Pastor James

Spiritual Hiccups - Something to Eat

2012-02-01T13:49:00.000-05:00

So we need something more than bread. Even manna won't do, at least according to Jesus in the gospel of John. One thing I've learned about reading John's gospel is that taking him literally usually leads you astray. That's what happens with Nicodemus in the famous "born again" passage. Nick hears "born again," the literal meaning of Jesus' words, which is why he asks about getting back in the womb. But Jesus is talking about a spiritual rebirth, a birth "from above." (Bible translators have to decide whether to put "born again" or "born from above" in this passage, but either call makes the conversation somewhat difficult to understand.)

And so when Jesus speaks of "eating his flesh and drinking his blood," it's a good bet that hearing him literally will lead us astray. That his opponents do understand him literally is also a clear sign that we should not. Allusions to the Lord's Supper are surely intended here, even though John's gospel does not include Jesus establishing this sacrament. The fact that Jesus is "the Word made flesh" may also play into this. God's wisdom, God's creative Word, is available to us in Jesus, who will "abide" in us. And abiding is the same language Jesus uses to speak of the gift of the Spirit.

His flesh may also refer to the life he gives up on the cross, his saving death. Here John Calvin makes the interesting observation that flesh, which is normally destined to die and decay, becomes, in Jesus, the source of eternal life. Jesus' fleshy human body, the very body that eventually fails each of us, becomes the way in which God becomes present to and in us.

I don't think I've begun to exhaust the many ways to hear Jesus' words on eating his flesh, words that are rather jarring at first glance. And perhaps there is a good lesson here on sitting with Jesus' words a while rather than rushing to decide what they mean or what they report. Literalist readings of Scripture fail us here just as Jesus Seminar type attempts to recover what the historical Jesus actually said. New life in Jesus will not come from believing the Bible word for word or from distilling an accurate historical picture. It will come from an encounter with the Word, the vital, living, creative, logos of God. And this Word will never quite fit in the boxes we create for it.

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Spiritual Hiccups - God in the Messiness and Muck

2012-01-31T13:53:00.000-05:00

It was interesting to read today's passage from Genesis next to the one from Hebrews. Genesis recounts the birth of Isaac along with Hagar and Ishmael being cast out of the family. Hebrews mentions Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac as a sign of his faith. But I wonder if the writer or Hebrews doesn't give ole Abe more credit than he deserves.

If I saw someone about to kill his own child, I would call the police and try to stop him. And if I knew about someone sending a woman and child out into the desert supplied with only some bread and a water bottle, I'd be calling the authorities again. And I don't think it would matter at all to me if the person said God had said to do it.

We often trivialize the biblical stories, turning them into trite object lessons with clear cut morals or lessons, ones that often ignore the terrifying parts of such stories. Sarah is jealous of Hagar and her son by Abraham, so she want to be rid of them. This troubles Abe, but he prays about and is convinced God approves of excluding Hagar and Ishmael. But that still doesn't explain sending her off on foot with such meager provisions.

This and the "sacrifice" of Isaac are difficult stories, and we would do well to acknowledge their difficulty. (Jewish interpreters sometimes do a better job of wrestling with this difficulty than Christians have.) But regardless of how one resolves these difficulties, there is no denying that God gets mixed up pretty thoroughly in the messiness and muck we humans create. In today's Genesis reading, God even seems to be implicated in it.

There's no escaping some troubling aspects of this, but I think there is also good news in it. God is not simply interested in the disposition of our "souls" after we've died. God is no cosmic watchmaker who creates the cosmos, winds it up, and then observes things play out from a distance. God is engaged in and with creation, and that is nowhere more evident than with Jesus.

Jesus' ministry sometimes gets trivialized the same way the stories of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac do. His life gets collapsed into a cosmic sacrifice that punches our tickets for heaven. But much of the "saving" that Jesus does in the Bible is of a different kind, healing people from illnesses, freeing them from mental illness or other spirits and demons that bind, constrict, and distort human life. Jesus doesn't come to grant us escape from the messiness of human existence but rather to redeem that messiness. Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God which is not heaven but is God's will done here on earth.

This makes for a messy Bible that is sometimes difficult to comprehend, but I am very happy to know that God is at work within creation, in my life, in my relationships, in the community of faith, and in the world, to bend the messiness and muck of human history toward God's dream for the world.

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Sermon video - Like Falling in Love

2012-01-30T13:57:00.000-05:00

Videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Sounds of Silence

2012-01-30T12:51:00.001-05:00

If you become very still and quiet, what happens? If you try to stop thinking about anything and just become open to the silence, what do you hear? Today's psalm opens with the line, "For God alone my soul waits in silence," a line repeated again in the middle of the psalm. But if it requires waiting in silence to hear God, no wonder the divine voice can be a rarity for me.

Waiting in silence is probably the single spiritual discipline that I try hardest to cultivate. I sometimes think that this is the area of my greatest spiritual growth in recent years, along with the surest sign of my spiritual immaturity. I have gotten much better at silence and contemplative prayer, but silence and stillness remain difficult for me.

When I try to listen for God, the things I need to get done, my anxieties about this or that, and the problems that need solving, often continue to demand my attention. Sometimes I seem to spend much of my prayer time shooing these voices away, telling them to be quiet so I can hear if God speaks.

Strange how the voice of these concerns can be so demanding and so easily distract me. It's as though the problem with the church fire alarm is more important than what God would say. I've always understood the saying, "The devil is in the details," to mean that it's details that often derail great projects. And while that is indeed true, my prayer life reveals a different problem with details, an inability to let go of them, to take a sabbath from their demands.

Sabbath is pretty much dead in our culture. There are signs that this is changing, but our culture doesn't like to stop and be still. Even our vacations tend to be crammed with things to do. I've told the story often about a pastor colleague who was at a clergy luncheon where the pastors at her table started discussing what day off each one took. (Some pastors take Friday off and some Monday to compensate for working on Sunday.) One pastor at her table insisted that he never took a day off. "The devil never takes a day off," he said. To which my friend replied, "But God does."

Think about that. God, who has the entire universe to worry about, takes a sabbath. It's right there in the first creation account in Genesis. God apparently isn't worried that the whole enterprise could spin out of control during that sabbath. And God later says that we need sabbath, and even farm animals get included in the command to rest.

"For God alone my soul waits in silence." But there's a smoke detector that is malfunctioning. "For God alone my soul waits in silence."

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Sermon audio - Like Falling in Love

2012-01-29T13:28:00.004-05:00

Download Like Falling in Love - 1-29-12.mp3

Sermon - Like Falling in Love

2012-01-29T10:39:00.001-05:00

Mark 1:21-28

Like Falling in Love

James Sledge January 29,2012

Pastors have lots of different things they are supposed to do, which means that this job is rarely boring. There are management and administrative duties, along with plenty of meetings. Pastors visit people in hospital. We get to be there when children are born and when people die. We baptize babies and conduct funerals. In between we marry folks; we counsel with them about what they’re getting into and, sometimes, counsel them when those marriages are coming apart. We’re there to talk when people are going through a faith crisis, and when they’re calling just because they don’t like the hymns we sang last Sunday.

Most pastors enjoy some of these tasks more than others, and most of us are better at some than others, and it’s usually a good thing if we’re actually good at the things we most enjoy. I like to think that’s the case for me, but I’m sure others have their own opinion. Regardless, there is a clear top two for me. Among the many facets of being a pastor that I enjoy, nothing tops preaching and teaching.

I get to preach all the time, so I probably would say that I wish I was able to teach more often. I love teaching, and many of you have taken part in the weekday Bible studies I’ve lead here over the years. Writing the curriculum for some of these is a wonderful challenge, and I hope that through some of these classes people have gained a new appreciation for certain books of the Bible, that they better understand parts of Scripture, that perhaps they even had their eyes opened to a new way of seeing the Bible.

I would like to think that my teaching accomplishes something, but if someone from a class ever came up to me and said, “This has changed my life,” I’d be a bit surprised. And if they said, “This class cured me of the depression that was crippling my life,” I don’t think I would believe them. That’s not what teaching does. It gives information, perhaps in new and interesting ways, perhaps organized in ways that people hadn’t considered before, but information nonetheless. Teaching doesn’t generally have to power to transform anyone or cure them of anything.

You could probably say the same about preaching. I hear pastors complain all the time about how they preach sermons they’ve worked very hard on, sermons they think do an excellent job of expressing the meaning of a Bible passage. People in their congregations come up to them and tell them how much they appreciated the sermon, how it moved them. But then they walk out and act as though they never heard it. Their lives don’t change one bit. It seems that people rarely change how they act or live because the pastor says they should. Our teaching and preaching doesn’t have that much authority.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus performs his first exorcism. Largely thanks to Hollywood, we think of exorcisms as remarkably dramatic events where good and evil battle it out. But in the Bible exorcisms are more like other healings. In fact, if we could go back in time and see Jesus cast out a demon, we would likely say that he had cured someone of epilepsy or some mental illness.

But what I find remarkable about the exorcism in today’s gospel is the crowd’s reaction to it. When the people in the synagogue see Jesus cast out the unclean spirit they exclaim, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority!”

A teaching that has authority, that heals people? I’m happy if people just remember something I said when I’m teaching. Same with preaching. But the people in Capernaum see Jesus heal this man and say, “Wow, that’s teaching! Not like any teaching we’ve ever seen.” I might add, not like any teaching I’ve ever been a part of either.

Have you ever encountered teaching that could change you, transform your life and make you into something different and new? The people in that Capernaum synagogue hadn’t. That’s why they say that Jesus’ teaching is different, not like that of the scribes. That’s not a knock on Judaism or the scribes. If Jesus showed up here today and taught and healed, people would say that his teaching had authority, not like the pastors. Teaching from pastors, like that from scribes, is mostly information. Such teaching may claim to have authority. “Look, it’s right there in the Bible.” But that only works if the listener agrees that the Bible has authority.

But the authority is our gospel reading is different. It is self-evident. In that sense it is not unlike Jesus calling people to follow him. In the verses just prior to our reading this morning, Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, James, and John to follow him. And immediately they leave everything and go with him. People sometimes remark on the faith of these people who drop everything and go with Jesus. We sometimes wish, “O, if only we could have faith that that.” But I think this misses the point. The gospel story is not pointing out the amazing faith of these disciples but the powerful call of Jesus that changes those who hear it.

I think I shared with you before the story of youth group members being asked how they would respond if Jesus called them to go to some poverty stricken, third world country to live and serve. Unlike some adults who would have insisted that they would go, most of these youth said they would not. I appreciate their honesty, but I also suspect that they’d never actually encountered the call of Jesus, never experienced his teaching that is so different from what they’ve heard in church, a teaching with authority.

I think I can explain what I mean by changing the question posed to that youth group. What if the question asked, “If you fell madly in love with someone, and that person told you he or she was going to move to a poverty stricken, third world country to live and serve, would you go with them?”

For youth who had ever experienced falling madly in love, I suspect they would be more than willing to go, even to the very same third world country that said they would not travel to for Jesus. When you fall in love, that love has a certain authority. People who are in love do all sorts of crazy things. Love has an authority that can override loyalty to friends and family, carefully laid life plans, even common sense.

By contrast, I think that the authority of Jesus often seems more of an abstraction to us. It’s something we’ve heard about, but not necessarily experienced. This authority looks more like the teaching of the scribes. It’s usually drawn from the Bible, and we often agree with it in principle. We may even think that we should follow these teachings. But when push comes to shove, the authority of these teachings often gets trumped by other loyalties and authorities. Like those youth who said “No” to a hypothetical call to a third world country, we find it easy to say “No” to calls based solely on “what the Bible says” or what the Church teaches. Unless it makes sense to us or is something we agree with, it is easy to find good reasons to say “No.”

But if you’ve ever fallen in love, you already have some experience with an authority to which you cannot easily say “No.” You’ve felt what it is like to be gotten ahold of and your whole life turned upside down. If you’ve ever fallen head over heels in love, you know what it is like to act in ways that seem crazy and foolish to others, maybe even seem that way to you when you look back on them.

When the people in the Capernaum synagogue saw Jesus teaching and healing, they witnessed an authority like that. Jesus’ words had the power to change things, to transform people, even to heal. It wasn’t magic, but it was real. And those who truly encountered it had to respond to it in some way. It either got ahold of them and drew them in, or they had to run from its power lest they be caught up in it.

You can read your Bible cover to cover; you can memorize every word of Jesus recorded there, but that alone has no more authority than the teaching of the scribes. You can try very hard to be good and keep the commandments, and that would be admirable and might even make the world a better place. Yet that would still not be the life changing authority of Jesus.

But when you meet Jesus; when the Holy Spirit comes to you so that you experience the risen Christ within you, that is something completely different. And you just may not be able to say “No.”

Spiritual Hiccups - Repairing a Relationship

2012-01-26T11:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure you can be human and not experience pain and brokenness in relationship with others. Sometimes relationships wither and die with little drama in the process, and other times they come apart spectacularly. And of course broken relationships often get repaired and restored, but that usually requires dropping one's guard a bit and keeping the ego in check. Rare is there true reconciliation that doesn't require an "I'm sorry" from both parties.

When I look at the strained relationship between the different theological camps in my own denomination, I sometimes wonder about how much desire there is to repair things. There are people on both sides who can't wait for a split to become a reality. Hard to say "I'm sorry" under such conditions. Hard to check your ego while yelling, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" (If you're in the PC(USA), you may want to check out this "Letter of Reconciliation" signed by a number of church leaders.)

Such thoughts are on my mind as I mull over today's reading in Hebrews as it continues its discussion of how Jesus came to repair our broken relationship with God. This discussion extends well beyond today's reading, and it takes place within the context of a sacrificial system that was normative in the ancient world and well understood by both Jews and Gentiles. That system is described as an "I'm sorry" from worshipers, but it only puts a band-aid on a broken relationship and doesn't fix the underlying problem. That fix is finally made by God.

One way to view this fix (atonement if you prefer such language) is as a cosmic act of ego checking on God's part. God, the aggrieved party in the broken relationship, is the one who reaches out, the one who says, "I'm sorry," in the self offering of Jesus on the cross. Mechanical descriptions of this saving "sacrifice" by Jesus do not do it justice. They do not recognize that in Jesus, it is God who puts aside having been wronged, and does what it takes to make amends.

Strange that we Christians, who are quick to claim the benefits or this remarkable act on God's part, are so often unwilling or unable to act in similar ways with those who have hurt or offended us.

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Spiritual Hiccups - No Heaven When We Die?

2012-01-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

It is interesting how Christian thought on life after death gradually diverged from the thinking of biblical writers. Many, if not most, Christians think in terms of going to heaven when they die. In fact, this has become the normative understanding of resurrection for many. But that is not the thinking of the Apostle Paul, nor does it fit well with what Jesus speaks in today's gospel when he says that "the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."

Jesus here follows typical Jewish thinking on the resurrection. It was something that happened at the end of the age when all the dead would be raised. Paul speaks in the same manner when he talks about what happens at "the coming of the Lord." When that day arrives Christ will come from heaven "and the dead in Christ will rise first." Presumably they have simply been dead until this point.

Jesus' own resurrection was understood as a sign that the new age was arriving. What had happened to him was a foreshadowing of what would happen to those who had died. His was the pattern: dead and in the grave, then resurrection. Jesus' soul did not float off to heaven when he died. (A wonderful discussion on resurrection and heaven can be found in N. T. Wright's book, Surprised by Hope.)

But as I think about the gospel lesson this morning, I'm less concerned at the moment with getting a doctrine of resurrection correctly formulated and more interested in how beliefs with scant biblical evidence can become so central, so beloved, and so impervious to any challenge. Indeed suggesting that people don't go to heaven when they die will get you labeled a heretic by many.

Where do our most cherished articles of faith come from? How did we acquire them and what is it that confirms them for us? If we somehow experience Jesus in our life, does that mean everything we think about Jesus and faith is true? In 1 John it says, "We know that (Jesus) abides in us by the spirit that he has given us." But the letter immediately adds, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see which are from God." It seems that experiencing a spiritual presence is no guarantee.

One need only look at the incredible number of Christian denominations, most of them the product of disagreements over belief and practice, to recognize that people of deep faith can't seem to agree on lots of important issues. How to use the Bible, how salvation works, the role of women, when and how to baptize, who gets "saved," works versus faith, and what happens during the Lord's Supper; these are but a fraction of the issues that divide us. And either one of the many denominations has gotten it figured out just right (meaning the rest of us are all wrong), or all of us are wrong about some things.

I want to suggest two seemingly contradictory things. What we believe is important, and we should work very hard to understand and refine our beliefs and theology. This is our guard against beliefs and practices that are little more than habits that suit us and feel comfortable. I'm not sure there is any such thing as a generic Christian, at least not one of much substance. But at the same time, we must recognize that our very best efforts at theology and practice fall short. Any arrogance that too quickly dismisses others because they don't agree with us has forgotten how we see "dimly" and "know only in part," to borrow from Paul.

Are you planning on heaven when you die? Is that a primary concern of Christian faith, or a secondary one? Where did you get your answers to such questions? And would you consider rethinking such answers if doing so drew you deeper into life with Christ?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Don't Worry, Be Happy

2012-01-24T12:29:00.002-05:00

Happy are those whose help
is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

Psalm 146:5-7

If I'm not as happy as I'd wish, I may have just found the problem. I like to think that I'm in good with God, that I'm attuned to Jesus' call, but the fact is that my help and my hope are often elsewhere. I may not put my "trust in princes" as Psalm 146 warns against, but I have a laundry list of things that get in line ahead of God.

I have to admit that I've bought into the consumerist gospel and think I'll be happy if I have a few more nice things. But "enough" is always just a bit beyond my reach which leads to typical "If only..." statements about winning the lottery or experiencing some other sort of financial windfall.

And like a lot of Americans, I long for political leadership that will fix things and make them better. Maybe this is our version of "trust in princes." We imagine there is someone who will do the trick. But things rarely work out as well as we hope, and so the political pendulum can swing quickly. We're often ready to fire our princes in the manner of football coaches who don't turn a losing team around fast enough.

Speaking of football coaches, Urban Meyer, the new coach here in Columbus, has sparked a few letters to the editor around his plans to offer optional Bible studies and chapel services for his players. I'm not really interested in the actual debate over this. I'm more interested in an understanding of Christian faith that I saw in one of those letters to the editor. The writer defended Myer's classes by saying, in part, "What's wrong with teaching young men not to steal, covet or lie, and to treat others as you would want to be treated?... Again, I ask, what is the progressives' problem with a dynamic role model, a coach, teaching moral principles based on the Bible?"

I know nothing about this fellow's religious beliefs, but I feel comfortable saying that many "Christians"understand faith along the lines of his letter. Faith means believing in God/Jesus and being more or less moral. And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with totally trusting your life to God/Jesus. Believing and being good is not at all what the psalm says leads to happiness or what Jesus says it means to follow him (self denial and taking up the cross for instance).

But while I go in for a little more serious version of faith than "believe and be good," we're talking a matter of degrees here. And when I find myself worrying about happiness, or success, or why a new initiative at the church hasn't turned out like we hoped, Jesus often isn't really involved in the conversation. It's all a matter of plans, strategy, abilities, technique, leadership, etc. Things work when such things are good, but fail when they are poor. And God doesn't seem to have a big role one way or another.

Jesus calls us to the difficult work of discipleship. He commands us to teach people to do all that he has commanded, so obviously it matters what we do. But he also promises to be with us, and to send the Spirit to strengthen and guide us. So why are a great many of us working and trying so hard yet feeling so anxious?

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Sermon video - Leaving Where We Are

2012-01-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

Videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Not Convinced

2012-01-23T12:24:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I'm reading the passages from the Daily Lectionary, I find my mind wandering and I feel a bit zoned out. This can be especially the case when a passage is very familiar to me, such as the passage from John this morning. With passages such as this one, I can finish the reading and feel a bit like I sometimes do when I make the coffee in the morning. I'll be sitting at the table reading the paper and have to get up to see if I turned the coffee pot on. I usually have, but I don't remember doing it.

I'm suspicious that reading the Bible and not remembering what I just read is rooted partly in how I read it. Thanks to my training as a pastor, it's difficult to read Scripture without at least thinking about how to preach it. Is there an unusual twist or some theme that speaks to the congregation I serve? Does something jump out at me I can use to motivate, call, or inspire the congregation?

Preaching is often used in an attempt to convince, and herein lies one of its great limitations. Not that preaching shouldn't try to teach or convince, but I'm not sure anyone was ever convinced into faith. Most of us would find it foolish for someone to marshal a good, convincing argument about why another person should fall in love with him. Love isn't necessarily irrational, but it is surely something other than rational... perhaps transrational?

Stories that lovers remember and tell, are not usually about convincing, though they may be helpful at times in evoking feelings that seem to have gone dormant. Such stories often seem foolish or boring to others, and they may groan "Not again!" if one of these lovers starts to tell the story once more. But that same story may be the two lovers' most prized possession.

Scripture is many things, but I think it works much better as lovers' cherished possession than it does as evidence for an argument. Now how to get that in a sermon.

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Sermon - Leaving Where We Are

2012-01-22T13:45:00.003-05:00

Mark 1:14-20 (Jonah 3:1-5, 10)

Leaving Where We Are

James Sledge January 22, 2012

How many of you here have ever gone fishing? How many of you enjoy fishing, at least on occasion? Fishing is like a lot of other things. Some people like it, and some others don’t, but as a general rule, most people don’t think of fishing as something inherently evil. I’m not aware of any Christian denomination that forbids its members from fishing. I know that I’ve never written a prayer of confession for a worship service that said, “Lord forgive us for catching fish.”

I raise this because, if I understand today’s gospel reading correctly, Simon, Andrew, James, and John all repent of fishing. Now granted they were fishing for a living rather than as a hobby, but I’m not sure that makes much difference. I don’t think that makes them any more sinful than a recreational fisherman.

And yet our gospel this morning depicts Jesus telling people, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” And the very first action associated with this call to repent and believe is his calling some fisherman to follow him. And immediately they repented and followed him. It doesn’t actually say they repented, but that’s what happened. They turned away from what they had been doing – fishing – left their nets, their boat, their father, and went with Jesus. There might not be anything evil or sinful about fishing, but they walked away from it, something that may well have been the only way of life they had ever known.

The word “repent” is not a word often used in general conversation. In fact it’s not a word used very often in Presbyterian churches other than when it shows up in a Bible reading. That’s because the word has taken on an almost totally religious sense, and a negative one at that.

“Repent!” comes from the mouth of a scary looking, bony fingered revival preacher who’s pointing at someone he thinks will go to hell otherwise. Repent has come to mean, “Stop being bad, and start being good,” or even more frequently, “Stop not believing in Jesus and start believing.” But in the Bible, while the word does meant to stop one thing and start another, it does not necessarily follow that the thing stopped is bad.

In our Old Testament from Jonah, there is also some repenting going on. You might think I’m talking about the people of Nineveh who heard of God’s judgment against them. But in the verses we read, the only one who actually repents is God. The Bible translators are naturally a bit queasy about saying God repented, and so they write, And God changed his mind… But “repented” is more accurate, literal translation.

I suspect that when most Christians hear Jesus say, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news,” we assume it isn’t addressed to us. We believe the good news, so we’re done. But that misses the fact that Jesus calls us to do more than believe. He calls us to follow him.

Every call invites us into something new, but this requires us to leave something else behind. Discovering something new, something better, something more profound, something more meaningful, almost always means moving away from something else. It does not mean that previous things was bad. But the new, the better, the more profound cannot happen without this movement.

You cannot discover the joys of adulthood without leaving behind childhood. You cannot give yourself to another in marriage without, as the old wedding vow says, “forsaking all others.” Ties to parents, to old flames, must recede for this new thing to bloom. This means taking a chance, a leap of faith that this new thing is worth leaving behind the old.

Jesus says the coming kingdom, the reign of God, requires letting go of old ways. This reign of God doesn’t look like the societies or governments we humans devise, and he says that becoming part of this new thing requires repenting, turning away from old things to embrace the wonderful newness of God.

The other day I read a story about a teenage boy riding a Miami city bus back in the days before the Civil Rights movement. He and his brother took the bus to their downtown church for children’s choir rehearsals. The return trip home coincided with the workday’s end, and the bus would fill with domestic workers and day laborers returning home after a hard day of work. The boy, William, noticed that many of these workers had to ride standing the entire way. This was the days when “people of color” had to ride in the back, and the few seats there were quickly taken.

Bothered by this, William felt called to do something. He was white, but he took a seat in the back of the bus and remained in it until all the seats in that section were occupied. Then, when an African American woman got on, he would get up and give her his seat.[1]

William engaged in the sort of repenting that I think Jesus calls us all to do. The segregated bus system was not his doing. In a very real sense, this young boy could have simply sat in the front without doing anything wrong. But the call to move the world toward God’s reign requires turning away from the old and the comfortable. It requires a certain risk or leap of faith. William moved out of his comfortable place and toward something new, one small step toward a world a bit more like God’s coming reign.

Repenting, turning and moving toward God’s newness must have come naturally to William. He would later be instrumental in helping his downtown Miami church merge with another, becoming a multi-racial congregation known for its ministry to the downtown homeless at time when other congregations fled to the safety of the suburbs.

But what of us? How are we called to repent, as individuals and as a congregation. How are we called to turn toward the newness of God?

When Jesus calls those fisherman, we don’t learn anything about their love or dislike of fishing. For all we know, some of them had never wanted to do anything else. But that isn’t the issue. It is all about Jesus calling them to something new. He says, “Follow me…” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

If you ever sit down and read Mark’s gospel from start to finish, you will likely realize that one of his favorite words is “immediately.” He uses it so much that translators sometimes decide to leave it out. But I have observed that almost nothing happens “immediately” in church congregations. Most of us church folks tend to be careful, cautions sorts. We do things deliberately, after much consideration and debate. We don’t like to be hurried, or do things immediately.

This sort of caution has a great deal to recommend. It keeps us from running off half-cocked or chasing after every new fad. But I wonder if it also makes it very difficult for us to repent, to turn away from familiar habits and routines, and move toward the newness of God, the reign of God that Jesus invites us to be part of and show to the world. I worry sometimes that if Jesus passed by and said, “Follow me,” I’d say, “Could you leave some material with me, and perhaps a link to your website. Let me look it over and I’ll get back to you.” And Jesus would go on his way.

The world is not what God longs for it to be, what God dreams it will become. You and I are not what God longs for us to be, what God dreams we will become. There is something better, more wonderful, in our future, in God’s future. And Jesus calls us into that future saying, “Follow me.” And immediately they left their nets (their past, their comfort zones, their tried and true) and followed him.

[1] Cynthia Weems in “Reflections on the lectionary,” The Christian Century Vol. 129, No. 1 (January 11, 2012) p. 21

Sermon audio - Leaving Where We Are

2012-01-22T13:28:00.003-05:00

Leaving Where We Are - 1-22-12.mp3

Spiritual Hiccups - Banned in the Bible

2012-01-18T13:04:00.000-05:00

Today's psalm asks who may come into God's presence, and the answer contains things we might expect, people who do what is right, who fear the LORD, who keep their word, who hate evil, and so on. But the final attributes may surprise some. They are those "who do not lend money at interest, and do not take a bribe against the innocent."

In Hebrew poetry, ideas are rhymed rather than words, and so in the Psalms you see verses that describe pairs, parallelisms. And so the 23rd Psalm ends, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long."

In this morning's psalm, the final pair links lending money at interest with taking bribes against the innocent. Bankers have certainly taken a big public relations hit in recent years, but I don't think many of us associate making loans with bribery. We may distrust big banks, but many of us know local bankers we consider pillars of the community. But our psalm says those who lend money at interest may not enter God's presence, and it pairs them with those who take bribes to pervert justice.

If I were to employ Scripture the way people so often do, I would need to start a campaign to stamp out lending as we know it. Perhaps I and any followers I could garner would make signs and protest outside of banks the way people protest against same-sex marriage. After all, my group would be able to quote the Bible in the same fashion.

The fact is that Christians were generally forbidden to engage in banking for the first 1500 years of the faith. (Jewish stereotypes related to finance and banking grew, in part, out of their doing this "despised" work that Christians could not.) But 500 years ago, John Calvin argue persuasively for lending money at interest despite a biblical prohibition. In a creative, innovative move that many may have trouble associating with their image of Calvin, he argued that borrowed money used to build factories that employed people and improved their lives was in keeping with the intent of the prohibition on lending. That prohibition, he said, was there to protect the poor from being trapped by debt. But if lending actually ended up helping the poor, then it produced the good that the ban on lending intended.

Just as an aside, it should be clear that lending which did trap people in poverty, or which did not seem to produce the sort of "good" the ban on lending intended, would not fit within Calvin's exception to the biblical ban. But of course, once Calvin opened the door to lending, people soon forgot that it was an exception that had conditions. And then they, and we, forgot that the Bible banned the practice in the first place.

All this is a long way of getting at how often we use the Bible to get the results we wish. We find those verses that give ammunition to our causes, often employing them in a context totally different from the one is Scripture. Much more rarely, if at all, do we read the Bible as a whole, listening to its overall witness. That was what Calvin was trying to do when who came up with his exception to the ban on lending, but he was also influenced by the growing business need for capital in Geneva at that time.

I think that every Christian occasionally needs to assess his or her relationship with the Bible. Is it a witness that points us to Jesus, revealing to us things we could never know otherwise? Or do we simply believe what we believe - wherever that may have come from - and then cling to those Bible passages that fit with what we already hold dear?

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Sermon video - When God Speaks

2012-01-17T15:12:00.000-05:00

Videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Unequal Partners

2012-01-17T13:17:00.000-05:00

To you I lift up my eyes,
   O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants
   look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
   to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
   until he has mercy upon us.

Psalm 123:1-2

I was in an interesting discussion the other day about how Presbyterians are related to Scripture and to our tradition's faith statements. I said something about entering into a conversation with both the Bible and our Book of Confessions, and spoke of being enriched by the give and take of this conversation. But someone wondered about this image of a conversation with Scripture and tradition. If I am a conversation partner, do my opinions carry the same weight as Scripture and tradition? Do they speak to me with any "authority?"

That thought had not occurred to me. In fact, I presumed that this "conversation" was not one among equals. It is more like a student in conversation with a learned professor or novice speaking with a master craftsman. It is akin to the relationship in today's psalm of servant to master.

But the person who wondered about my "conversation" imagery had good reason for concern. It is quite typical for us to come to denominational teachings, and even to the Bible, as equals in the ensuing conversation. We will listen, but we will also measure what we hear with what we think, and then we will dismiss what we don't agree with or do not like. We all do this to some extent, cherry picking from the Bible - putting those passages we like in one basket and those passages we don't in another. And then we store that second basked somewhere we seldom go.

But if God agrees with all my political stances and all my plans, that seems to me an almost certain indication that this is not God at all. The God I meet in Jesus loves me where he finds me and embraces me even when others will not. But he always calls me from that place to somewhere new. And he calls me to become something new and different and more like him. And while Jesus is happy to engage me in conversation over this, I do not think that conversation ever ends with Jesus saying, "You know, you're right. Worry about yourself and let everyone else worry about themselves. I did come so that you would be successful and happy, and if you accomplish that, I don't really care about any of that other stuff."

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Sermon audio - When God Speaks

2012-01-15T15:02:00.002-05:00

Download mp3 of When God Speaks - 1-15-12

Sunday sermon - When God Speaks

2012-01-15T14:55:00.003-05:00

1 Samuel 3:1-10

When God Speaks

James Sledge January 15, 2012

I’ve read this passage from First Samuel many times, and I think that every time I do, I’m struck by the line that says, The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. The biblical writer could easily have left this line out. It doesn’t really advance the story at all. If it wasn’t there we would still have heard a story about the young Samuel hearing God calling but not realizing that it was God. It’s almost a throw-away line, and yet there it is, and it never fails to grab my attention.

As a child I thought it would have been great to live in biblical times when God was showing up all the time, talking to people, giving them visions. It must have been exciting to live when God actually appeared in burning bushes and carved commandments onto stone tablets. Not like today when God can seem awfully quiet.

But our Scripture reading for this morning sounds a lot like today. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. There it is, straight from the Bible. God could be awfully quiet back then, too.

God was quiet, and visions were rare. I sometimes wonder if I would get the message if God sent me a vision. I’m one of those people who almost never remember their dreams. I’ve read that whether I remember them or not, I do dream. But most of the time, you couldn’t prove it by anything I recall. Which makes me wonder; if visions are like dreams and God appeared to me in a vision, would I remember it?

Of course it isn’t as though God hasn’t spoken or given visions in my lifetime. Many of us recall a prophet who heard God’s voice and shared the word of the Lord with us. I was only six years old when he spoke some of his most famous words. I think I may have heard them on the news, but I’ve seen the speech so many times since that I can’t really trust my memory.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet if there ever was one, and God had called him and given him a vision to share. Maybe it was because he was a prophet that he used the phrase, “I have a dream” over and over in that speech. That part of the speech is pretty far in, near the end. And if you lived in the South when Dr. King shared this vision, you know well that it was only a vision, a dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I know that there are some who may not have thought of Dr. King as a prophet. Strangely enough, it doesn’t occur even to some who admire him. You’re probably aware that a memorial to Dr. King opened last August in Washington, DC, located on the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. Before the dedication ceremony was cancelled because of the approach of Hurricane Irene, it was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, August 28^th. I understand the desire to hold the dedication on the 48^th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech, but the 11:00 a.m. times makes me wonder how many of the planners remembered that King heard God’s call as a church pastor. Perhaps they’d forgotten the last line of the dream, which is a quote from another prophet, Isaiah.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

But just how was it that the prophet Martin heard the word of the Lord that called him into a struggle that would eventually get him killed? How did he glimpse the vision that he shared in his I Have a Dream speech? Perhaps he was better at remembering his dreams than I am, but how did he know which dream was from God? How did he recognize God’s voice, especially considering how that voice called him to a task that would put his life in danger?

Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice in our reading today. Our story depicts God repeatedly speaking to Samuel, but Sam didn’t know what God sounded like. And so he assumed it was someone else, Eli. Eli apparently did know what God sounded like, but even Eli took a while to figure out what was going on. Who knows how the story might have turned out if Eli hadn’t been familiar with God. What if Eli had just gotten upset and screamed, “Go to sleep and quit bothering me!”?

Have you ever heard God speaking to you? Has God given you a vision, a dream that you are supposed to share with the world? Most people I’ve asked such questions tell me, “No.” Many of them think, like I did as a child, that the God who was forever speaking to biblical folks doesn’t really operate that way any longer. We simply assume that God isn’t speaking now. We think of biblical times as being different, like fairy tale times. We imagine Bible stories opening with “Once upon a time when God was a lot more active.” And we assume that the word of the Lord is rare, even nonexistent, to us.

But then here comes Samuel, who lived in those “Once upon a time” days, and yet the word of the Lord was rare then, too. And he would not have recognized it at all had someone not told him how to do that. And then there is Martin Luther King, Jr. In a day when many assume God no longer speaks, he heard the Lord and saw a vision.

I’m thinking that Samuel and Dr. King shared something in common. Both of them had mentors who instructed them in how to hear the voice of God, how to be attuned to divine dreams. Samuel had Eli. Dr. King had many mentors, some whom we’ll never know. There were Sunday School teachers, his parents, and wise elders in the church where he grew up. These folks had tutored him in deep practices of prayer, time spent with God, time listening for God. And of course there was Scripture itself. Dr. King grew up listening to God in Scripture and was so deeply immersed in the Bible that the voice of God must have sounded almost familiar when it called him to be a prophet.

Who taught you to listen for God’s voice? Did you recognize God’s voice when you first heard it? Who taught you how a vision from God would look and feel? And if you’ve not heard God, do you think that voice will sound familiar when God calls you? God is still speaking, you know.

There is a quote I share so often that many are likely sick of hearing it. I can never recall who said it. It may have been Ed White or Roy Oswald from the Alban Institute. One of them was talking about the difficulties facing Mainline congregations such as us Presbyterians, and he said, “People come to us seeking an experience of God, and we give them information about God.” Perhaps I may paraphrase, “People come to us longing to hear God’s voice, and we give them information about God.”

Even in a culture that seems more and more secular, people do long to hear God’s voice. And who should be better at helping them than us. After all, we say that we have been joined to Christ in baptism, that whenever two or three of us are gathered, Christ is here with us, and that each of us is given gifts from the Holy Spirit so that together, we become the living body of Christ. Surely we should be able to help those who long to hear God. And if not, then perhaps we need to be helping each other hone our own listening skills.

“Jeremy, Pat, Stephanie, Becky, Mary Ann, Bob, Adam, Carol, James…” Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.

Spiritual Hiccups - Long Live the King!

2012-01-12T12:51:00.001-05:00

"Rejoice, the Lord is King!" says the opening line of the hymn. In The Presbyterian Hymnal, this hymn is in a section labeled "Christ the King/Ascension." Psalm 97 begins, "The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice." In the case of Christ being the king, we can speak of that happening. Jesus takes his place on the throne. Long live the king. But the LORD (Yahweh) is different. Does Yahweh become king?

Actually the Old Testaments contains many texts where God is enthroned. There are ancient echoes here of a time when people thought of Yahweh as one of many divine beings, and within this divine council, Yahweh had been chosen as the ruler, the head of the gods. "The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice."

We're not accustomed to kings in America, but we have some idea how they work. British monarchs don't have very much real power, but there was time when that power was nearly absolute. But such kings could die or be overthrown. Some were better than others. "Long live the king" carries with it some hope that this king will be a good one. It also a voice of support for a new king and thus recognizes there were or may yet be other options.

"The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice." Long live the king. Be glad because this is a good one. We could have gotten a different one. But are there really other options?

My Presbyterian heritage (along with others in the Reformed/Calvinist family) like to speak of God's sovereignty. The idea of predestination, a concept often distorted or misunderstood, grows out of this notion of sovereignty. God is in charge. God's purposes shall be worked out. What God desires shall be. But for all our claims of divine sovereignty, we often live as though there were other options, other candidates for ruler.

As a pastor, I am often tempted to think that my successes are simply a matter of my prowess or my hard work. I make calculations about what to try or not try based on the same sort of measures any organization use, without much reference to any authority or power on God's part. Successful congregations have good leaders and less successful ones less capable leaders. Congregations often see what they can or can't do as a simple function of the resources brought by the members. They can do what their energy, funds, and talents will allow. We may talk about a king, but often that king has no real power, no authority to say to us, "Do this."

Those ordained in the Presbyterian Church take vows in which we proclaim Jesus Christ "Lord of all and Head of the Church." In other words, he is our ruler, our king. But of course our congregations are often better reflections of what we want than what Jesus wants.

"Rejoice, the Lord is King!" But there are indeed other options.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - That's Gonna Leave a Mark

2012-01-11T12:37:00.000-05:00

Today's reading from Genesis is another of those texts that makes little sense if heard from a literal bent. In the famous story of Cain killing Abel, things in God's creation seem to be going from bad to worse. First their parents get kicked out of the garden, now fratricide among the children. It's a story that's the subject of frequent misinterpretation. Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper," is often inverted to say the we are called to be our brother's (and sister's) keeper, which may be true but has little to do with this story. Cain's question is a rhetorical one with a presumed answer of "No." He is seeking to lay the blame on God here.

But the mark of Cain comes in for even worse misunderstanding. (It's worth noting that the issue that leads to the mark seems preposterous at face value. Cain is worried that, as a wandering fugitive, he will be killed, but this seems a foolish concern. To date there are only four humans in all of God's creation, and one of those now lies dead.) The mark of Cain is often understood to be a mark of shame, a visible sign of the curse God places on him. Yet God says quite clearly that the mark is to protect Cain from reprisals by those he may meet.

The rather remarkable thing about all this is that despite the heinous murder Cain has committed, despite God's insistence that Cain will suffer for his guilt, Yahweh is still concerned for Cain, and takes steps to insure his safety. Despite Cain's role in Creation's continuing downward spiral, God is still committed to him.

People sometimes speak of the "wrathful God of the Old Testament," and there are verses that might seem to support such a view. But there are likewise many passages where God's nature as both a God of judgment and a God of graces, mercy, and steadfast love is clearly visible. Religious folks often want to resolve this apparent paradox and opt for either a God of judgment or a God of grace. We struggle to hold to two in tension. Indeed, in the biblical stories, God at times seems to struggle with this tension. (Check out Hosea 11:1-11 for one such example.)

This tension is within today's reading, and I see the gospel enacted in the story of Cain and Abel. We humans seek to go our own way, to make our own way. We grasp for what we want, often with no concern about who gets hurt by our grasping. In so doing we reap a world filled with animosities and hostilities. There are consequences to us, and to all of Creation for our arrogance and hubris. But God will not abandon us to our own devices. God still reaches out to claim us. As Christians we say that we are sealed, marked in our baptisms. People don't usually associate the sign and seal of baptism with the mark of Cain... But I wonder.

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Sermon video - Ketchup on Black-Eyed Peas

2012-01-09T13:40:00.000-05:00

Videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - The Truth of the Bible

2012-01-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

One of the curses of living in the modern, scientific age is is the constriction of our notion of truth. Truth has become synonymous with facts and figures. Myth, by contrast, has become synonymous with falsehood. Yet the writers of Scripture did not understand truth in our manner and did not recognize our distinction between truth and myth.

My Presbyterian tradition speaks of the Bible as a "unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ," but in our modern notion of truth, the validity of a witness is based on whether or not she gets her facts straight. And so some who want to "preserve" the truth of the Bible insist that it is factually, historically, and scientifically correct. But in what strikes me as a very strange twist, these protectors of Scripture (who often view science as the enemy of religion) have adopted science's definition of truth.

Of course the problem with preserving the truth of the Bible in such a manner is that it creates insurmountable hurdles for anyone who pays much attention to what the Bible actually says. Today's Genesis reading is a good case in point. If we are to apply modern, scientific notions of truth to today's reading, we immediately must deal with God creating in quite a different order from what we read in chapter one of Genesis. On top of that, we must take as historical, scientific fact that God created earthworms, blue jays, and alligators, thinking they might make a suitable partner for the man.

We Presbyterians have tended to be less threatened by science than some other Christian groups, and we have tended to steer clear of the obvious problems with biblical literalism. But we too have found ourselves captive to a modern, scientific worldview. And so at times we have used all the scholarly tools at our disposal to get to the truth behind the text. We have searched for the "historical Jesus" and tried to understand the historical forces that caused biblical writers to say what they did. But in the process, we sometimes acted as though the truth could not be found in the text itself.

Fortunately, much of biblical scholarship has recognized this and turned more of its focus back to the text itself. Yet among rank and file Christians, I worry that there is a difficulty speaking of the "truth" of the Bible in other than modern, scientific, historical terms.

I would never argue that the Bible is "fiction," but I do think we could learn something from great works of fiction that speak the "truth" to us. Indeed art can sometimes speak to us at a much deeper level. No one reads an encyclopedia in order to be touched or moved deeply. No encyclopedia will every launch a movement. And any good painter knows that his purpose is not to create something that looks exactly like a photograph. A great painting shows you something that you likely would not have seen had you looked at the painter's subject. It reveals a deeper truth, a truth that has a spiritual dimension to it.

If one amassed all the world's knowledge, she could still be far from the truth. Strange that religious people would not know this well. I sometimes wonder if the fascination with spirituality in our day isn't a longing for a deeper truth than can be found in either a literalist fundamentalism or a progressive, scholarly attempt to explain what the Bible means. Perhaps it is a longing for a truth that cannot be known from any amount of correct information.

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Sermon audio - Ketchup on Black-Eyed Peas

2012-01-08T13:12:00.003-05:00

Download Ketchup on Black-Eyed Peas.mp3

Sermon - Ketchup on Black-Eyed Peas

2012-01-08T13:00:00.003-05:00

Mark 1:4-11

Ketchup on Black-Eyed Peas

James Sledge January 8, 2012 – Baptism of the Lord

I grew up putting ketchup on my black-eyed peas. In my home as a child, if we were having black-eyed peas, a bottle of ketchup went on the table. I naturally assumed that most other people did the same. Ketchup on black-eyed peas was just like ketchup on French fries. If you could have gotten black-eyed peas at McDonalds, they would have asked, “Do you want ketchup with that?”

But when I got married, I discovered that this wasn’t the case. My wife Shawn considered the practice downright odd. She sometimes makes fun of me for it. I’ve occasionally tried to explain to her what she’s missing, but to no avail. In fact, I’ve even grow a bit self-conscious about it. I still use ketchup in my own home, but I’m less likely to do so at a restaurant or a church dinner.

Sometimes our Christian faith is a bit like putting ketchup on black-eyed peas. Not so many decades ago it was possible to be unaware of this. We thought most everyone was Christian, that the culture was Christian, that everyone put ketchup on their black-eyed peas. But such an assumption is becoming more and more difficult to maintain. Some of us have even started to realize that there are some strange, odd elements to our Christian story that we had not noticed before.

Today’s story of Jesus being baptized may be one of those oddities, although the oddity here is not just the story itself but also what is missing from the story.

Have you ever wondered what Jesus did before he began his ministry? We don’t know for sure how old Jesus was at the time of today’s gospel reading. You hear 30 years old a lot, but that comes from a stray remark by some of Jesus’ opponents, so I don’t know how much stock we should put in it. Nonetheless, when Jesus begins his ministry, he’s old enough that nothing is ever mentioned about him seeming too young to be a rabbi. So perhaps 30 years old is not a bad guess.

And therein lies the oddity. Where has Jesus been for nearly 30 years? What has he been doing all that time? How is it that the Son of God can go completely unnoticed for that long?

In all of the New Testament, there is almost nothing about Jesus except as an adult thirty something. None of the letters of Paul or others show any awareness of Jesus’ youth or the circumstances of his birth. Of the four gospels, two, including Mark’s gospel that we read this morning, introduce us to a full grown Jesus with no mention of birth or childhood. Only Matthew and Luke make any mention of his birth, and Luke alone includes a single story about a 12 year old Jesus. In that story people are amazed at Jesus’ understanding, but even here, Luke insists that Jesus is still growing in wisdom. He is no all-knowing, divine figure masquerading as a human.

One thing all the gospels agree on is that the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is somehow connected to John the Baptist. Jesus, who has lived such an ordinary life that no one has taken any note of him, that not even friends and neighbors from his hometown expect him to be anything special; this Jesus shows up where John is baptizing. John is a rather odd fellow who dresses funny and eats strange food. But he seems to have touched a nerve among many people near Jerusalem. John was talking about changing your life to be ready for something big God was going to do, and people responded to his message.

So, it seems, did Jesus. For some reason, Jesus goes out with all those other people who were hoping for God to do something big. Maybe Jesus was hoping the same thing. Of course it turns out that Jesus is that big thing.

People have speculated as to Jesus’ own sense of who he was prior to his baptism. Many of us are so accustomed to thinking in Trinitarian terms, where Jesus is God, that the idea of Jesus not being fully aware of this divinity seems strange. But especially in Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ baptism seems to be a key moment for him. Notice how the coming of the Holy Spirit is a private moment for Jesus rather than a demonstration for the crowds. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” These words seem spoken for Jesus’ benefit. Did the Holy Spirit descending on him awaken something in him? Did it open his eyes to who he truly was and what that was going to require of him?

When we were discussing this passage the other day in our staff meeting, Jeremy, our music director, recalled an episode from Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz. In it, a woman named Laura is having something of a spiritual crisis. She is not a Christian and doesn’t really believe in God, yet she is speaking with Miller, looking for some sort of help from him. And he encourages her to open up to God, to ask God for grace and forgiveness. But Laura finds such an idea odd, and she says:

“I can’t get there. I can’t just say it without meaning it.” She was getting very frustrated. “I can’t do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don’t decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me.”[1]

John the baptizer announces that there is one coming after him who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I baptize with water so you will get ready, he says. But the one who is coming will make God happen to you.

Has God happened to you? We Presbyterians say that if you’ve been baptized, God has happened to you. We don’t say God can’t happen to you if you haven’t been baptized, but we do insist that God happens to you in baptism. Yet many of us seem blissfully unaware of any such happening. We’ve missed it somehow, settling instead for a comfortable God of habits and assumptions, an unexamined picture of God we picked up somewhere, like me thinking everyone puts ketchup on black-eyed peas.

When Jesus is baptized, God happens to him, and he takes up his true identity as Son of God, going from anonymous unknown to someone causing so much trouble they have to execute him to shut him up.

In our baptisms, God promises to happen to us as well, to pour out the Holy Spirit on us so that we discover our true identities and our calling as daughters and sons of God. Has God happened to you?

[1] Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), p. 53.

Spiritual Hiccups - Invaded by Heaven

2012-01-05T13:21:00.000-05:00

If you go to a Christian funeral, there is a very good chance you will hear the following verse from John's gospel. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." A few years ago, these verses were a part of the New Testament passage used for one of our denomination's "ordination exams." These are taken by those seeking to be ordained as pastors, mostly seminary students. I served as one those grading the exams, and a question in the exam on the John passage asked whether or not this passage was actually appropriate for funerals.

In the exams that I graded, most all the test takers struggled with this question, and I heard a similar report from other exam graders. In nearly all cases, the problem arose from understanding resurrection and eternal life to mean nothing more than going to heaven when you die. But biblically speaking, resurrection has nothing to do with souls winging their way to heaven. Resurrection was something that was supposed to happen "on the last day," as Martha says quite clearly in today's gospel. And so when Jesus says, "I AM the resurrection and the life," (The peculiar Greek grammar of Jesus' "I AM" is supposed to remind us of God's personal name.) he seems to be saying that the promise and hope and power of that last day has come into the present. Those who are "in Christ" can began to experience a new quality of life, a new life born of the Spirit, here and now.

One of the exciting things going on in Christian faith right now is a recovery of a gospel of the Kingdom, of God's coming reign, a gospel that had been supplanted by what Brian McLaren has called a "gospel of evacuation." This gospel says that if you have faith in Jesus, you will get evacuated from this earth (which is apparently beyond hope), and relocated to the paradise of heaven. But of course Jesus never says any such thing. He says the God's reign has "drawn near." And the Apostle Paul speaks of creation itself longing and groaning in labor pains for the new thing that is coming.

It seems rather odd to me that so many Christians, who know very well the creation story where on the sixth day God looks out and judges the whole shebang "very good," somehow conclude that this same creation has gotten so badly off track that it is beyond God's power to rescue and restore.

"I AM the resurrection and the life." God's power to restore, redeem, and make new has burst into the present. Heaven is not some distant evacuation zone for those who qualify. Rather heaven has invaded creation, intent on conquering it through love.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - Where's Your Pride?

2012-01-04T11:39:00.001-05:00

The local high school football team had a good season this past Fall, and so it was more common than in years past to see "Bobcat Pride" emblazoned on cars. High School football is long over, but I saw one of those cars the other day, and it made me wonder a bit about the things that we are proud of, especially when I consider this morning's psalm. Here's a verse from it.

Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,
but our pride is in the name of the LORD our God.

This verse struck me as a bit odd at first. Why would one be proud of God, or of God's personal name? (The "LORD" in the verse is a reverent, deferential rendering of the divine name, YHWH.) The psalm obviously draws a contrast with those things that normally produce pride: successful football teams, children who get scholarships, or, in the case of the psalm, powerful military technology. Pride is normally associated with our accomplishments or the accomplishments of those we love. In the cases of football teams and military might, we often view those as extensions of ourselves.

So how does one experience pride in God? Is it like pride in our team, being impressed because God did a great job? Perhaps I'm obsessing over a single word in a psalm, but this is in part prompted by a line from St. John of the Cross I saw quoted in one of Richard Rohr's Daily devotions. It says, "God refuses to be known; God can only be loved."

Pride most often seems to go with things we love, self, team, country, children, etc. But the psalmist's pride is not in any of these things. It is "in the name of the LORD our God." Perhaps that is because the LORD is the one the psalmist loves more than all others. So where's your greatest pride?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - Something New

2012-01-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

This is my first blog post of a new year, and so it seems appropriate to think about newness. Today's reading from Ephesians speaks of newness. It says "to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." But is this newness something done to us or something we become by doing the right things. The Ephesians passage is a bit vague on that.

I've never done them much myself, but the new year is a time when many make resolutions, promising to change in some way and therefore become something new. The idea that we can start fresh is a compelling one and an idea at home in the Christian faith. After all, God continually reaches out to us, beckoning us to new life and relationship. But is this newness our doing or God's? New Year's resolutions are clearly about our trying harder and becoming a new and better version of ourselves, a self who is lighter and leaner, healthier, nicer to one's spouse, no longer smokes, etc. This is a newness that we do if we have the tenacity to stick to our resolutions.

I heard a Christian being interviewed on the news the other day with regards to her support of a certain presidential candidate. In explaining her position she said, "As a Christian, I believe that people can change." Certainly Christian faith speaks a lot about people changing, but where does that come from?

If you've spent much time in a church congregation beyond coming on Sunday, you likely know how good churches and church members are at figuring out what they cannot do. Be it the mission project we can't afford, the class a person knows she could never teach, or the new worship service we don't have the resources and talent to pull off, we are good at saying "No" to newness. And it seems to me that very often an implied theological statement lies hidden in our "No." It says, "Newness is dependent on us." Of course quite often we seem to prefer the old, and even when we don't, we aren't sure we have what it takes to change things.

In Isaiah 43, God speaks through the prophet to exiles in Babylon saying, "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" What an interesting question for the prophet to ask? What newness of God is springing forth around us? Do we not perceive it? And if not, why?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Christmas Meditation video: Another King?

2011-12-25T17:32:00.000-05:00

Christmas Meditation: Another King?

2011-12-25T16:31:00.007-05:00

Angels are part of our Christmas celebration, but like bows on packages, are mostly decorative. In his sermon, "Gosh, Some Angels," Walter Brueggemann says we need to take another look at angels. Perhaps this may help us rethink our understanding of Christmas. (from Luke 2:1-20)

Christmas meditation - 12-25-12.mp3

Spiritual Hiccups - My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad

2011-12-22T12:25:00.003-05:00

As we draw close to Christmas, this morning's psalms seem jarring next to images of a babe in a manger, of shepherds, angels, and nativity scenes. Psalm 18 speaks of being in danger from enemies and crying out to God. And God responded to that cry.

Then the earth reeled and rocked;
   the foundations also of the mountains trembled
   and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
   and devouring fire from his mouth;
   glowing coals flamed forth from him.

It is easy for some to dismiss such images of God as something archaic, a violent God of the Old Testament unlike the God of love we meet in Jesus. But I've noticed that most children who come from homes with loving parents where they feel safe and secure assume that their mother or father would whip all comers in order to protect them. And I wonder if that isn't what we see in this psalm. The childish boast that "My Dad can beat up your Dad" grows out of the sense of security children experience, and the psalmist seems to know something similar.

If one has experienced a security in the love of God, in God's parental care, it is pretty easy to think along such lines. In an ancient world inhabited by many gods, it is hardly surprising that some Old Testament passages sound a bit like, "My Dad can beat up your Dad."

Jesus does nothing to undermine the idea of God's parental-like love. Jesus repeatedly calls his followers to trust themselves to God's care. But Jesus does redefine what God's power looks like. The Apostle Paul calls this "power made perfect in weakness." And Jesus made clear what Israel (and the Church in our day) often forgot. God's parental love was not restricted to them. Indeed the call of Abraham was so that "all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

I felt very safe and secure as a child, and I probably thought my Dad could beat up some others. But to my knowledge, he never did. The safety and security of parental love is generally not experienced in such things.

As we celebrate the birth of one born to "save," we would do well not to reject an image of God as one who can and does protect and provide. The child born in a manger is not just a nice philosopher who teaches a good way to live. He is God's power unleashed for us.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - Seeing the Future

2011-12-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

There's a car commercial running on television where the wife excitedly tells the husband that they are having a baby. As they celebrate this announcement, a strange look comes over the husband. He has just thought of something, and it quickly becomes apparent just what. He has a sleek, two-door sports car, and they are about to have a baby. (If you've not seen the ad, its for a "four-door sports car.")

There is a sense in which the father in this commercial sees the future. Nothing particularly dramatic about it, but he knows that a baby means a different life than the one he now has. And he must begin planning for that new day.

I think that biblical prophets are more like this father than they are psychics who promise to tell you your future. True, they've been given a bit deeper sense of what is coming than this dad, but they are not really predicting the future in the sense most people mean by that phrase. Rather they know God intimately enough that they know where things will end up when God acts. They know the character of God and so they know what will happen when God shakes things up.

That's what is going on in Mary's song in today's gospel. Mary's going to have a baby, and she knows that this baby will have a much bigger impact than the typical one. This baby is part of God's plans, and so she can sing her prophetic song just as surely as that father can see the need for a four-door car.
"(God) has brought down
the powerful from their thrones,

and Lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

according to the promise he made

to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his

descendants forever."

God has; not God will, but God has. This is not so much a prediction of the future as it is a realization of what God's future looks like, a realizations that is so real for Mary that it seems already accomplished. As many have noted, prophets' sense of what God is up to is so vivid that they often get their tense wrong.

I think that people of deep faith always have a bit of this vision of the future within them. It is why they can actually love their enemies and work for a better world even when that work costs them dearly and does not show the sort of results our culture validates.

We're about the celebrate the birth of Mary's baby, as we most certainly should. But for that celebration to mean much, we also need to see a bit of the future that Mary sees.

Can you see the future? God's future?

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - A New Song?

2011-12-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

The Daily Lectionary sometimes seems to use the same Psalms over and over. And so I don't always read them as closely as I should. Being the product of Western culture and education, I tend to read for information, and if I know a psalm fairly well, what new information will I get?

There is certainly nothing wrong with reading the Bible for information, but that is hardly the only way to read it. In fact, Scripture often speaks powerfully when we listen in a very different mode. That happened to me today, though I can't say it was because I was being particularly attentive, doing lectio divina, or engaged in any other spiritual practice. I was rushing through the morning psalms, but nonetheless, a phrase struck me: "a new song."

I've heard and read that phrase countless times, but I'm not sure that it ever impacted me the way it did this morning. Perhaps the time of year helped, along with reading Hannah's song in the Old Testament reading. That song seems to be a model for Mary's song which follows on the heels of today's gospel reading. Those are both new songs, at least in the sense that they describe something new.

A new song. New songs are not a big part of this time of year. Even in contemporary worship services where people rarely sing any song more that 20 years old, worshipers want traditional carols at Christmas. That's fine with me. I love singing Silent Night, Joy to the World, and O Little Town of Bethlehem. But I wonder if our celebration of Christmas sometimes fails to leave much room for something new. It looks back and remembers. But does it look forward to the new thing that Jesus' birth heralds?

Amidst all the warmth and nostalgia of Christmas, I wonder if we don't need to add another tradition, a tradition of a new song. Perhaps we could write some new verses to an old favorite and add call to discipleship in our Christmas services. Regardless, what if every Christmas Eve Service included something that asked us to turn our gaze forward, to look for God's new heaven and new earth, and to join in the work of that coming reign of God? What if one of our special Christmas traditions was a renewal of hope, a hope rooted in a vision of God's future?

Sing to the LORD a new song, one like Hannah and Mary sang.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sermon video - Saying "Yes" to the Impossible

2011-12-19T15:01:00.000-05:00

Videos also available on YouTube.

An Advent Monologue by "Mary"

2011-12-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

Mary is played by Stefanie Osborne.

Spiritual Hiccups - Remaking a Classic

2011-12-19T10:44:00.000-05:00

Every now and then I hear someone complain about Hollywood doing too many remakes and sequels. Right now the theaters feature Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the Mission Impossible team. And all of these are sequels of films that were based on previous shows, films, and books.

But I'm not going to complain about this because I've noticed a bit of the same in the Bible. In today's gospel, Luke tells a story that looks like a lot of stories from the Old Testament. God is going to do something wonderful, and this will involve a previously "barren" woman giving birth. Sarah, Hannah, and now Elizabeth. Over and over God goes back to a tried and true story: life where it seemed there was none, hope where it had not existed, a future where one was not expected.

I take some solace from the fact that God sticks to a plot that we've seen before. Strangely though, it still seems to surprise us. We imagine that the story is all played out, that hope is gone, that this time there will be no happy ending. God has seemed too absent from our lives. The brokenness and cynicism of our world has the upper hand. The darkness has overcome the light.

And then an old, old story breaks through once more. Life in the face of barrenness. Hope where there had been none. Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

Sometimes, when we have a hard time seeing God, when we've relegated the power of God to some time after we die, it's good to remember that God keeps working from an old script. And we know how the story ends.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Sermon audio - Saying "Yes" to the Impossible

2011-12-18T15:57:00.005-05:00

Click to download mp3 file

Sermon text - Saying "Yes" to the Impossible

2011-12-18T10:11:00.004-05:00

Luke 1:26-38 (47-55)

Saying “Yes” to the Impossible

James Sledge December 18, 2011 – Advent 4

There is a scene in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass where Alice is speaking with the white queen. Alice has just learned that the queen lives backwards, remembering things before they happen. In the course of this conversation Alice becomes a bit bewildered and begins to cry. During the queen’s efforts to cheer her up, she asks Alice how old she is.

“I'm seven and a half, exactly.”

“You needn't say "exactly",” the Queen remarked. “I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”

“I can't believe that!” said Alice.

“Can't you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There's no use trying,” she said. “One can't believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Christians should surely know about believing impossible things. After all we speak casually of Jesus turning water into wine, and we say that he died and rose again on the third day. And of course there is that line in “The Apostle’s Creed” that says Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.”

Even though not much is made of this virgin birth in the Bible, it became a big deal for the Church. The Roman Catholic Church expanded it, saying that Mary’s own birth was miraculous – Immaculate according to the doctrine, and that she remained a virgin her entire life, never mind that the Bible speaks of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, and one of those brothers, James, becomes leader of the fledgling Church following Pentecost.

When the Protestant Reformation came along, the Reformers insisted that we should only believe those impossible things that were actually in the Bible. And so we tossed out Mary’s perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception, but we kept the virgin birth. Protestants like believing impossible things as much as Catholics. We just have a different list.

All this is a long way of saying that while we Christians may disagree and even argue about which impossible things we must believe, it generally goes without saying that we expect people to believe impossible things, perhaps even six before breakfast.

However, there is not necessarily much impact from believing these impossible things. Think about it. How much difference does it make in the way you live that Mary was or wasn’t a virgin? I know Christians of deep faith, who live exemplary lives, some who believe in a historical virgin birth, and some who don’t. Believing or not believing this particular impossible thing doesn’t seem to make all that much difference.

But in our gospel this morning, Mary hears of an impossible thing that will not happen without her cooperation, without her “Yes.”

We Protestants have tended to diminish Mary, at times overreacting to what we have seen as unsupportable doctrines of the Catholic Church. But Luke presents Mary to us a both disciple and prophet. Confronted with God’s impossible plans, she scarcely objects, exhibiting a faith more trusting than that of Moses and many other heroes of the Old Testament. “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

And having said “Yes” to the impossible, the prophet Mary begins to see the impossible unfold. When she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, she sings of how God has “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. (God) has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. Not God will, but God has. Mary has said yes to the impossible, and it is now a part of her. She experiences it as present in her life.

As Christmas draws near, we bring out some of those other impossible things that Christians proclaim. We remember a baby in a manger, shepherd in the fields, and we join with the angels in their impossible song of “Peace on earth.”

Of course we don’t believe that impossible thing, at least not in a way that makes any real difference in our lives. We sing of peace on earth, of a prince of peace, but we know that peace can be maintained only by the best military money can buy. And so even as our nation staggers under huge debt, talk of significant cuts in military spending is, well, impossible.

Meister Eckhart, a German priest and mystic who live in the 14^th century once spoke of how, like Mary, we are all called to become part of the impossible thing that God is doing. He said, “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” And it requires our “Yes” for that to happen. Mary must say “Yes” to the impossible, and so must we.

Christmas celebrates the results of Mary’s “Yes,” but all too often it stops there. It forgets that when we say our “Yes,” and the Spirit comes upon us, we become part of God’s impossible plan as well. We begin to see and live out that new, impossible thing, the reign of God that Jesus says has drawn near.

Back in 1998, a six year old boy named Ryan learned from his First Grade teacher that many children in Africa had to walk incredible distances just to get clean water. Stunned by this, he decided that he should build a well for a village. He began raising money by doing household chores. After four months he had raised only $70 toward a $2000 well, but he kept at it, and in 1999, seven year old Ryan’s first well was completed in a Ugandan village. Since then, the foundation begun by Ryan, now a 20 year old college student, has completed 667 water and sanitation projects in 16 countries.[1]

Perhaps if Ryan had been older and “wiser,” he would have known better, known that this was an impossible task for a little boy with no money. But being a child, he was more open to the impossible that many of us are. And maybe that’s why God’s impossible plan begins with a 15 year old girl named Mary, who wasn’t old enough to know better.

What impossible thing of God is just waiting for your “Yes?”

[1] See http://www.ryanswell.ca/

Spiritual Hiccups - Lamps Trimmed and Burning

2011-12-15T13:04:00.000-05:00

There's an old African-American spiritual that is one of my favorite Advent anthems. It's called "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning," and you can find it on YouTube performed by choirs, The White Stripes, and 1920s gospel/blues icon Blind Willie Johnson. The piece comes from the parable Jesus tells in today's gospel. He begins, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps."

Jesus' parable is about the pose of the faithful between the time of his resurrection and his return, but most times I've heard this passage preached or taught the readiness Jesus speaks of has been disconnected from the Kingdom. It is no longer about Jesus or God's reign coming, but about our going. "You never know when you might die, so you'd better be ready."

It seems somewhat odd to me that even though many Christians pray the Lord's Prayer on a regular basis (When I was growing up the sports teams I played on prayed it before every game.), the first petition of that prayer seems almost forgotten. Our faith is not much about "Your kingdom come on earth" but rather, "God take us to heaven when we die."

Christmas is growing close, and soon we will be singing "Glory to the newborn King." But king of what? Ruler of what? We will sing "Let earth receive her king," but we have done a pretty good job of locking Jesus up in heaven. Lord's Prayer or not, we'd rather not have Jesus running our world, or even our lives. He might tell us to give our wealth to the poor. He might say that the prostitutes and sinners are in line ahead of us. No thanks, Jesus. We'll catch you later, after we die.

I wonder what all our preparation and getting ready for Christmas might look like if we actually entertained the possibility that Jesus could show up and take his place on the throne; if we thought he might suddenly become head of the banks and armies and governments... maybe even the Church.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - At the Edge of the Picture

2011-12-14T13:11:00.002-05:00

Given America's history with slavery and race, it can sometimes be difficult to hear Jesus speak of masters and slaves as he does in today's gospel. Perhaps it helps if we change "slave" to "servant," and there is some warrant for doing that because the Greek word can mean either.

Regardless, I gained some new insight into this passage when I read Fr. Richard Rohr's meditation for today. He was speaking of a different passage Matthew when he wrote,

As Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, he will always love one and ignore the other” (Matthew 6:24). Our first and final loyalty is to one kingdom: God’s or our own. We can’t really fake it. The Big Picture is apparent when God’s work and will are central, and we are happy to take our place in the corner of the frame.

Because I am a part of the Big Picture, I do matter, and substantially so. Because I am only a part, however, I am rightly situated off to stage right—and happily so. What freedom there is in such truth! We are inherently important and included, yet not burdened with manufacturing or sustaining that private importance. Our dignity is given by God, and we are freed from ourselves!

Many of us do not like to play supporting roles. We want to be center stage, not off at the edge. (Pastors can be particularly prone to this.) Yet, as Fr. Rohr so well points out, finding our proper place in the picture is freeing. Conversely, confusion about our place creates a life that is constantly at odds with what it is meant to be.

I think that one of the joys of Christmas is getting lost in the story, the painting if you will. We are happy to stand off to the side with the shepherds and play a supporting role. For that moment, God's story is front and center, and we are content with the role of faithful servants.

But soon Christmas is over, and the baby Jesus is grown and calling us to follow him and embrace the life he teaches. But we do not always care for the role Jesus gives us. We object to our place in the Big Picture, and so we push him to the side and claim the center for ourselves.

Gracious Savior, help us to keep you at the center when the decorations are all gone. Pour out the Holy Spirit on us, that we may discover the freedom and joy of living out our place in the wonderful work of art that is your coming reign.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Magnificat - Antonio Vivaldi

2011-12-12T16:54:00.000-05:00

On the Third Sunday in Advent, the members of Boulevard's Chancel Choir were accompanied by chamber orchestra as they performed Magnificat, by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).

Video (of higher quality) also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - God's Troubled Heart

2011-12-12T13:55:00.000-05:00

The Lord is good to all,
   and his compassion is over all that he has made...
The Lord watches over all who love him,
   but all the wicked he will destroy.
                                from Psalm 145

So which is it? God loves all people and has compassion on everyone, or God's blessings are reserved for the faithful, and the wicked are going to get it? This morning's psalm seems to say both. And this is not the only place in the Bible where this tension is on display. The famous John 3:16 passage speaks of how "God so loved the world," and the following verses speak of Jesus coming not to condemn but to save. But then we immediately hear that "those who do not believe are condemned already."

There is another famous passage, this one in Hosea, that presents the tension very differently. In it God speaks of judgment against Israel for their unfaithfulness and how the Most High will not listen when the people cry out. But then, God seems to have a change of heart. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?.. My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath."

We Westerners have had our understanding of God shaped very much by Greek philosophy, and so the notion of God experiencing some sort of internal crisis is hard to fathom. Yet the Bible has no qualms about speaking of a crisis within God's interior life, a crisis that emerges over what to do about us, God's wayward human creatures.

Still, we like a God without such tensions. And so went tend to resolve them in one direction of the other. Some tend more toward the judgment side with pretty clear standards regarding heaven or hell, while others tend toward the compassion side, with God's mercy trumping judgment.

This morning I was reading in the paper about one of the local "Craigslist Killers." Two people, one a 16 year old, lured people to a rural property with the promise of a job managing a small cattle farm. But when an individual arrived, they killed him. (Three bodies have been found after one victim escaped and tipped off authorities.) This morning's article was about a letter the 16 year old had sent to his father. In it it spoke of his fear over a long prison sentence and how all his family might be dead by the time he got out, perhaps in his early 40s. But then he wrote how he couldn't believe God would let that happen to him.

I had visceral reaction to his remarks. He thinks that God will not allow him the personal trauma of being separated from his family for too long, but apparently he has no remorse for killing and robbing people who were simply looking for a job? And I quickly found myself in caught in that tension between judgment and mercy.

Sometimes I think that our fascination with Christmas is related to this tension, perhaps more precisely, with eliminating it. A baby in a manger doesn't really have much to say about mercy or judgment. A baby is sweet and innocent, evoking wonder and hope. Oohing and Ahhing over the Christ child, we can get lost in the moment and forget about such questions. Not so with the adult Jesus, who speaks of sinners entering the Kingdom and asks forgiveness for those who execute him, yet speaks of people cast into the out darkness where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but I like to credit spiritual maturity for giving me an increased willingness to live with a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to the heart of God. I'm willing to leave some things hidden within the mystery of God while I do my best to share the God I have encountered in Jesus, a God of unfathomable steadfast love and mercy, but also a God whose holiness is nothing to trifle with.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - "Happy Holidays" and Weightier Matters

2011-12-08T14:20:00.000-05:00

Given all the attention lavished on this subject, I'm not sure I need to weigh in, but while reading this morning's gospel, I could not help thinking about "Happy Holidays," Holiday Trees, and the "War on Christmas." Jesus is blessing out the scribes and Pharisees. He drops a bunch of "Woe" on them. Woe is not a big word in our world. Perhaps it would be better if we heard Jesus say, "Shame" or "Cursed" to those who sought to instruct others in matters of faith.

Jesus says to them, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."

I don't know much about tithing mint, dill, or cummin, but I have a strong suspicion that getting upset if they don't say "Merry Christmas" at Target falls into that category. Worrying about whether or not a mostly secular holiday wears a bit of Christmas window dressing strikes me as the epitome of worrying about the outside of the cup.

Sometimes I think those Puritans who settled in Massachusetts centuries ago had it right. They banned Christmas celebrations altogether. You could be arrested for not working on Christmas Day, unless it happened to fall on the Sabbath that year. I realize that this may have been an overreaction to the drunken celebrations of Christmas the Puritans knew from England, but if we'd followed their lead, we might not have the orgy of consumerism we now call Christmas.

Seems to me that people who are serious about following Jesus might be happy to divorce Christ from that consumer orgy. Leave it to Santa Claus and the shopping malls. Let us get back to the "weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith."

But I suppose that all of us at times prefer to deal with the outside of the cup, to make sure it is shiny and clean without worrying too much about the inside. Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being "full of greed and self-indulgence" on the inside. But isn't that what Christmas, at least the one at the Mall, is all about?

Before we get too distracted by mint, dill, and cummin, or by "Happy Holidays" on the banners at the local department store, maybe we ought to think for a moment about the "weightier matters" Jesus warns us not to neglect.

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Spiritual Hiccups - What Does God Want from Us?

2011-12-07T13:18:00.001-05:00

If you explore the historical origins of religious sacrifices -- burnt offerings and such -- you will discover how ancient people thought of the gods as needing such sacrifices to survive. These offerings somehow provided sustenance to gods who would die without them. In fact there is a Near Eastern flood myth with strong resemblances to the Noah story in which the gods have to end the flood because they are wasting away without these sacrifices.

Contrast that with God's speech from today's psalm.
If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and all that is in it is mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

Israel came to realize that Yahweh did not "need" people in the manner of many, ancient gods. Yahweh was no local deity who depended on the region's inhabitants. God was Lord of all, without need in any conventional sense. And that raises an interesting question. If God does not need anything from us, just what does God want from us?

One thing that becomes clear about God from the Bible is how Yahweh is an expansive God, a God who goes out from godself in love and creative energy. The first of the Creation stories in Genesis depicts a God who simply creates. God is not building something with a utilitarian purpose. Rather this is about beauty and joy and goodness. God says, "Let's create this," and God does. And it is "good," our translation of a much thicker Hebrew word meaning pleasing, excellent, enjoyable to look at, etc.

This God who seems to revel in creating, who is pleased with how it all turns out, nonetheless does not hover over that creation. God allows creation much freedom, but longs for it to be filled with the joy, and love and goodness that is a part of its beginnings. And so when creation goes awry, when the human creature goes awry, what God seems to want most is for things to be set right, for it to all be good once more.

In that sort of goodness, the powerful do not exploit the weak, people are not exploited and oppressed, no one need be poor so others can be rich, and all people recognize their dependence as creatures, beings who are remarkably made with incredible gifts and abilities, but who are still creatures dependent on their Creator for life itself.

This is the sort of world Jesus is talking about when he comes proclaiming God's Kingdom, the rule of God where creation is set right. And that brings me back around to that question of what God wants from us. It seems it is more a matter of what God wants for us. God wants us to be part of true goodness, life that is beautiful, pleasing, excellent, a joy to behold, right, and driven by love. The real question is whether or not we will trust Jesus to show us the way to such goodness.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Blame the Messenger

2011-12-06T11:26:00.000-05:00

It has not happened all that often, but on occasions someone has been upset enough with a sermon I've preached to call me up and complain. Now I've certainly preached my share of bad sermons, and no doubt I've interpreted a passage of Scripture in a manner that was not justified. But on those occasions when someone has been really agitated, their upset seemed not to be about such things.

I once preached a sermon on the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector from Luke 18. That parable contrasts a Pharisee who tries very hard to do all the God expects of him (and seems rather proud of it) with a tax collector who cannot even bring himself to raise his eyes toward heaven. He simply beats his breast and pleads, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Jesus says it is the tax collector who left the Temple in good stead with God. My sermon simply retold the parable with the characters updated to our time: a good, faithful (and proud) church goer compared with examples of people who might be considered reprobates in our day.

The next day I had a member call me, and he was irate. "Don't you realize that it is good church people who pay their pledges that keep the church going?" He caught me quite off guard, and to be honest, I don't really recall how I responded to him.

In retrospect, and following a couple of similar episodes over 15 years, I've concluded that these people were not really upset with me -- although I doubt they would admit as much. They were upset with what Jesus or Paul or some prophet had said, but directing their anger at me was much less problematic than being angry with Jesus, Paul, or the prophets.

At least I have a biblical text to shield me. The prophet Amos is on his own. Only his call from Yahweh legitimizes his words of judgment against the northern kingdom of Israel and its rulers. And so it is no surprise that those in power blame the messenger. The priest of the Temple orders Amos to leave. He may not speak at Bethel, "for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."

In a time when many people do not read their Bibles with much regularity, preaching becomes the context in which the Bible is most often heard. And I fear this leads to the message being too tied to that messenger in the pulpit. And since it's only the preacher, we are free to agree or disagree , even to be angry and upset with her or him. But if the only valid message is the one we already agree with, what power does the Word have to transform us and create us into something new?

O God, speak to us. Help us look beyond the messenger, and hear your Word.

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Sermon video - The Grass Withers... BUT

2011-12-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

Sermon videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Hearing God

2011-12-05T12:25:00.001-05:00

For the past several years, members of the congregation I serve have produced an Advent Devotional. People sign up to write devotions for each day in Advent, and these are bound in booklets. This year the devotions were tied to the Daily Lectionary, and the writers chose which of the scripture readings they would use.

This morning, as I was reading the lectionary passages as part of my own devotions, I got the strong sense that I needed to read the Advent devotion for today. I went and got the booklet, and what I read spoke directly to me in a very powerful way, and this got me thinking about how we encounter and hear God.

One of the hazards of having a profession that is intertwined with your faith is a difficulty listening to Scripture without thinking about how you might interpret a passage for teaching, preaching, or even blogging. But how am I to hear God speaking to me if I am always trying to figure out what God is saying to someone else?

One of the spiritual practices I try to engage in is something called examen. At the end of the day I reflect back, and I ask myself where I met God during the day, as well as where I may have missed God. And it is a bit disconcerting to think that being a "professional Christian" can sometimes obscure God for me.

Thank God that the voice of my faith community broke through to me. Turns out that the faith community is essential to me (and not just to pay my salary). I need the voice of others to open me to the presence of God, especially as a Christian who understands God to be incarnate in Jesus, to be "in the flesh" both in Christ and in the living body of Christ, the Church.

Presbyterians are part of a tradition that not only speaks of incarnation, but also of the "priesthood of all believers," the notion that all Christians have direct access to God and so do not need a priest to mediate that presence. But this access also means that each of us are part of the work of mediating God's presence. But as resident religious expert, it can be easy to forget this, and so to miss God in the other. But thankfully, God (with an assist from Amy) broke through my barriers of expertise.

What barriers make it hard for you to hear God? May the Spirit make all of us more open to God's presence in our midst.

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Sermon audio - The Grass Withers... BUT

2011-12-04T13:32:00.002-05:00

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Sermon text - The Grass Withers... BUT

2011-12-04T10:49:00.006-05:00

Isaiah 40:1-11

The Grass Withers… BUT

James Sledge December 4, 2011 – Advent 2

If you ever come up to my office on a weekday, there’s a good chance you will hear music playing. I have fairly eclectic musical tastes, but you’re more likely to hear some sort of rock, alternative, or indie music coming from the speakers of my computer. But despite my love of such music, I can generally do without rock groups performing Christmas music. There are exceptions, but some of my biggest musical disappointments are when a favorite group puts out a holiday song. That includes covering traditional songs, but is especially the case with original ones.

A notable exception for me is rather different holiday offering from Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. It was released way back in 1975, but it has been covered by many others, including U2 a few years back. Some have said it is an anti-religious song, but Lake claims it was a protest over the commercialization of Christmas. Regardless, the lyrics are hardly the typical cheery, holiday fare.
They said there'll be snow at Christmas. They said there'll be peace on earth.
But instead it just kept on raining; A veil of tears for the virgin's birth.
They sold me a dream of Christmas. They sold me a silent night.
And they told me a fairy story 'till I believed in the Israelite.

Like I said; not your typical holiday fare. I’ve read that Lake was surprised when the song became something of a hit. He thought people would think it anti-holiday and reject it, but it was a big seller.

I don’t know why it was a hit, but I know why it touched me, why it still touches me. It seems to strip away the manufactured cheer that has become such a big part of the Christmas season. Perhaps it could even be called a rock and roll Advent song.

Our culture’s celebration of Christmas works very hard to create warmth and good feelings, but these are usually quite fleeting. We don’t expect them to last. They will be tossed to the curb with the dried up Christmas trees, boxes, and old wrapping paper. Then we’ll have to wait until next Christmas to get that holiday spirit, that Christmas cheer, once more.

But Advent is different. It doesn’t try to hide from the world’s pain or ugliness by covering it in colorful wrapping and holiday glitter or drowning it out in cheerful sounds of the holidays. It takes full stock of how things really are, and with eyes of faith sees God moving in history. Advent anticipates what God is doing to bring something truly new.

That is the word spoken through the voice of the prophet in our reading this morning. Second Isaiah, as scholars generally refer to him, is a different prophet than the voice found in the first 39 chapters of the book we call Isaiah. That earlier Isaiah spoke of God’s coming judgment on Israel, but the words we heard this morning come from 150 years later. Babylon had crushed Judah, destroyed the city of Jerusalem including Solomon’s great Temple, and had carried off much of the population into exile. Second Isaiah speaks to those who live in exile, those who are reminded on a daily basis that their god had not protected them from the Babylonians. The Babylonians and their god Marduk, had triumphed. In the religious thought of the ancient Middle East, Marduk had triumphed over Yahweh, and now the people of Yahweh were subjects of Marduk’s people.

Into this seemingly hopeless situation, the prophet speaks. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.” To a people caught up in suffering and hopelessness, the prophet speaks of God coming to comfort, heal, and restore.

Our reading seems to depict the divine council, a heavenly court of some sort. There is a conversation going on that the prophet hears, and at one point he seems to be addressed. A voice says, “Cry out!” But the prophet is not sure such a cry will do much. After all, he knows the suffering and hopelessness of his people. So he says, “What shall I cry?”

Why should the prophet, or the Church for that matter, cry out into the pain and brokenness of the world? What good will it do? After all, people are like grass. They spring up and in a flash, they are gone. The grass withers, the flower fades. What’s the point?

One of the hard lessons I learned when I first became a pastor was that many people like Christmas a lot more than they like Advent. That’s understandable when you consider all the beloved hymns, carols, and traditions connected to Christmas. But during my first Advent as a pastor, the ink barely dry on my ordination certificate, I was too much the purist, wanting to do Advent just right and ignoring those who advised me to tread more lightly. But I learned over the years that there is nothing wrong with a few Christmas carols before Christmas, that is, during Advent.

But still, I worry that our half-hearted attempts at Advent end up diminishing the true joy of Christmas. When we refuse to engage in the reflection and repentance of Advent, viewing it as nothing more than the religious equivalent of Christmas shopping season, the hope and promise of a Messiah gets reduced to pageantry, nostalgia, and seasonal cheer. It becomes an escape from the world’s ugliness, cynicism, and hopelessness. But that is pretty much used up by January, and it’s back to life as usual, to The grass withers, the flower fades.

However, the good news spoken in the Bible, whether it is today’s words of comfort to those in Babylon, or Jesus’ words when he begins his ministry, does not seek to create a brief happy moment, a season of cheeriness that makes everything look better for a bit. The good news from God that is spoken to those in exile, to the poor and the oppressed, to those who have lost their way, calls them to new futures. And so it does not ignore the hopelessness and brokenness but addresses them directly. It insists that God will act to bring change, and it insists that we must change to be a part of it. When Jesus begins his ministry, he says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent (turn, change), and believe the good news.”

To celebrate the birth of Jesus is to say that God has entered decisively into human history, into people’s daily lives. For God to become human, for Jesus to declare a coming reign of God that so threatened the reign of the Roman empire that they killed him, is to insist that God is at work in Christ shaping human history. And to follow this Jesus is to become part of that coming reign of God, to live by his teachings so that our lives declare that the real flow of history belongs to God. It does not belong to nations or empires or multi-national corporations because Jesus is Lord, Lord of all creation, Lord even over history.

But the grass withers, the flower fades. And the world has too much pain and brokenness, too much cynicism, too much suffering. But if Christ abides in us, we know that the healing touch of God has broken into history. And while it may not happen on our timetable, God is transforming and renewing us and the world.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. And when the Word made flesh lives in our hearts, we can join with the prophet in proclaiming good tidings to a broken and hurting world. See, the Lord God comes with might… He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Spiritual Hiccups - Do As I Say

2011-11-30T11:37:00.000-05:00

One of the buzzwords among those who talk about congregational vitality and renewal is integrity. In other words, make sure people who visit your congregation see you living out what you say you believe. The charge that religious people are hypocrites has been around as long as I can remember, but in an age when religious participation is no longer expected of people, this notion that Christians are hypocrites becomes more of a burden for congregations. Integrity casts off this burden by working diligently to have our actions match our words.

Jesus speaks of this in today's gospel. A father tells his two sons to go and work in the vineyard. One says "Yes," but does not go, while the other says, "No," but later does go. Jesus is addressing religious leaders, and he clearly casts them as those who get the words right but fail to do what they should.

It strikes me that pastors are often judged more on our words than on our actions. In many congregations, members "know" the pastor primarily from her or his presence in worship. And traditionally, much of seminary training is focused on getting the words right. Do we know how to carefully study a passage of Scripture, including studying its words in their original Hebrew or Greek? Do we know our theology and doctrines? Can we piece together a compelling sermon?

Without minimizing the importance of any of these, it is entirely possible to talk the talk without walking the walk. I recently read an article about a support group for atheist pastors. These pastors at one point felt a call to ordained ministry, but somewhere along the way they lost their faith. Yet not having other marketable skills, they have remained pastors out of "financial necessity." That they are able to continue serving congregations with no one being the wiser says something about what those congregations expect of their pastors.

I've never felt a pull to become an atheist, but I do know how to encourage people to be more faithful without necessarily listening to that message myself. I know how to call people to trust their lives to God, all the while while acting like the congregation's successes or failures are purely a matter of my leadership and competence.

I feel that I have grown deeper spiritually in recent years, yet I can still neglect the walk. Those moments when things are going poorly, when I have way too much to do, or when I'm unsure what I should do, are often the very moments when I pray less (too busy) and rely on my own insights rather than seeking God's will.

I think that is why I am fond of Advent. (Advent understood as a waiting attentiveness to God's presence rather than a warmup for Christmas.) The waiting, watchful, attentive pose of Advent helps me refocus and become open to the transforming work of the Spirit that shapes me more and more for a life of integrity that matches the words.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.

Spiritual Hiccups - Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition

2011-11-29T16:22:00.001-05:00

I hope it isn't simply a "liberal bias" that makes me scratch my head in bewildered puzzlement when people who say that America's troubles arise from our failing to be a Christian nation also consider military spending to be something sacred. Which is it, we trust in God to secure us, or we trust in military might?

Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD,
     the people whom he has chosen as his heritage...
A king is not saved by his great army;
     a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
          and by its great might it cannot save.

These words from Psalm 33 are echoed in other biblical passages that insist military might cannot save. And when the prophet Amos speaks against Israel in today's Old Testament reading, it is clear that no amount of military power or might will be able to stave off the forces that will soon surround them. "Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: An adversary shall surround the land, and strip you of your defense; and your strongholds shall be plundered." No amount of human power will thwart God's will.

But the sort of faith that proclaims trust in God while insisting that spectacular military might is necessary to protect us is hardly restricted to one side of the political spectrum. How easy it is to proclaim faith in Jesus, to speak of following the good shepherd, all the while anxiously seeking to secure happiness and fulfillment through the very things Jesus shuns. Jesus says to us, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or your body, what you will wear... Instead, strive for God's kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well." Yet I can worry with the best of them: about money, about success, about what people think of me, or what could go wrong.

I suppose that I and many other people of faith are not too different from those first disciples of Jesus. We are drawn to him. We recognize something in him that we cannot find anywhere else. But when following Jesus gets difficult, we often scatter, just as those disciples did when Jesus was arrested. In our own ways, we deny him, just as Peter once did.

Of course the colossal failures of those first disciples did not stop Jesus from sending them out in his name after the Resurrection. Those fearful, timid disciples were transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, in this season of Advent, come to us in the power of the Spirit. Transform and empower us to live as the body of Christ in the world.

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Sermon video - Wide Awake

2011-11-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

Sermon videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - I Am Not a Number!

2011-11-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

In today's Old Testament reading, the prophet Amos speaks God's word of judgment against Israel saying, "I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals — they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way." That line, "the needy for a pair of sandals," appears again later in Amos. Amos is perhaps best know for his words that speak of God's hating Israel's festivals and worship, a condemnation that ends with the calls to "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." But for me, one of the more memorable lines in the Bible has always been, "the needy for a pair of sandals."

Amos clearly has little use for the wealthy and powerful who see the poor and needy as nothing more than assets to be used, items by which they can further enrich themselves. But of course economics often wants to reduce individuals to assets, to view them not as human beings but as resources. Whether it is the use of sweatshop labor or large scale corporate layoffs driven by short term profits, people often become simply numbers on a spreadsheet. Even the use of the term "human resources" as a substitute for "personnel" locates people on a balance sheet along with other raw materials used in production.

When I was growing up, there was a very strange TV show called "The Prisoner" which enjoyed a very brief run but attracted a loyal following. In the show the lead character had somehow been captured and held in a secluded community where everyone had a number. The plot line of the show consisted of his refusal to be absorbed into this culture and his continual efforts to escape. I was only 10 or so when it was on, but I still remember a line this prisoner spoke. "I am not a number!"

"Thus says the LORD, for three transgressions and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and see the needy as nothing more than a number." Over and over the prophets of the Bible, along with that New Testament prophet named Jesus, insist that God does not see people as numbers, and that God has a special concern for the weak, the vulnerable, the poor, and the needy. Jesus does not speak of bringing good news to the rich or powerful, but of good news to the poor and release to the captive.

The Church sometimes plays the numbers game, speaking of salvation as though it were another form of economics, with balance sheets where divine accounting takes place. But Jesus views people as people, as those he reaches out to touch, heal, and make whole. And like the prophets before him, he saves his ire for those who do not see others as the beloved of God, who do not extend a loving hand to those who are hurting, are broken, or have lost their way.

Jesus, thank you for not seeing me as a number, for loving me and calling me to a new and better life. Help me to see others as you see me.

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Sermon audio - Wide Awake

2011-11-27T13:21:00.000-05:00

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Sermon text - Wide Awake

2011-11-27T10:32:00.001-05:00

Mark 13:24-37

Wide Awake

James Sledge November 27, 2011 – Advent 1

When I was a young boy, I’m not sure if there was anything more exciting to me than the arrival of Christmas. Way back then, Sears still mailed out a big Christmas catalogue. And when it arrived at our house, my brother Ron and I grabbed it and began going through it, looking for items that we might want for Christmas. I think that for us, the arrival of that catalogue signaled the real beginning of the Christmas season, a more important marker than decorations in the stores, Christmas music and so on.

We went through that Sears catalogue over and over, dreaming of all the wonderful gifts we might get. Then we eventually settled on what seemed reasonable actually to ask for. Then we had to wait. But finally, after what seemed like forever, the house was decorated and presents were wrapped and put under the tree, and Christmas Eve would arrive.

My household was one of those “Nothing gets opened until Christmas morning” homes. And so the evening of Christmas Eve was filled with more anticipation than any other time of year. Before bedtime my Father would read The Night Before Christmas, along with the nativity story from Luke’s gospel. And then we would go to bed.

We would go to bed, but we didn’t go to sleep. Ron was just a year younger than me, and the two of us shared a bedroom. And how could we possibly go to sleep knowing what was about to happen. Somehow the living room was miraculously going to fill with many of those toys we had asked for. And since we shared a room, each of us reinforced and amplified the other’s excitement and anticipation. We thought every creak or sound might be reindeer on the roof or Santa coming down the chimney. And our parents would have to stick their heads in the door repeatedly, urging us to be quiet and go to sleep if we wanted Santa to show up. But it was so hard to settle down, so hard to fall asleep.

I still enjoy Christmas Eve, though it doesn’t hold quite the same level of excitement or anticipation that it did all those years ago. And so I usually go to sleep without much trouble. But other times when I am really excited about something, really anxious or worried, or really anticipating some big event, I can still find it very difficult to get to sleep.

“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” So Jesus says to us this morning. Quite the opposite of my parents’ words to Ron and me, “Go to sleep!” Jesus urges his followers to stay awake. If my parents had told us, “Keep awake,” we probably never would have gone to sleep. Jesus clearly was dealing with a very different problem.

Modern day Christians don’t have much appreciation for this, but in Jesus’ day, most Jews assumed that the arrival of God’s Messiah would usher in a new age, something so wonderful it would be like Christmas morning every day. The prophets had spoken of it, a day when people would beat their swords into plowshares… the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

But that had not happened quite as people expected. Jesus had come, died, and been raised, but the world still looked the same. The very first Christians assumed that this was a very short delay, a brief window where they could share the good news with the world. But the window would close when Jesus returned. And if you read the letters of Paul, it is clear he thought that would happen within his lifetime.

In our gospel today, Jesus warns against such assumptions. The final closing of this age and the coming of a new one are known only to the Father. And so we should not listen to those who claim to have figured it out. When God’s day begins to arrive in full, no one will be able to miss it. It will be as clear as the arrival of Spring. Until then, we must simply stay alert and keep awake.

But while staying awake when you are giddy with excitement is easy, it is less so when you don’t know when the moment you are awaiting will arrive. When one day looks a lot like the next, it can become more and more difficult.

I suppose that is why some Christians are forever ignoring what Jesus says and trying to figure out the timing of his return. Harold Camping’s rather spectacular failure earlier this year was only the latest in a long history of such failed predictions. Camping’s prediction – at least the one back in May of this year – generated the sort of anticipation and excitement among his followers that my brother and I felt at Christmas. People quit jobs, sold or gave away property and homes in expectation of the rapture Camping promised was coming. But just as Jesus said, such predictions are inevitably wrong, for no one knows the day or hour.

Today, another season of Advent opens, and the anticipation of another Christmas begins. As with Harold Camping’s predictions, we know exactly the date and time for Christmas. We have a lot of stuff to do to get ready, and we may struggle to get it all done, but Christmas will not catch us off guard. We will be ready when it arrives. Perhaps that is why Advent had become almost entirely about getting ready for Christmas. After all, how do we get ready for something we do not fully understand, that comes at an unknown day and hour?

I actually think that this question grapples with some fundamental issue about the nature of faith. Think about that for a moment. What is faith? What does it mean when we say that we have faith?

The fact that Protestant Christianity grew up alongside the Enlightenment and the Scientific Age probably contributed to the notion of faith as largely about information. And our focus on faith rather than works seemed create a new sort of work, believing the right things, knowing the correct information.

But as worked up as people can get about right beliefs; as hard as some may work to convince others of them, a growing number of people seem to have become disenchanted with such notions of faith. Rather than wanting to know the right beliefs, they want to know, “What difference does faith make in how I live? What difference does it make in how I experience life?” And while an Advent that only gets ready for another Christmas may believe the right things what once happened long ago, I’m not sure it knows what to say to those who wonder what difference any of this is supposed to make.

Most all of us are familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But where did that dream come from? For King it emerged from a deep life of faith and prayer. His faith was not simply information he believed correct. Rather it was a deep connection to God and the promises of God that looked forward to something new and wonderful. You can have all the right information, and not dream the dream. The dream is a transforming hope that is known and felt despite evidences to the contrary. It drives people to live and act in ways that anticipate the dream’s fulfillment, to be wide awake with anticipation even though the day and the hour are unknown.

In his last speech, just one day before he was assassinated, King said, “I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.”

That’s Advent faith. That’s wide-awake faith that lives expectantly for a day with no announced arrival. You could memorize the Bible and know every theological doctrine Presbyterians hold dear, and be no nearer to such a faith. Such faith comes only when Jesus abides in us, when the Holy Spirit transforms us, when we become so connected to God that God’s hopes and dreams for a new day begin to become ours.

It’s Advent once more. We light Advent candles and get ready for Christmas like we do every year. Some of us have done it so many times we could do it in our sleep. But Jesus says, “Keep awake.”

Jesus, come and dwell with us. Let us see the promised land of your new day, that we may get ready for it, work for it, and anticipate its coming like excited children on Christmas Eve. Come, Lord Jesus.

Spiritual Hiccups - Gratitude and Praise

2011-11-23T11:06:00.003-05:00

O sing to the LORD a new song;
     sing to the LORD, all the earth.
Sing to the LORD, bless his name;
     tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
     his marvelous works among all the peoples.
For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
     he is to be revered above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
     but the LORD made the heavens.

There was an interesting article in The New York Times yesterday on gratitude. It referenced research on gratitude that demonstrates how practicing gratitude actually has health benefits that are scientifically measurable. People who made weekly entries in a "gratitude journal," listing five things they were grateful for, reported being happier and more optimistic than a control group who kept no such journal. They also reported less physical ailments and exercised more. In addition, the fell asleep easier, slept longer, and awoke more refreshed.

Gratitude and praise are closely related. Genuinely praising God comes out of a gratitude for the goodness and blessing of God. Gratitude and praise are not about getting something from God. They are responses to what God has already done. Very often, religious practice gets this mixed up. It becomes something done to get a benefit, whether it be salvation, blessings, answered prayer, or some other desire. This sort of religion worships one of the "gods of the peoples" noted in the psalm, idols that can be managed for out benefit.

But true praise and gratitude have no such utilitarian purposes. Rather they acknowledge the reality of God's goodness and providence. And as the research in that NY Times article pointed out, gratitude is a practice that can be picked up and learned. When we take time to look around at all the gifts we have received, we can become more grateful people and, it turns out, much happier people.

Tomorrow many of us will pause between the food, football, and start of Christmas shopping to give thanks. But perhaps we should also begin a more regular practice of giving thanks. What are you thankful for?

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Spiritual Hiccups - Fully Alive

2011-11-22T12:27:00.000-05:00

When I read and savor Scripture, not planning to write a sermon or teach a class, I frequently find myself drawn to something that I had not noticed before. That happened today with the reading from Matthew. A rich young man asks Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” I already knew how Jesus would answer, but for some reason it had never occurred to me how this answer seems at odds with some basic Christian assumptions. "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”Nothing about believing in Jesus. Nothing about faith. Simply, "keep the commandments."

Of course the story doesn't end there. The young man says that he has kept the commandments, and considering that Jesus doesn't dispute this, I'm inclined to take it as a statement of fact. (It is worth noting that keeping the commandments doesn't necessarily mean never making a mistake or slipping up. It means being committed to keeping them, confessing when you fail, and continually striving to follow them. It's likely this understanding that allows the Apostle Paul to say of himself, "as to the law, blameless.")

And so it seems this young man has kept the commandments Jesus says will let him "enter into life," but for some reason he feels this is insufficient. "What do I still lack?" Despite his initial question being about eternal life, he is unsatisfied with being told he is doing what is required. For some reason, he feels there must be something more.

"If you wish to be perfect..." I'm not sure the translators do us any favors with the word perfect. The word conjures up notions of impossible flawlessness, complete purity without defect. We all know that "No one is perfect." But the Greek word translated perfect has to do with attaining an end or purpose. The word could be translated complete, whole, or even mature. In essence, Jesus seems to being saying to this fellow, "If you truly wish to be fully human, to become what you were created to be, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

A lot of us who are religious strike me as being a bit like this young man. We meet our religious obligations and presume we are included on the heavenly guest list. But quite often, we get the feeling that we are missing something. We are not quite complete, fulfilled, and whole. We are looking for something more, but like this rich young man, we struggle to trust that Jesus knows the way. We simply cannot imagine that loving our enemy, losing our lives for the sake of the kingdom, or giving up very much of what we have will make us fully alive. Our culture has done too good a job of teaching us that to be complete and fully alive, we need more, lots more.

Our world is full of spiritually hungry people who realize they are missing something. But conditioned by our consumerist culture, they presume this longing they feel can only be satisfied with something more. Thus they imagine religion to be just another consumer item. And all too often, we in the Church present faith to them as such.

On the week of Thanksgiving, when many of us will revel in an unbelievable abundance of food, then head for the malls in a consumerist frenzy, it is perhaps a counter-cultural act of faith to contemplate what we need to give up in order to be whole and complete. Lord, what do I still lack?

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Sermon video - Vision Problems

2011-11-21T16:45:00.000-05:00

Sermon videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Anxious and Busy

2011-11-21T13:42:00.000-05:00

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from God comes my salvation.
God alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

For better or worse, pastors in Protestant Churches are often viewed as the CEO of the congregation. People look to the pastor for direction and leadership. And while pastors do have a critical leadership role to play, the CEO model sometimes builds congregations too much in the pastor's image and undermines the notion that Christ alone is Head of the Church.

Pastors seeing themselves as corporate CEOs can also be a great anxiety producer. If the congregation rises or falls on my skills as a CEO, then it all depends on me. I had better do the right things, say the right things, give the correct instructions, run the institution efficiently and effectively, organize the structures for optimum performance, and so on, or things could go badly. And I suspect that this sort of thinking is one of the reasons that pastors report significantly higher levels of stress in their work than they did a generation ago.

One of the things I have learned as a pastor is that stress and anxiety make me a much worse leader. When I am anxious, I tend to be more reactive. Under the right (wrong?) conditions, anxiety can morph into upset and even anger. Anxiety also leads to a kind of frantic busyness. There is never enough time to get it all done; never enough hours in the day. A common lament among pastors is how this busyness squeezes out time for prayer, time for quietness and silence, time for stillness and Sabbath.

Congregations sometimes encourage pastoral busyness. I recently heard a story about a church member who came to see the pastor during the week and was told that the pastor was in time of prayer not to be disturbed unless it was a dire emergency. The member insisted on seeing the pastor, and informed him that he should pray on his own time.

Of course such pastoral busyness cuts us off from God and makes leadership more about us and less about Jesus. If prayer is not part of a pastor's work, how on earth will that work be attuned to Christ's call? And how will our leadership call others to a deeper, fuller relationship with Jesus? How will congregations be places people come to learn a deep faith and spirituality, if the pastors are too busy to wait silently for God?

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Sermon audio - Vision Problems

2011-11-20T15:19:00.000-05:00

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Sermon text - Vision Problems

2011-11-20T10:28:00.001-05:00

Matthew 25:31-46

Vision Problems

James Sledge November 20, 2011 – Christ the King

There are a number of fairy tales and fables where a king, a wizard, or someone of great wealth travels about incognito in order to mingle among the common people. In many of these the clothing of a beggar is the disguise of choice. So dressed, the king asks some subject, “Could you spare a morsel of food for a poor beggar?”

The hero of such fables is invariably a good and kind-hearted peasant who has almost nothing, but who willingly shares what little he has with this person he thinks to be a destitute beggar. Only later does the peasant discover the truth when he is richly rewarded for his kindness.

Such tales sometimes include another person who treats the supposed beggar badly. When the beggar’s true identity is later revealed, it is too late. Any kindness now shown is clearly motivated by the possibility of reward.

There is an old Jewish folk tale where a young rabbi wanted more than anything else to meet Elijah the prophet. (Elijah, unlike other people in the Old Testament, had not died but had been taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.) The father of this young rabbi told him that if he diligently studied the Torah with his whole heart, he would indeed meet Elijah.

The young rabbi studied diligently for a month, but did not meet Elijah. He complained to his father, but the father only scolded his impatience and told him to keep studying. One evening as the rabbi was hard at his studies, a tramp came to his door.

The fellow was disgusting to look at; the young rabbi had never seen an uglier man in all his life. Annoyed at having been interrupted by such an unsavory character, the rabbi shooed the man away and returned to his studying.

The next day his father came and asked if he had seem Elijah yet. “No,” replied the son.

“Did no one come here last night,” asked the father.

“Yes,” replied the rabbi. “An old tramp.”

“Did you wish him ‘shalom aleikhem’?” asked the father, referring to the traditional greeting meaning “Peace be upon you.”

“No,” said the rabbi.

“You fool,” cried his father. “Didn’t you know that that was Elijah the Prophet? But now it’s too late.” The tale goes on to say that for the rest of his life, the rabbi always greeted strangers with “Shalom aleikhem,” and treated them with great kindness.[1]

The parable of final judgment that Jesus tells us this morning is a bit like such folk tales, and like such tales, Jesus’ parable has long been used to encourage people to act with kindness and charity to those in need, to “the least of these.” Used this way, the parable is a powerful reminder of how we should live and act, a reminder of Jesus’ call to love our neighbor as ourselves.

But I wonder if there is not more than moral encouragement here, more than a Christian ethic. For starters, those judged in the parable are “the nations,” the ethnos in Greek. Most other places in Matthew’s gospel this word refers to Gentiles, and at the very end of Matthew, Jesus will command his disciples and the Church to make disciples of all these nations or Gentiles. And so one way to read this parable is that it speaks of the judgment of outsiders, non-believers who unwittingly minister to Jesus. If this is so, then it makes sense that these Gentiles would be surprised to be counted among those who inherit the kingdom.

But we Christians should not be caught off guard by this. After all, Jesus lets us in on the secret right here. And indeed as followers of Jesus we are privy to much information that outsiders may not know. After all, we are joined to Christ. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have been transformed so that we can see things from a different point of view, a spiritual point of view. When the Spirit dwells in us we become something new. We are made new in Christ as we experience the incarnation within us, as we live in and through Christ.

Last week we kicked off our annual food and toy drive as part of the Deacons’ Community Christmas Packages that will deliver food and gift certificates and presents for children’s to hundreds of needy families in our area. This effort will be supported by many who are not part of this congregation, who see a need and want to help. Perhaps some of them are among those Jesus will say to, “I was hungry, and you gave me food.”

But we need not wait until then to see Jesus face to face, to minister to Jesus and be ministered to by Jesus. That face that you see at the apartment door when you deliver one of the Deacons’ baskets is the face of Jesus. For that matter, the face next to you right now is the face of Jesus, as is the person next to you at work or at school, the person you see on the street or meet at the store.

“Whoa,” someone is no doubt thinking. “Jesus is telling a parable. It’s a metaphor, for goodness sake.” But I don’t think so. At the very core of our faith is God in the flesh. We know God most fully as a human being, as a person who ate and drank and slept and sweated and burped and had body odor. And when we say that we can’t possibly meet God in a single mom on food stamps, it seems to me we have the exact same vision problem that many religious folks in Jesus’ day had. They couldn’t see God in Jesus because of who he was and how he acted. He came from that God forsaken town of Nazareth, for heaven’s sake. He went to parties and drank with riff raff and sinners. No way he was the face of God.

I’m not sure we can actually see God’s face in unless the Holy Spirit gives us eyes that can see such things. And I don’t think we can really see Jesus in the face of others unless the Spirit heals our vision problems.

I suspect that most of us have known someone whose spiritual vision is better than ours. We tend to think that such folk are just kinder than us, more sensitive and caring than us, and I guess there is some truth to that. But I’m pretty sure that the folks like this that I know see better than I do. They see someone hurting or in need, and they really see Jesus. And in the strange ways of God, those people can actually meet Jesus in them.

In just a few minutes, we will ordain and install ruling elders and deacons to help guide us in living as the body of Christ. The nominating committee, in identifying these people, carefully considered the gifts and abilities that God would surely give to those called to such ministry. As these elders and deacons answer Christ’s call today, I hope you will join me in holding them in prayer, asking the Spirit to equip and strengthen them for that calling. But I think that most of all, my prayer will be that the Spirit gives them the eyes they need to see Jesus.

[1] From “The Tramp” in Ellen Frankel, The Classic Tales: 4000 Years of Jewish Lore (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc. 1993) pp. 604-605.

Spiritual Hiccups - O Lord, It's Hard To Be Humble

2011-11-17T13:49:00.006-05:00

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Over the years, there have been countless suggestions concerning what it means to "become like children," as Jesus says we must do. The innocence of children is sometimes suggested, although anyone who has ever raised a child might say that the illusion of such innocence is hard to maintain past infancy. It seems likely that childhood in Jesus' day was understood far differently than in ours, and this likely makes for additional difficulty in understanding what Jesus asks of us.

Jesus does offer us a clue when he adds, "humble like this child." But of course humility is not much admired in our world, in children or adults. We learn at an early age that we must draw attention to ourselves if we're going to get ahead. There are books and seminars that tell you how to make your résumé stand out or how to make sure your college application gets noticed amidst all the others.

But Jesus seems to think that children are humble, and I suspect they were much more so in that day. Children in First Century Palestine had no power. They were totally dependent on parents. They had no disposable income. Very often their worth was understood more in terms of potential than intrinsic. Such a status might make me humble, too.

The English word "humble" comes from the same Latin root as humus, referring to earth or soil. I suppose this has connotations of lowliness, but it also speaks of the earthiness that is part of our created nature. We don't need the Bible to tell us that we are dust and we shall return to dust. But for the gift of life, we are simply organic material, humus.

But God has made us but a little lower than angels, says Psalm 8. God has given us amazing gifts and abilities, and those who realize how dependent they are on God for these understand something about humility. And they tend to deflect attention from self and toward God. Who we are "in Christ" becomes more important than who we are on our own, and our lives point beyond ourselves to Jesus.

This requires a fundamental shift for many of us. We are so used to saying, "Look at me; look at me!" It is so difficult to speak as John the Baptist does of Jesus when he says, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Humility is not about being a doormat for others. Jesus speaks of himself as humble, and his power and authority are obvious, even to his opponents. But in his ministry, Jesus always points people beyond himself to the Father. The earthly, human Jesus is totally focused on God's will rather than his own.

That is often very difficult for me, just as it is difficult for me to trust Jesus when he says, "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life more my sake will find it." Can that really be true? Can losing my life in Christ truly heal me and make me whole? Jesus, give me the confidence and faith to know it is so, and live in ways that reveal you to the world.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Getting It Right

2011-11-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

This Sunday in worship, we will celebrate Christ the King, and we will also ordain and install elders and deacons to lead the ministry, mission, and spiritual life of our congregation. As we do so, they will respond to a number of "constitutional questions," including one that asks, "Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?"

Over the years I have had prospective elders or deacons express concern about some of the other questions they will answer. But I've never heard anyone express any reservations about this question. Who wouldn't want the church to be more peaceful, unified, and pure? Who wouldn't want a congregation to look less like the broken world we live in and more like the community God calls us to be?

But in practice, this question may be the most difficult one to live into. This difficulty arises because seeking peace often sacrifices purity, seeking purity often throws out unity, and so on.

In today's reading from Ezra, the focus is very much on purity. Ezra has condemned Israel for marrying foreign wives, for incurring guilt before God by marrying those whose religious practices are "abominations" and so polluting the purity of the faith. Ezra has the commandments on his side as he chastises the people, leading them to "send away all these wives and their children." In a day when women were totally dependent on men for protection and provision, this may well have been a death sentence to many of these mothers and children. But in the name of purity...

Interestingly, the Old Testament contains another book where one of these foreign wives is lifted up as a paragon of virtue and faith. Ruth, who like Ezra has a short biblical book named for her, is a foreign wife who is celebrated and who is great-grandmother to King David. Even more interesting, some scholars think the book of Ruth was written in the same period when Ezra was encouraging the sending away of such women.

We people of faith often worry a great deal about getting the rules correct. My own denomination's decades long wrangling over whether or not to ordain gays and lesbians is a good case in point. For people on both sides, this issue became the purity line in the sand, a line of such importance that it justified sacrificing peace and unity.

I sometimes wonder about my denomination's (and my own) desire to read Scripture carefully in order to construct a clear theology that covers all the bases. Don't get me wrong, I do think that deducing some sort of theology is necessary and even unavoidable. All people have some sort of theology, some notion of what God is like and what difference that makes for their lives. But it seems to me that any biblical theology has to leave room for a fair amount of ambiguity and tension. "Getting it right" cannot become the god we serve. Even Jesus, speaking in today's gospel reading, tells Peter that he does not owe the temple tax, that he is free of its requirement. Yet he also tells Peter to procure the coin for the tax and pay it, "so that we do not give offense to them."

It very often seems to me that the Presbyterian passion for theology tends to squeeze out the Spirit. We prefer clear conclusions and guidelines, well crafted order, over the wind of the Spirit "that blows where it chooses."

And so I really like that ordination question which insists that getting it right means furthering "the peace, unity, and purity of the church." Not one of them, but all of them. Seems that getting it right often means balancing somewhat contradictory calls and living faithfully within that tension and ambiguity.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Save Us!

2011-11-15T13:02:00.001-05:00

It has been interesting - sometimes even comical - watching the ever changing polls on the Republican presidential front runner. Romney, to many the presumed, eventual winner, tends to stay near the top, but others take their turn surging to favorite status and then falling into disfavor. Newt Gingrich is now on his second ride toward the top, having previously crashed, burned, and been given up for dead by many.

I suppose that much of this is simply the normal political process. A fresh face catches people's attention and generates excitement, but then the person's flaws and liabilities become more evident, and he or she falls from grace. But I also think something else is at work. We want someone to save us. We want someone to fix things and make them right. We're looking for a savior, but of course no one can live up to such expectations.

Whether the savior we embrace promises to take back America or restore hope, whether they are Republican, Democratic, or Libertarian, they end up disappointing us to some degree. President Obama's campaign has already acknowledged that they do not expect to energize students they way they did in 2008. Too many have become disenchanted with their savior.

Do not put your trust in princes,
     in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
     on that very day their plans perish.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
     whose hope is in the LORD their God.

We live in difficult times, and we want someone to save us. Very often it seems we want someone to save us from ourselves. We want someone who promises to fix things without it costing us anything, goring our ox, or requiring hard work and sacrifice from us. Others need to provide that.

Sometimes I think that we put our trust in candidates because putting our trust in God means following Jesus. It means becoming different from what we are now, being transformed so that we look and act more and more like Jesus. That looks too much like work. Surely there is another solution. Surely there is an ideology that will solve everything. Surely enough money and things will make life good. Surely making sure all of my needs are met will make me feel complete. Surely there is some answer that doesn't ask me to change.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, who have discovered new life by letting go of the old life and becoming new beings in Christ.

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Sermon video - Hearts on Fire

2011-11-14T12:27:00.000-05:00

Sermon videos also available on YouTube.

Spiritual Hiccups - Mountaintop Experience

2011-11-14T11:52:00.000-05:00

If you're the religious or spiritual sort, you likely cherish mountaintop experiences. I know I do. Those moments when God's presence is vivid and God's will for me clear are touchstones in my faith walk. Recalling them sometimes can keep me going in those all too frequent times when God's presence is less vivid and God's will less clear. And sometimes I would like to reconnect to such moments, especially if I'm in something of a spiritual dry spell.

Such a desire is natural, but it can have its pitfalls. It can long for religious/spiritual experience for the sake of that experience. I take it that Peter's desire to memorialize the mountaintop experience reported in today's gospel is something along those lines, plans for a physical connection to that moment that would allow him to reconnect with the unbelievable vision he has just seen. But his plans are interrupted by the divine voice which commands Peter (and us?), "Listen to him!" that is to Jesus.

And so I find myself reflecting on the place of religious experience this morning. I cannot imagine a faith of much consequence without some such experience. But I also have met a few people who seem to be addicted to such experiences, who spend much of their time cultivating them. (Some of the more negative stereotypes about "spirituality" are related to such folks.

In his devotion for today, Father Richard Rohr says this. "When you see people going to church and becoming smaller instead of larger, you have every reason to question whether the practices, sermons, sacraments, or liturgies are opening them to an authentic God experience." I suspect the same can be said of attempts to cultivate religious experience simply for its own sake. Such experience is meant to enlarge us so that we go deeper into relationship with God as well as with those around us.

Sometimes I just want my "God fix." Thankfully, Jesus usually finds a way to draw me out of such self centered spirituality. Jesus, help me listen for your voice, calling me to my vocation in the valley.

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Sermon audio - Hearts on Fire

2011-11-13T13:12:00.001-05:00

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Sermon text - Hearts on Fire

2011-11-13T10:20:00.003-05:00

Matthew 25:14-30

Hearts on Fire

James Sledge November 13, 2011

For most of my life I have thought of banks as some of the more conservative institutions around. By conservative I don’t mean politically conservative. Rather I’m using a more basic definition of preserving and conserving what exists. This sort of conservatism makes changes only after very careful consideration. The default decision is the tried and true, what has worked well in the past. This sort of conservatism has little use for the novel, and it does not take unnecessary risk.

To me, banks and bankers epitomized this sort of thinking. At least they did until the financial collapse of 2008. When the financial markets tumbled a few years ago, we discovered that those staid bankers had abandoned their traditional conservatism. Far from fearing the novel, they had embraced all sorts of creative and innovative investment vehicles. There seemed to be no worries that some of the more exotic, mortgage-based investments could fail. People acted as though big profits were simply guaranteed. But then it all came tumbling down.

But if the image of bankers as cautious, prudent, careful, and risk-averse folks disappeared in that 2008 economic collapse, another group still has its cautious, conservative, careful image fully intact; the typical Mainline church congregation.

We don’t reject all innovation and novelty. We have a somewhat contemporary worship service here, after all. But of course traditional Presbyterian congregations generally didn’t adopt such services until they had been a huge success for many years in other, non-traditional congregations.

I let The Presbyterian Hymnal plop open in my lap. I flipped through a few pages, seeing more dates from the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s than from 1900s, the century in which that hymnal was published. And the couple of hymns I saw from the 1900’s were set to hymn tunes from earlier centuries. This is not necessarily a criticism or a complaint. There were some wonderful hymns on those pages. And our economy would probably be in much better shape right now if bankers had retained a bit more of this sort of conservatism seen reflected in our hymnal, the conserving of what exists, changing it only after careful consideration.

Issues of caution, prudence, careful and risk-averse investing are on display in our gospel reading this morning as well. A master is about to leave for an extended time, and so he turns over his investments to several of his slaves. Perhaps this spreading around of his portfolio was his idea of diversification.

There is a tendency to flatten parables and miss their many facets, reducing them to fables with a simple message. In the case of this parable, that often becomes, “Use your talents wisely.” But such a “moral of the story” ignores much in the parable. For example, the third slave is called “wicked and lazy” by his master, an assessment often accepted without question. But that master does not refute the slave’s assessment that he is “a harsh man, reaping where (he) did not sow.”

Other, perhaps more illuminating facets of the parable relate to the wealth entrusted to each slave and the huge returns earned by the first two compared with the simple preserving of the principle by the third slave. Here, the term talent sometimes gets in the way, as does our unfamiliarity with the financial options available in Jesus’s day.

For the first hearers of the parable, a talent was a large sum of money, and nothing more. In fact it was equal to fifteen or twenty years wages for a laborer. And those first hearers had never seen a local Savings and Loans or bank as we know them. There were money changers where you could invest money, but there were no regulations or government guarantees. The only really safe thing to do with money in those days was to hide it.

Perhaps it would help if we updated a few elements in the parable. We could change it so that the CEO of a large investment firm has decided to take an extended vacation. And so he summoned several of his money managers and told them to take care of his portfolio. To one he gave 10 million dollars, to another he gave 5 million, and to a third, 1 million. The first manager wheeled and dealed and made another 10 million. The second did much the same, doubling his portion. But the third manager didn’t have all that much to play with, and so he opted to put it into a very secure, interest-bearing money market account.

Or look at it another way. Think about what you would do if it was your money. Would you have taken the more risky investments, or would you have played it safe?

This parable has so many facets, I’m not always sure where to focus my attention. On the one hand, the freedom and abandon that allowed those first two slaves to make risky investments and double what was entrusted to them has a powerful attraction. What was it that let them act as they did?

But the parable itself spends much of its time with the third slave, the one who did the prudent and cautious thing. Since the parable focuses so much on him, I suppose I should at least wonder what it was about him that makes him the bad guy in the story, even though he did exactly what many prudent people of Jesus’ day likely would have done.

“Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your money in the ground.”

“So I was afraid.” Seems to me that religion often has a great deal of fear in it. “Do you want to burn in hell?” Even the much friendlier, “Do you want to be saved?” carries with it implied fear. What happens if you’re not? And denominations’ and churches’ hard fought efforts and battles to get our theology just right seems to have more than a little fear involved. What might happen if we got it wrong?

The Bible says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” but in this parable the fear of the master is the downfall of this slave. By contrast, his two fellow slaves seem to have no fear at all. They took some pretty serious risks, acting as though they could not fail.

Where in your life have you thrown caution to the wind and acted as if risk did not matter? Where have you broken free from caution and prudence and risked it all? Perhaps you once fell in love, or are in love now, and you did things or are doing things that would have seemed crazy and foolish before. Maybe some passion once caught you and swept you up, and you threw yourself into it in a way you cannot imagine doing now. Or perhaps you’re caught up in just such a passion right now.

Is it possible to fall in love with God, to be swept off your feet by Jesus so that you act with wild abandon, dance like no one is watching, and look foolish to those who do not understand such passion? Is it possible for the pull of Jesus to grab you and overpower you, draw you in so that you act in ways you never knew were possible?

Is that possible, Jesus? We are here, Jesus. We are waiting. Will you come into our hearts and set them on fire? We are here, Jesus. We are waiting. Come to us.

Spiritual Hiccups - Signs of the Times

2011-11-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

Jesus clearly upset a lot of people during his earthly ministry. If Jesus had just sat around and taught a handful of followers some timeless spiritual truths, no one would have felt the need to get rid of him, to kill him. But Jesus troubled people. His talk of a coming kingdom could not help but catch the attention of the Romans. Alternate kings and kingdoms were not tolerated by Rome. And Jesus' words of good new to the poor and oppressed also threatened the economic system on which Rome rested.

But Jesus also seems to have been a religious threat to some of his fellow Jews. Jesus remained a faithful Jew his entire life. He went to synagogue and made a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Yet the established religious institutions were bothered by him. Whether it was priestly Judaism that had closely aligned itself with Roman power, or synagogue Judaism, Jesus posed a problem.

It is interesting to speculate on whether or not Jesus had any intention of starting a new religion. I think not. In a manner not completely different from Martin Luther unintentionally starting the Reformation, Jesus came to call his people into a fuller experience of God's presence, and into a life shaped by God's coming dominion. But established religious institutions found that a threat to patterns of life that had become treasured, deeply ingrained, and presumed to be integral parts of a life of faith.

A fundamental problem with religion is that, over time, it is inclined to replace faith in God with faith in its teachings about and methods connected to God. Its traditions and habits become holy, and they are worshiped. This holiness makes it difficult, even impossible, to toss habits and traditions even when they no longer are appropriate, when they no longer fit the times.

Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being unable to "interpret the signs of the times," perhaps words somewhat akin to Bob Dylan's once insisting that "the times they are a changing." And I wonder if we are any better at reading the signs of the times now that religious folks were in Jesus' day.

It has become the religious mantra of a generation. "I'm spiritual but not religious." Sometimes this is nothing but a cop out, a narcissism that acknowledges a desire for God but has no interest in dealing with the messiness inherent in all communities. It wants God without neighbor. It wants God divorced from bodies and the incarnation.

But this mantra can also be an indictment of a Church that has lost its way. It can be the sincere statement of those who long for God, but are unable to find God at Church. They find traditions and practices that are related to God. They find lots of information about God. But God seems to be missing.

I believe that when we in the Church dismiss all those who are spiritual but not religious, lumping them altogether in the camp of individualistic narcissists, we misread the signs of the times. And we miss the Spirit speaking to us, calling us to refocus our faith life on Christ's living presence with us. We ignore the Spirit seeking to transform us into new creations, those who have died to old lives and false selves, and have discovered new life in Christ.

Jesus says that for the new to be born the old must give way. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Interpreting the signs of the times requires discerning what needs to die so that something more wonderful can be born. And unless we think our congregations and our world have fully embodied God's coming Kingdom, there is still much to come, and so still much that must die.

Jesus, help me be among those who can read the signs of the times.

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Spiritual Hiccups - When They Cry

2011-11-09T12:34:00.001-05:00

God gives to the animals their food,
and to the young ravens when they cry.

Psalm 147:9

Both my church upbringing and my seminary training shaped me to look at Scripture in a certain way. And while this way highly esteems the Bible, even treating it as God's self revelation, it often acts as though God's revelation were a fixed thing embedded in the text. Handled this way, once you have figured out what a Scripture passage says and means, you "know" it. I and other pastors sometimes lament when certain readings show up in the Sunday lectionary for preaching. "What more is there to say on this?" we ask.

In more recent years, I have been introduced to different ways of approaching Scripture, things such as lectio divina. This spiritual or holy reading of a Bible text is less interested in understanding what the text "means" and more focused on praying Scripture. Part of this involves reading in a contemplative pose, paying attention to words or phrases in a text that stick out or claim your attention. These words or phrases may or may not have much to do with "the meaning of the text," but they may be the way God speaks to you.

I won't claim to be terribly good at this practice. (My long proficiency with the sort of reading practiced at seminary often gets in the way.) But I still find that I often experience God much more directly in lectio divina than in more formal ways of reading Scripture.

Reading Psalm 147 today, I found myself drawn to the last portion of the verse shown above, "when they cry." For all I know the author of this psalm included this line simply to make the poetry work. It may have had no particular significance beyond that, but still I found myself drawn to the line, captured by it in some way... when they cry.

I sometimes cry to God, but usually only when I've gotten pretty frustrated, only when things are going the way I think they should. When I have done my best and not gotten the expected results, I will sometimes cry to God, but that seems to me totally different from what I envision those young ravens doing.

When young ravens cry, and for that matter when human infants cry, there is a profound dependence on those who hear the cry. But as adults, we learn to take care of ourselves. God is like the hammer for breaking the glass on some old fire alarms, to be used only in emergencies.

Babies and young ravens seem to be born knowing that crying works. Maybe that part of the reason Jesus says we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Sermon video - The Kingdom Marathon

2011-11-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

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Sermon audio - The Kingdom Marathon

2011-11-06T13:09:00.001-05:00

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Sermon Text: The Kingdom Marathon

2011-11-06T10:18:00.001-05:00

Matthew25:1-13

TheKingdom Marathon

JamesSledge November6, 2011

Thenewscaster leads with a breaking local story. Jesus has announced plans to hold a “Kingdom of God Marathon.” It will be a huge event for the community,something everyone can get behind, and a fundraiser for causes to end hungerand homelessness.

Themayor and local celebrities were in attendance at the press conference whereJesus announced that the marathon was being planned for next year, exact dateyet to be determined. The pressconference featured lots of cheering and excitement. Everyone thought it was a wonderfulidea. And as Jesus worked the crowdfollowing the official announcement, people told him so. They pledged to help make it a big success,promising that they would run in it, publicize the event, or help set up aidstations along the route.

Inthe days following the announcement, sales at sporting goods storessurged. People were buying running shoesand other gear, books on how to train for a marathon, training calendars andsoftware programs, and just about anything connected to running. The number of people running on the roads,sidewalks, and local trails skyrocketed. Local running clubs were overwhelmed with new members, and lots of newtraining groups formed.

Butas days turned to weeks and weeks to months, the excitement and energywaned. Those running clubs and traininggroups dwindled in number, and the trails and sidewalks had far fewer runnerson them. Talk of the marathon faded aswell. It’s difficult to publicizesomething when the exact date isn’t known, and it all but disappeared frompublic view.

Thensuddenly it was back in the news. Jesusannounced that the first Kingdom of God Marathon would be held three weeks fromSaturday.

A flurry of activityensued. People dug out those runningshoes that had been gathering dust for months. But there simply is no way to get ready for a 26 mile run in threeweeks.

Thebig day came and scores of runners gathered in the streets downtown. When Jesus sounded the air horn the runnerssurged forward. As the last of themcrossed the starting line, Jesus followed along in a golf cart.

Itwasn’t long before runners began to fall by the wayside. A mile or two was all some could manage. As they began walking or stopped and sat onthe curb, Jesus cruised by in his golf cart. “Jesus, we so wanted to be a part of your big race,” they said as hepassed. But Jesus just shrugged andsaid, “You should have stayed in shape.” And they watched as Jesus disappeared down the marathon course.

Afternearly five hours, the last of those who were actually running crossed thefinish line and went into a huge post-race celebration. There was live music, massages for sore legs,the best food and drink to recharge after such a strenuous event, and awardsand trophies for all. And the runnerswere soon feeling revived and having a wonderful time.

Asthe big post-race party went on, those who had tried to get ready in threeweeks trickled in to the finish line. Some couldn’t even walk the route and had found rides. They were disappointed at not being able tofinish, but they didn’t want to miss out on the post-race festivities. But they found the doors to the ConventionCenter where the party was going on locked tight. People went around the building, checking allthe entrances, but there was no getting in. Finally, after banging loudly on the doors, they got the attention ofsomeone inside who went and found Jesus and brought him to the door.

“Jesus,let us into the party. We were in therace. See, we have our race numbers. We paid our registration and everything.”

ButJesus simply said, “This a only for those who ran the race; not for those whoentered.” And he turned and walked backto the party as security re-locked the door.

Nowdon’t take this story too seriously, certainly not literally. After all, it’s a story, a parable if youwill. I has rather obvious similaritiesto the parable Jesus tells in today’s gospel reading, but I felt moved to tellmy version because I think the Church has often encouraged us to misunderstandthe one Jesus tells. When Jesus beginshis parable he makes clear what the parable is about. “The kingdom of heaven will be likethis.” As I’ve mentioned manytimes, this kingdom is not a synonym for heaven. It is called the “kingdom of God” in thegospels of Luke and Mark, and it refers to a new day that God will bring, to aredeemed and transformed would where God’s will is done here on earth just asit is in heaven, as the prayer Jesus teaches us says.

Butsomehow, Christianity seemed to forget this over the centuries. This kingdom that will change the world hasbeen privatized and made a matter of personal piety. I’ve even heard this parable preached as apressing reason for accepting Jesus as your Savior now rather than later. “Yes, it’s true that a deathbed confessionwill get you into heaven,” the argument goes. “But you never know. Things couldhappen so quickly that you wouldn’t have time. Then you would be like those bridesmaids with no oil for their lamps.”

Isuppose this could be true, but I’m pretty sure it’s not what Jesus is talkingabout. Rather, this is a parable forbelievers, for insiders. Jesus istalking about living a life that is oriented to God’s coming kingdom. The wise bridesmaids are ready to participatein that kingdom. They have preparedthemselves so that they do not have to change what they are doing, do not haveto make adjustments in order to be part of the banquet, the kingdom.

It’ssomething Jesus speaks of often. He saysthe same thing in his Sermon on the Mount. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom ofheaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Jesus is not talking about whether ornot we believe in him, but whether or not we follow him, though I suppose notfollowing him does seem to indicate thatwe don’t believe what he tells us to do.

Iread this recently on someone’s Facebook page. “A recent Gallup poll says that 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with howthe country is being governed; 57% have little or no confidence the federalgovernment can solve the nation's problems. So in 2012, will we still re-elect90+% of the incumbents as we normally seem to do?”

Aninteresting question. I would not besurprised if we do. We may bedissatisfied, but we’re not sure what new thing will help. We want something better, but we’re notreally clear what that is or how to get it. And so we stick with what we know.

We arecreatures of habit, and those habits define us. “We are,” as Aristotle said long ago, “what we repeatedly do.” But Jesus calls us to new habits, transformedlives that are conformed to the habits of God’s new day, that new world hecalls the Kingdom. But it is so different. It sounds too hard, like getting ready for amarathon. And so as much as we likeJesus, we struggle when it comes to actually getting up and following him onthis new way he shows us. We “believe,”but we’re less certain about the habits of disciples.

ButJesus insists that the way he shows us is not too hard, that his yoke is easyand his burden is light. He promisesthat the Spirit will more than equip us for the journey ahead.

Butit is so easy just to stay where we are, and keep doing what we are doing,isn’t it?

Spiritual Hiccups - ADHD Christians and the Disciplines of Disciples

2011-11-03T11:55:00.001-04:00

One of my personal tendencies is a fascination with the new and novel. Although I was a teenager in the 1970s, I almost never listen to "classic rock" on the radio, preferring newer offerings. That is rather trivial, but there is a more serious side to this. I sometimes enjoy coming up with new ideas more than I like implementing them, doing the repetitive, disciplined work of putting a new idea into practice.

In this sense I am not so different from our culture in general. We often latch onto the new idea that is going to fix things, but tire of it quickly. If the new coach doesn't turn the team around immediately or the new elected official doesn't make things better in short order, we're ready to move on to new options.

The following verses are from today's reading in Revelation. "Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.'"

Revelation is often thought of as a book of coded predictions that need to be deciphered, but in reality it is a call for hope and perseverance in difficult times. In admittedly difficult language, Revelation encouraged Christians who were struggling with rejection and persecution to hold fast to the faith, to persevere even when it earned them ridicule from their neighbors, made it difficult to participate fully in society, and could lead to arrest and possible death.

Most of our struggles as Christians are of a far different nature, but the idea that faithfulness requires perseverance and endurance could probably use some reclaiming. Our relationship with God in Christ comes about through the gift of God's grace, but this grace invites us into a new life, one marked by disciplines, sometimes difficult ones. We are called to follow Jesus, to take up the cross, to be willing to sacrifice self for the sake of the Kingdom, to value God's will over our own hopes, dreams, and plans.

The Christian life is a long haul exercise, more marathon than sprint. It is the practice of certain disciplines, a lifelong work of becoming more and more the people God calls us to be. It will have many moments of discovery and newness, but they will most often be found in faithfully persevering in those disciplines of prayer, worship, service, and self-giving.

One of the realities of the culture we live in is that people are much less interested in church than they once were. The reasons for this are many and varied. Some of them are rooted in a culture that does not take a very long view of things, that has a very short attention span. But some disinterest in church is because it doesn't seem a serious and significant enough thing to be interested in. We have made it too easy, stripped it of Jesus' call to practice the disciplines - some of them difficult - that form us into his disciples.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Proper Packaging

2011-11-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

We humans seem to have a need to categorize and label things, and this tendency has it usefulness. If a certain food disagrees with us, it makes sense for us label such foods "bad" for us. And in a world with a dizzying array of choices, we have to have some ways of narrowing the field.

Of course our judgments about such things are hardly fool proof. As the Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham points out, we sometimes categorize things incorrectly.

In our highly polarized culture, this categorizing tendency can cause real problems. For example, Republicans can assume than anything a Democrat says is wrong, and Democrats can assume the same about Republicans. Progressive Christians can dismiss anything coming out of more fundamentalist, evangelical circles, and those evangelicals can feel certain that any progressive is off base and ungodly.

And so we can be fooled by packaging. Truth coming to us from places labeled "bad" is missed, and falsehood coming to us from places labeled "good" gets embraced. The very power and presence of God can saunter right into our midst and be rejected because it lacks the proper packaging.

It happens to Jesus. He visits his hometown and wows the folks there. They are astounded at his wisdom and power, but then they look at the packaging. They know his family, his parents and siblings. He cannot be an important religious figure, "And they took offense at him." The phrase "took offense" is the single Greek word skandalidzo, the root of our words scandalize and scandalous. Jesus' packaging causes a scandal, and so they cannot see his power, wisdom and truth. They cannot see God because the package is "wrong."

If you are anything like me, you probably have those moments when you wish God was more vividly present to you, even moments when God seems totally absent and unavailable to you. But I wonder how often God is right there in front of me and I miss it because of the packaging. I wonder if God becomes incarnate - takes on flesh and draws near to me in someone - and I cannot see it because I "know" that God doesn't look or act like that.

Open my eyes, God, to your presence wherever and in whomever it may be.

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Spiritual Hiccups - Church: A Wild and Crazy Place?

2011-11-01T14:52:00.000-04:00

Looking at today's gospel with its varied images of the Kingdom - a treasure that prompts someone to sell all he has to acquire it, a pearl of such value that nothing else matters to a pearl merchant, and a net that scoops up fish of every kind, both good and bad - I wondered about such images and the Church I have grown up in and now serve. My tradition says that one of the core purposes of the Church is "the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world." Are we exhibiting the Kingdom Jesus speaks of in this parable?

The first two Kingdom images suggest something that totally reorders lives. The wonder, beauty, and unsurpassed value of this Kingdom moves everything else down on the priority list. Everything gets reorganized around the pursuit of this Kingdom. This speaks of a kind of passion and energy that I typically see in two places: when someone falls totally and completely in love, and when someone gets completely given over to some cause.

The net images seems totally different. This seems to describe a large, diverse, even motley gathering that is not very selective, leaving the sorting out process for later.

I realized this is just one short set of verses, but based on these, a Church that exhibited to the Kingdom to the world might be a place of extremely vibrant and strong passions, as well as teeming with variety and even a bit of confusion. It would be, to borrow a phrase, a wild and crazy place.

But in my experience, "wild and crazy" seems one of the least likely phrases that anyone would apply to the Church. In our defense, we Presbyterians also learned another phrase, "decently and in order" from the Bible. But I sometimes wonder if we didn't take it a bit too much to heart. Maybe we could stand to balance it with a little more "wild and crazy."

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Sermon video - Becoming Saints

2011-10-31T12:52:00.000-04:00

Sermons also available on YouTube

Spiritual Hiccups - What Sort of God?

2011-10-31T12:11:00.002-04:00

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil will not sojourn with you.
The boastful will not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.

You destroy those who speak lies;
the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful.

from Psalm 5

Most of us have some sort of God image, a mental picture or conceptual framework that is our notion of what God is like. I suspect there is no figuring out the ultimate source of such God images. Many Protestants will point to the Bible, and that will certainly be true to some extent, but that is not the whole story. All of us who read the Bible read it selectively to some degree. And our God image usually guides us in this selection process.

Our God image often emerges from what one of my favorite spiritual writers, Fr. Richard Rohr, calls "dualistic thinking." We tend to see the world as a series of either or choices, and our God images tend to reflect such choices. Some people gravitate more toward a God of judgment who punishes the guilty. Others embrace a God of love who will redeem and embrace the guilty. Much rarer is the person whose God image somehow holds both as true.

And so most of us struggle with those parts of Scripture that challenge our God image. We tend to diminish them and elevate those that confirm our image. Those of us who cherish a God of love squirm a bit when reading today's Psalm or gospel passage where Jesus speaks of evildoers "thrown in the furnace of fire."

But despite my own dualistic tendencies, I am convinced that a true God image requires dropping the either/or choices that help produce my God image. A true God image requires answering the question of whether God is a God of love and forgiveness or a God of judgment with a "Yes." To borrow a Walter Brueggemann quote I used recently in a sermon, "This tension of mercy that forgives and sovereignty that will not be mocked is an endless adjudication for the God of the Bible, who permits no final or systematic resolve. It is a tension that we all know in our most intimate and treasured relations."

What sort of God is your God image? And in what way does your image reduce God to something easier to understand and incorporate into dualistic modes of thought? Or, as a classical Calvinist might put it, what sort of idol have you created with your God image?

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Sermon audio - Becoming Saints

2011-10-30T13:16:00.000-04:00

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