Sermon: Loving God Back

 John 3:14-21
Loving God Back
James Sledge                                                                          Lent 4 – March 14, 2021

It was a very long time ago, but I can still recall what for me were the terrors of dating. I was never very good at asking someone out on a date. I found it intimidating. I suppose I’m one of those folks who doesn’t handle rejection very well, and it was awful to contemplate being dismissed by someone I was attracted to.

And when I did start dating someone, and things seemed to be going pretty well, another terror eventually reared its head. At what point was it safe to express the depth of my feelings? I assume this is a fairly common experience as I’ve seen comics do standup routines about blurting out “I love you” only to be met with silence.

But should the person respond with an “I love you, too,” another potential crisis moment may yet lie ahead. At some point the topic of marriage might come up, and here again, the possibility of being the only one interested in that level of commitment is real.

It seems there are a number of crisis moments along the road of love. There are moments when the relationship could move forward, or it could begin to unravel. It all depends on how the other person responds when they hear, “Do you want to go to a movie,” or “I love you,” or “Would you marry me?” It all depends on whether or not that other person is able to return your love, to love you back.

Most people think of love as a good thing, even a wonderful thing, but there are frightening moments along the way, make or break moments.

I’m not sure it is all that different with God’s love. There is a moment when the depth of God’s love for us becomes apparent, and then we have to respond. God says, “I love you,” and then waits to see what we will do. It’s a crisis moment on the road of divine love.

I think that is what Jesus is talking about in our gospel reading this morning. Our verses are part of a much longer passage the begins when Nicodemus, a Pharisee, comes to see Jesus at night. Nicodemus is clearly impressed by Jesus, and he comes hoping to learn more. But he is also wary. Presumably he comes at night so he won’t be seen.

Nicodemus struggles to understand. When Jesus talks to him about the need to be “born from above,” Nicodemus takes Jesus literally and hears “born again.” Jesus’ attempts to further explain things make no headway, and the last thing we hear Nick say is “How can these things be?” After that, Nicodemus seems to disappear from the scene. In the verses just prior to our reading, Jesus shifts from speaking to “you” singular, instead addressing “you” plural. The gospel never reports Nicodemus’ departure, but by the time we hear Jesus’ words this morning, he is talking past Nicodemus to the readers of John’s gospel.

Our reading has one of the more famous lines from the gospel. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 gets written on posters and bumper stickers and featured in tattoos. One fellow became famous for wearing a rainbow wig and holding a sign the read, John 3:16.

It’s easy to see why this verse is a favorite. God loves the world so much that Jesus would come and even die to show the depth of that love. It’s also easy to see why no one ever holds up a sign that reads John 3:18, “…but those who do not believe are condemned already,” or John 3:19, “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light…” Let’s just talk about how nice God’s love is, not how it produces a crisis.

Perhaps it will interest you to know that the Greek word translated “judgment” is kri/sij (krisis) the origin of our word crisis. It can also be translated “decision” or “choice,” and that is exactly what must be done when someone says, “I love you,” when God says “I love you.” You must decide if you are going to love the person back, if you are going to love God back.

When someone says, “I love you,” you must go one way or the other. If you return the love you move toward them. If you can’t or won’t love the person back, you push them away. The crisis that comes with “I love you,” doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room. Even if you don’t respond at all, that is a response. You’ve given an answer.

I wonder if people intuitively realize this about God’s love and so look for ways to forestall the crisis. A lot of church folks work pretty hard at not getting serious with God. For some reason the whole religion thing feels comforting to them or they feel a certain pull toward faith, but they don’t dare let it go too far. They don’t want to get in too deep.

Perhaps that’s the case with Nicodemus whose nighttime visit to Jesus prompted the words that we heard this morning, words about the crisis of encountering the bright light of God’s love.

I wonder if Nicodemus even heard these words. I’ve always thought that when Jesus shifts from a singular you to a plural one that it’s just a literary device, a way the gospel writer lets the reader hear Jesus addressing them. But perhaps Nicodemus has already slipped away into the night and is no longer there. He’s put some distance between himself and Jesus before any moment of crisis can arise. But he’s made his decision. He came in the dark and he leaves in the dark. “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light…”

That’s a little depressing. Nicodemus doesn’t go all in for Jesus when he meets him, and that’s it? He’s condemned already because he couldn’t do anything more than hang around the edges, couldn’t actually respond to God’s “I love you” in the right way? Then what about all of us who hang around the edges and avoid getting serious with God?

Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus in the dark and slinks away in the dark doesn’t ever come back for a second visit. He never sees Jesus again as far as we know. But this is not the last time Nick appears in John’s gospel. His final appearance is in broad daylight, when Jesus dies on the cross and Joseph of Arimathea comes to ask Pilate for the body. John’s gospel tells us, Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing almost a hundred pounds.

That’s an incredibly extravagant gift Nicodemus brings for Jesus’ funeral. Somewhere in the years between that confused, nighttime conversation and the cross, he must have come to that crisis point and decided to step into the light. Nick seemed to have been judged already, condemned already. He hid from the light. He couldn’t quite believe that Jesus was indeed God’s “I love you” to the world.

But God so loves the world, a world that often resists God. And if Nicodemus is any guide, God takes the long view of things. God’s “I love you” hovers over the world, over all creation, waiting for us to recognize it for what it is and respond. “I love you, too,” waiting for us to learn how to love God back.

Sermon: God's Daring Imagination

Exodus 20:1-17
God’s Daring Imagination
James Sledge                                                                          Lent 3 - March 7, 2021

 

Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, 

6^th century mosaic, St. Catherine’s monastery, Mt. Sinai

from Art in the Christian Tradition, 

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

When a US representative or senator is sworn into office, when the president is inaugurated, or when an officer is commissioned in one of our military branches, they all take an oath to “…defend the Constitution of the United States." Clearly this does not refer to protecting the actual document but to protecting what that document envisions.

The Constitution intends to provide the framework for building a particular sort of society, one with a balance between individual liberties and a government that has the powers necessary to build and maintain a healthy, functioning republic. Of course not everyone agrees on exactly what the Constitution means, something we saw just recently in the arguments over whether or not a president could be impeached after leaving office.

That debate focused on what the Constitution says or doesn’t say. Judges and Supreme Court justices must wrestle with the meaning of the Constitution on a regular basis in order to decide the outcome of cases before them. But very often, the Constitution functions more as a symbol, and such symbols aren’t necessarily born of careful reflection on the document’s meaning.

Constitution as symbol can stand for democracy or freedom or limited government or states’ rights or the American way and so on. Often it is simply assumed to support whatever viewpoint is held by those wielding it as a symbol. I have little doubt that many of the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol presumed that the Constitution was on their side.

When complex ideas get reduced to symbol, they struggle to produce what those ideas imagine and envision. Symbols are easily co-opted by whoever is using them, even if what they want is at odds with the ideas behind the symbol.

That is as true with religion as it is with politics. Jesus, the Bible, the cross, even Christianity itself can become symbols supporting causes at odds with what Jesus teaches, what is found in the Bible, or the basic tenets of Christianity.

Sermon video: God's Daring Imagination

 

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Sermon video: Taming the Toddler Self

 

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Sermon: Taming the Toddler Self

Mark 8:31-38
Taming the Toddler Self

James Sledge                                                                                      February 28, 2021

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan! James Tissot (1836-1902)

from Art in the Christian Tradition, 

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

A three-year-old thinks he should be able to eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. His parents think that is a bad idea. Are the parents right?

A four-year-old sees no problem with riding her scooter on the shoulder of the busy street in front of their house. Her parents insist that this will not happen. Are the parents right?

A fourteen-year-old announces that he is dropping out of school to hitchhike across the country, but his parents refuse to let him. He insists that it is his life, and he should be able to do with it as he wishes, but his parents won’t budge. Who is in the right?

The three-year-old, the four-year-old, and the fourteen-year-old are all quite sure they are in the right, that their parents are being arbitrary and harsh by denying them what they want, what they are quite sure will make them happy. But I suspect that the vast majority of parents would do exactly as these parents did, and without the least bit of concern that they being harsh or unreasonable. I think most adults would think these parents justified in their actions, believing that the parents have a better understanding of what it best for their children.

And when these children grow up and become adults, able to make their own decisions even if they are foolish, there will still be limits set for them. They may really want to drive their car through the neighborhood at a hundred miles an hour, but the combined wisdom of society says “No” to that and is more than willing to punish them if they insist on doing what they want.

However, the individualism and consumerism of our day make it more difficult to speak of common good to which all are required to contribute. The notion that I don’t have to wear a mask if I don’t want to, that I need not believe in science or facts if I don’t want to are cases in point. It’s as if more and more in our society are becoming like toddlers who simply want what they want, but without a parent or an adult to tell them “No.”

Of course many of us do wear our masks, and we don’t think we can simply ignore science or facts without any consequences. We aren’t toddlers who believe we can simply get whatever we want because we want it. Except maybe in the arena of faith or religion.

Sermon video: A Glimpse of God's Heart

 

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Sermon: A Glimpse of God’s Heart

 Genesis 9:8-17
A Glimpse of God’s Heart
James Sledge                                                                          Lent 1 - February 21, 2021

Reminder, Mike Moyers, 2012

from Art in the Christian Tradition, 

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

I’ve read a number of newspaper articles and opinion pieces connecting the January 6 assault on the US Capitol to Christian nationalism. One of the insurrectionists stood at the Senate podium and called out, “Jesus Christ, we invoke your name. Amen.” And the shirtless QAnon shaman wearing a Viking headpiece offered gratitude to God for the opportunity to speak against all those he imagines a threat to a white, Christian nation.

Along with Confederate battle flags, those storming the Capitol also carried flags reading “Jesus Saves” and “Jesus 2020.” The noxious mix of white supremacy and nationalism with evangelical Christianity was on full display. That is not to tar all evangelicals with the same brush, but the ease with which some who claim to be Christian embrace hate, racism, idolatry, and violence is appalling to witness.

It is hard not to imagine Jesus weeping over the way his name is invoked in all manner of hate, the way he is coopted for political movements that happily espouse hate and violence against opponents, the very antithesis of how Jesus lived and what he taught.

But there’s nothing new here. Over the years Christians have supported crusades and the wholesale killing of Muslims, inquisitions and the slaughter of Jews. In our nation Christian faith was used to justify slavery, genocide of Native Americans, and Jim Crow segregation. “Christians” have been in the vanguard of movements against LGBTQ peoples. Surely at some point Jesus would be justified in saying, “Enough already! I’m done with all of you.”

“All of you” might well include more progressive Christians, too. It is true that we tend not to invoke Jesus’ name against others, but we often practice a kind of watered-down, Christianity-light that tries to be kind and nice but has limited interest in actually following the difficult, self-denying way of Jesus.

Might Jesus, might God, simply tire of us at some point and say, “That’s it!” Might God conclude that humanity is a lost cause?

This is a serious theological question. Is there a point at which God throws in the towel? Might God say, “Go ahead and destroy yourselves through climate change, nuclear weapons, or some other catastrophe? You’re on your own. I have no use for you, your churches, your religions.”

The Noah saga in the book of Genesis wrestles with just such questions. Unfortunately, Christians of all stripes tend to miss the sophisticated theological thought expressed here. Conservatives are too caught up in defending the literal, historical account of Noah to see the theological themes being wrestled with. And liberal Christians are so embarrassed by biblical literalism that we think Noah primitive myth with little to say to us. That both sides make Noah a children’s story shows how little we appreciate what is tries to say.

The Noah epic is a long one, far too long to read in worship, and so our passage for this morning speaks only of the story’s end. But you cannot understand the Noah saga without knowing the beginning. The beginning of the story says, 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. The story depicts a heartbroken God whose passion issues forth, initially, in a desire to be done with it all, to destroy and perhaps start all over.

Noah enters into the story as a small ray of hope. There is someone who pleases God, and so there is an ark. A “righteous remnant” will be preserved, even as Creation descends back into the chaos of In the beginning,  when the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.

When we meet God in today’s reading from Genesis, the flood itself is over. The righteous remnant has emerged from the ark to repopulate the earth. But curiously, the underlying problem remains. As Noah and company first leave the ark God promises never again to destroy because “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.”  The horrors of the flood, the terrible destruction, and nothing has changed. Except perhaps God.

Surely God’s heart remains broken. The basic problem with the human heart has not changed, but God has a startling change of heart. God drastically alters course. The human creatures continue to resist God. Perhaps they always will; just look at the news. But God will no longer meet human resistance with overwhelming force. God retires the divine armory and puts it into storage.  “I have set my bow in the clouds.” 

In ancient thought, God’s bow fired lightning bolts. But God says that bow will no longer be used. God has hung it up. It is not unlike one of those old tanks or military aircraft in a park where children climb over them, artifacts whose cannons have been plugged and engines removed, threats no more, only reminders.

God’s retired bowed is now just reminder. This dangerous weapon now decorates children’s bedrooms and elicits oohs and aahs when it appears after a rain shower. And according to the story, it’s as much a reminder for God as for us. “When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.”

It may seem odd to speak of God needing to remember. Surely this is a primitive image of God. But in reality, Israel’s theologians are using the story to make a point. Yahweh’s commitment to humanity is a costly one. God’s love is so often unrequited that it tears at God’s heart. It is the same inner turmoil seen when Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane that he might somehow avoid the cross. But that would require a forgetting. And Yahweh promises to remember.

The Lenten devotional booklet that many of you contributed to is organized around the idea of pause. It recommends a Lenten discipline of pausing each day to read through John’s gospel and reflect on it. Remembering requires a pause. When we are reacting to what goes on around us, when we are in a hurry, it is difficult to take stock, to remember.

Lent is a time to pause and remember, to remember who we are and who God is. The Ash Wednesday liturgy says, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This is a call to remember our creatureliness, created beings dependent on our Creator. It is a call to remember that as creatures, we cannot finally bless ourselves by the anxious acquiring of any sort of enough. In the end, blessing, true and full life, are not things we acquire by striving. They are gifts given as we are shaped by a true recalling of who we are and who God is.

In his book, Remember You Are Dust, Walter Brueggemann writes, “When we remember that we are dust, we are made freshly aware that along with our remembering, God is remembering and regarding.”

In our world with all its problems and troubles, in the face of partisan rancor, relentless pandemic, loud and emboldened voices of hate and violence, economic uncertainty, and more, it is easy to imagine that God is distant, absent, unnoticing of us, inattentive to us. But God has promised to remember us, to regard us, to be for us.

And if the rainbow is God’s touchstone for remembering and regarding, the cross is ours. Without reducing the cross to easy, mechanical formulas of salvation, Jesus assures us that it is a remembering, a regarding of us. “This is my body that is for you.”

Pause, rest, be still, and remember. Pause, rest, be still, and know that you are remembered. And let that remembering, both yours and God’s, shape and form you for life that the world cannot give, but can only be received, a gift from God.

Ash Wednesday Reflection: Pausing for God

 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Ash Wednesday Reflection: Pausing for God
James Sledge                                                                                                  February 17, 2021

I’ve always found it a little odd that the gospel reading for Ash Wednesday, a day when many Christians walk around with a cross marked on their foreheads, is a teaching about keeping one’s religious practices secret. No one is doing this in a pandemic, but normally I have colleagues who stand out on the sidewalk or at the entrance to a Metro station and offer to mark people with ashes who are coming and going.

I’ve never been entirely sure what the point of this is. Is it about trying to connect just a bit with unchurched folk? Or is it meant to offer the imposition of ashes to folks too busy to drop by the church for the service? Perhaps it’s something else entirely.

Whatever the reason, ashes at the Metro station seems an apt image for our society, always busy, always on the go, needing a little religion between stops. Perhaps some of those hurrying in or out of the station appreciate the chance to grab a little religion on the fly.

A little religion. What exactly is the point of a little religion, or a lot of religion for that matter? What is the purpose of religion? What are people supposed to get from it? What do we get from it?

Sermon video: Transformed for Service

 

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Sermon: Transformed for Service

 Mark 1:29-39
Transformed for Service
James Sledge                                                                                     February 7, 2021

 I attended seminary in the early 1990s, when issues of inclusive language and gender bias
had become a big deal. In Greek class I learned that most of the time the word translated man or men in the New Testament really meant people. As I continued my studies it became more and more apparent that many Christian stereotypes about women didn’t so much come from the Bible as they did from the males who ran the church and interpreted the scriptures for much of Christian history.

When you consider that the Bible appears to have been written entirely by men, women actually fare quite well, depicted as being disciples alongside men and as being leaders of some early churches. Still, the biases of those male writers do make their way into scripture. Being inspired by the Spirit doesn’t eliminate bias, and sometimes it is necessary to separate the inspired word of God from a writer’s prejudices.

My knee-jerk, first reaction when I read today’s gospel passage saw gender bias on full display. Jesus has just begun his ministry, called a group of disciples, all male, and made his first preaching and healing appearance. Now, for the first time, a female character shows up.

We learn almost nothing about Simon’s mother-in-law other than she is sick with a fever. The setting is a private one, and when Jesus heals her, it doesn’t impress any crowds. What it does do, however, is enable this woman to get up and wait on the guys Simon has just brought home. She gets up and serves them, and that is the last we ever hear of Simon’s mother-in-law. Ugh, I cringed

Except knee-jerk reactions are not always correct. As I looked more deeply at this story, I began to realize that Mark may not have been depicting this woman as a stereotype at all.

I have frequently lamented the way we often look at scripture without sufficient context. We take brief snippets of the biblical story and use them for sermons, Bible studies, and devotionals, often acting as though everything we need to understand the passage is right there in front of us. Most often, that is not the case.

Our gospel passage for today comes from the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings providing verses from Old Testament, Psalms, Epistles, and Gospels for each Sunday. These passages are typically rather short, chosen knowing that they will be used by preachers on Sundays. I assume some care goes into how passages are divided up, but sometimes important information gets left out.

Sermon video: Like Falling in Love

 

Videos of sermons and worship available on the FCPC website.

Sermon: Like Falling in Love

 Mark 1:21-28
Like Falling in Love

James Sledge                                                                                      January 31, 2021

 There’s an old adage in the pastor business sometimes offered to a person contemplating seminary. It says, if you can do anything else, do that. I suspect the origins of the adage were about making sure a call was genuine. It should be so compelling that there’s absolutely nothing else you could do. But in our day, I’ve sometimes heard the adage offered partly as a warning about the nature of this work.

The late Lyle Schaller, author and authority on congregations who was sometimes called the dean of church consultants, once noted that in the span of a few decades, the vocation of pastor went from a high status, low stress job to a low status, high stress job. The foibles of televangelists, the loss of prestige for traditional, mainline churches, the rise of religious consumers, and more have made pastoring an interesting way to make a living.

Suffice to say that many pastors would likely find something else to do if there weren’t things about the work that they loved. For me it’s a number of things. I wouldn’t quite say I enjoy it, yet hospital visitation is very fulfilling. But the two things I love the most are teaching and preaching. I briefly thought about being a professor, but I enjoyed preaching too much.

I knew I wanted to preach while still in seminary. It’s likely why I never became an associate pastor. Preaching is still one of my favorite things, both the preparation and the actual event, but my expectations of preaching and teaching have changed over the years.

When I came out of seminary, I was steeped in a Reformed understanding of preaching which holds that when scripture is read and proclaimed (meaning preached), that by the power of the Spirit it becomes the Word of God. And so I took preaching very seriously. It seemed an awesome responsibility to proclaim God’s Word, something that could build up or tear down, could inspire a congregation to go where God called, could change lives.

I still take preaching very seriously, but I’ve learned over the years what countless other pastors have learned. It’s quite rare that preaching actually does much. People may like it or dislike it, enjoy it or be troubled by it, find it thought provoking or not, but seldom does it inspire a congregation to do something or cause someone to drastically reorder their life. Very often, preaching is simply one more voice trying to persuade, and we’re bombarded with attempts to persuade us all the time. From advertising to politics to editorials to Facebook posts, such attempts inundates our lives, and we’ve grown quite numb to them.

Neither preaching nor teaching seem to have much in the way of authority, any intrinsic power to effect change, to alter people’s lives. Perhaps they once did, but I wonder.