to follow Jesus, is to recognize this, to reject the ways of the system and embrace the way of Jesus. Oh but how hard that can be.

Sermon video: Mechanics, Logistics, and Deep Faith

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

February 25 sermon video: Cross-Shaped Mindsets

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Mechanics, Logistics, and Deep Faith

John 2:13-22

Mechanics, Logistics, and Deep Faith

James Sledge                                                                                       March 4, 2018

I assume that many of you have seen the QR code printed in the announcements section of the bulletin. For those not familiar, these are a kind of barcode that can be scanned with a smartphone app. Scan ours and it lets you use a credit card to pay your pledge or make a contribution to the Hunger Ministries offering that we do the first Sunday of each month.

We added that QR code to address a problem that increasingly impacts church giving. Many people no longer carry checkbooks and rarely carry much cash. If they want to donate to our Welcome Table ministry, they have to use a credit card, debit card, iPay, etc.

In an increasingly cashless, paperless economy, offering plates passed down the aisle may soon become relics replaced by new technologies. Some churches have added kiosks so that worshippers can make a credit card contribution more effortlessly than with QR codes.

Some people do think that offering plates and a giving ritual are an important, but not many think them absolutely central to Christian faith. They’re mechanics and logistics, and the same could be said of the money changers and animal sellers in today’s gospel.

Jewish pilgrims journeyed long distances to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. Many traveled on foot, with no way to bring animals for sacrifice. And they carried Roman coins which weren’t allowed in the Temple because they had images of emperors on them, graven images considered idolatrous. They couldn’t be used for offerings or to pay the Temple tax.

Booths for buying an animal or swapping Roman coins for Jewish shekels addressed a practical problem. They were necessary logistics for the Temple to operate, little different from offering plates, QR codes, or payment kiosks.

Sermon: Cross-Shaped Mindsets

Mark 8:31-38

Cross-Shaped Mindsets

James Sledge                                                                                       February 25, 2018

Imagine for a moment that a political candidate has caught your eye. The office doesn’t matter. It could be school board, state legislature, Congress, anything You’re incredibly impressed, and the more you hear, the more you read, the more your admiration grows.

You decide to get involved in the campaign, and your tireless efforts are noticed. You’re invited into meetings about strategy, policy, and advertising purchases. You become a part of the inner circle and see things the public doesn’t, Yet even here, you admiration only grows.

But then one day in a strategy meeting, your candidate insists on taking a position that everyone knows is political suicide, a position so unpopular with the voters that defeat is inevitable. Everyone is stunned. Jaws drop, mouths hang open, a pall descends on the room.

Something similar happens in our gospel reading this morning. Up to this point, the gospel of Mark has largely focused on the question of who Jesus is. The disciples have heard teachings and seen healing and other miracles that witness to Jesus’ identity. Following one spectacular miracle, these disciples ask the very question Mark is focused on. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

In Mark’s gospel, no human realizes that Jesus is Son of God prior to his death. But the disciples have seen enough to know that Jesus is no ordinary guy. Clearly God’s power is with him, and so when Jesus asks them directly, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter quickly answers, “You are the Messiah,” a term that means God’s anointed.

Peter gives a correct if incomplete answer, and Jesus takes this as a cue to begin teaching about what lies ahead. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Jaws drop, mouths hang open, and a pall descends over the group. At first, no one speaks, but finally Peter decides he had to do something, has to make Jesus rethink this. Peter is discreet and pulls Jesus aside to rebuke him, to warn him what a huge mistake he’s making. Jesus responds by making sure all the disciples are listening when he calls Peter “Satan”

Then Jesus calls in the crowds. These words aren’t just for disciples. They’re for anyone thinking about following Jesus. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” The gospel does not say, but I would be surprised if many in the crowd did not pick up and head home right there.

Sermon: The Gospel of Noah

Genesis 9:8-17

The Gospel of Noah

James Sledge                                                                                       February 18, 2018

My mother-in-law collects Noah’s arks, and she gave me a wooden one that sits on a bookshelf in my office. The little animal pairs are typically lying on their sides because children who accompany a parent into my office can rarely resist playing with them. Like those animals on my bookshelf, the animals in the Noah story have proved irresistible to people over the years. That’s just one of the reasons the flood story in Genesis is so misunderstood, even by those in the Church.

Many know the broad strokes of the story: a wicked world, the good and faithful Noah, and a plan to start over fresh. The whole idea seems rather primeval or primitive. It’s an entertaining story in a way, but it has little to say to us, or so many believe.

Many cultures in the ancient Middle East had some sort of flood story. Some scholars speculate that a catastrophic flood centuries earlier provided the raw material for such myths, and it’s safe to say that people of ancient Israel were familiar with more than one version of the story. If you read the story in Genesis with any care, you will notice parts of at least two different accounts included there.

The writers and editors who pull together the book of Genesis are happy to include these sometimes conflicting accounts because they are only peripherally interested in reporting what happened. Their real interest is to use the story, along with other stories in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, to address deep, theological questions about the nature of God and about God’s relationship to creation, especially the human creature. It is this primary purpose of these stories that gets missed when we imagine them to be primitive, ancient tales.

The Noah story begins, some three chapters prior to our reading, with this comment. Yahweh saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And Yahweh was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  Or perhaps, it grieved her to her heart. Men wrote down the stories after all.

A heartbroken God may seem strange to us, but the Hebrew Bible has no problem portraying a God emotionally impacted by humanity. And so the flood story begins. You’ve surely heard it. A great ark is constructed and animals of every sort are brought on board. Subterranean springs burst forth and rain falls for forty days and nights. Creation returns to its pre-creation chaos where the Spirit of God moved over the waters. But finally, after months, God remembered, and the waters begin to subside. Now, as the story is often understood, creation and humanity can start fresh.

Self-Denial, Guns, and "My Rights"

Compared to most of my colleagues, I'm something of an oddity when it comes to sermon preparation. I try to stay a week or so ahead in preparing them. That means that I was working on a sermon from Mark 8:31-38 when I heard the news of yet another school shooting.

This passage in Mark occurs immediately following Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah. Jesus then begins to teach his disciples that he will suffer, be rejected, and finally be killed, but be raised on third day. This is too much for Peter, who pulls Jesus aside to straighten him out. In return, Jesus calls Peter "Satan" in front of all the disciples. Then he calls in the crowds and teaches them.

Jesus' words are deservedly famous in Christian circles. "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."

Self-denial is not all that popular in our culture. We're all about acquisition and freedom, and we bristle at the notion of any curbs on those freedoms or our ability as consumers to acquire whatever we want. Many Americans are drowning in credit card debt because they cannot even deny themselves those things they cannot afford.

Yet Jesus insists that being his followers requires denying ourselves, and it requires a cross, a willingness to take up voluntary burdens and suffering for the sake of others. Jesus' words are at totally at odds with the American ethos, which perhaps explains why American Christians are so often raving hypocrites.

Nowhere is the hypocrisy greater than on the issue of gun rights. For reasons I cannot fathom, many Christians have somehow linked their faith to a love of guns and an absolute right to defend themselves, Jesus' pacifist teachings be damned. But the insistence that protecting "my rights" are more important than the lives of young children runs completely counter to Jesus' absolute demand for self denial and cross bearing. This core teaching of Jesus demands that as his follower, I must be ready and willing to give up things dear to me, no matter how costly to me, for the sake others.

I am perfectly willing to concede that it is easy for me to call out this particular hypocrisy because I am not a gun owner (although I did grow up hunting and shooting). And no doubt I am prone to other hypocrisies that are harder for me to see because impact me personally in a way that gun rights do not. But Jesus does not provide for any sort of "Everyone is doing it" loophole. If we cannot give up things dear to us for the sake Jesus' message, if we cannot endure suffering that could be avoided, then we cannot call ourselves followers of Jesus. And I'm quite sure that this is what it means to say "I'm a Christian."

It is popular in some circles to speak of America as a "Christian nation," a dubious claim at any point in our history. But as long as our knee-jerk reaction to any event is to worry about "my rights" and "my privileges," Jesus certainly won't claim us as his followers.

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Sermon video: Healing Spiritual Amnesia

Audios of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.