Father Snort

Brad Sullivan

Last Epiphany, Year A

February 26, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Matthew 17:1-9

The Freedom to Fail

“Man glows on top of mountain, disciples respond stupidly” I think that’s pretty much what the newspaper headline would read for the transfiguration. The article would follow:

Itinerant preacher and Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, stunned his disciples yesterday when, in a remarkable lack of his characteristic humility, Jesus began glowing on top of a mountain, revealing himself as God, and then asking his Father for a mic drop, as a bright cloud covered the terrified disciples and God’s voice declared Jesus to be his son.

The article would go on and probably miss a lot of the grace that was going on with the Transfiguration, the newspaper reporter totally transfixed by the majesty and awe. To be fair, I’ve been transfixed by the majesty and awe of the Transfiguration many times. Jesus’ full divinity shining in and through his full humanity, it really is pretty darn spectacular, and at the same time, to be honest, having preached about the Transfiguration at least one out of every two Sundays the story comes to us each year for the past eleven years, the excitement and splendor of Jesus glowing on top of the mountain just wasn’t speaking to me this time. What struck me about the Transfiguration this time around was not the majesty and awe of God, but the grace of God.

The disciples were terrified, right, face down in the dirt, trembling with fear, and Jesus saw his disciples and with the gentle touch of a mother or father comforting a frightened child, Jesus leaned over them and said, “It’s ok, you can get up now. You don’t have to be afraid.”

I’d never noticed before this week that Jesus touched his disciples, that gentle, comforting, loving gesture, but there it was, a touch full of compassion and understanding, a touch full of grace. That touch is how Jesus responded to his disciples when they were overcome by sheer terror at the majesty and awesomeness of God.

Like the disciples, I too have experienced sheer terror, the day after my son was born. First there was immense love, joy, excitement, majesty, awe, wonder at my son’s birth…all of that followed by sheer terror when the nurses let us know that they weren’t continue to help us with the baby boy, but we actually had to take him home and care for him ourselves. “Can’t we just make a booth for him here and come visit?”

My point is that when my first son was born, I had a strong sense of awe at the responsibility of having helped to create a new human person and then the responsibility of caring for, loving, and nurturing that person. I did not feel ready for it, and amidst the joy, and wonder, and absolute love of holding my baby boy for the first time, I also found myself on my knees, face down in the dirt, feeling completely unworthy of such a task. So, I think I get some of what the disciples were going through up on the mountain, and then amidst the awe and wonder, excitement and joy, as well as terror and feeling totally inadequate and unworthy, Jesus touched them and me and said, “Get up and do not be afraid.” “It’s ok that y’all are terrified. It’s ok that you’re feeling totally inadequate to the task. I’m here. I’m with you. Keep listening to me, as my dad just said. Get up, and do not be afraid.”

For all of us in all of those times in our lives when we’re driven to our knees by how inadequate we are, Jesus touches us on the shoulder and says, “Get up, and do not be afraid. You may well not be up to the task, and that’s ok.” In that gentle touch, in those words, get up and do not be afraid, Jesus has given us the freedom to fail. He’s given us the freedom to follow him, to strive, to mess up, and to fail, face down in the dirt, fail.

I read an article in the most recent New Yorker about children’s author Mo Willems. His books are some of our family’s favorites, and the article talked about his how his books

reveal a preoccupation with failure, even an alliance with it. In ‘Elephants Cannot Dance!,’ they can’t; in ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!,’ Pigeon, despite all his pleading and cajoling, never does. Willems told [The New Yorker], ‘At “Sesame Street,” they would give us these workshops about the importance of failure, but then in our skits all the characters had to be great at what they did, everything had to work out. That drove me crazy.’

The article went on a bit about artists understanding the importance of failure, and I was struck by Willems’ understanding of children needing to learn not only the important lessons that come with failure, but also that it is ok to fail, otherwise our worth is predicated upon our success. You remember that time in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus told his disciples that they had to succeed in everything they did if they wanted to be worthy of him and his Father? Yeah, me neither.

The freedom to fail means the freedom to risk, the freedom to strive, the freedom to dare greatly, and to end up face down in the dirt, to be met by Jesus’ gentle touch saying, “It’s ok. Get up, and do not be afraid.”

The freedom to fail that Jesus has given us also means Jesus has given us the freedom to follow him as his disciples and to join our lives with his, continuing his movement in the world, living and bringing about his Kingdom of love. Following in Jesus’ way, the heart of Jesus that begins to grow in us saying, “I want to offer that love and freedom to fail to others. I want to offer that healing, gentle touch to others. I see people down on their knees - some in fear, some having been beaten down there by life, some with heavy burdens on their backs so they can no longer stand. I want to offer them that gentle touch of Jesus so they too can be healed, live without that fear or anything else driving them to their knees so that they can stand and be not afraid and know the love of being loved.

Sometimes this is in big work, offering food and shelter to folks in need. Folks come by here fairly regularly asking for help with money or food, sometimes the same people come fairly regularly. One instinct we can have is to wonder, “What’s going on? Why aren’t you getting things together that you keep having to come back here?” That’s an instinct I have, an instinct that I wrestle with. Jesus’ freedom to fail, however, says something very different. Jesus’ freedom to fail sees someone face down in the dirt and offers them neither judgment nor ridicule, but a gentle touch and the words, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

We don’t always know the right thing to do, but following Jesus, when we see people face down in the dirt, we offer them grace and love, rather than judgment and criticism. This can also come in really simple ways. I was in a doctors’ office several months ago with, I don’t know, one of our kids, and I struck up a conversation with a mother in the waiting room. We quickly began talking about the challenges of parenting and the stresses of our children, and about five minutes in, you’d have thought raising kids was the worst thing in the world. Apparently we needed to get that off of our chests.

Then I thought, “where’s the grace of Jesus in all this?” Where’s that gentle touch saying, “get up and do not be afraid.” So during a lull in the conversation, I asked, “tell me about a recent moment of grace with your kids.” The whole conversation shifted. We began talking about how fantastic our little buggers are, how much we love our kids, even though they often are little buggers, and we even began talking about our mutual faith in Jesus. Realize, we had just met, but that one simple question, “tell me about a recent moment of grace with your kids,” that question was the gentle touch of Jesus, lifting our heads out of the dirt and allowing us not to be hidden by our failures as parents, but engaged with one another such that we could even risk sharing our faith, in a doctors’ office. It was a small moment, but it was the Kingdom of God being lived out, two people recognizing their mutual brokenness, connecting through the grace and gentle touch of Jesus, and then being healed even in that moment, being reconciled within themselves and with another person. With that small moment of Jesus touching us and saying “get up and do not be afraid,” we each got to be a little bit more fully human, a little bit more reconciled to God, to the other, and to ourselves.

That is life in the Kingdom of God. That’s life in the Jesus movement, where Jesus has given us the freedom to fail, the freedom to risk for the sake of reconciliation and love. Jesus has given us the freedom to receive his gentle touch and to offer that gentle touch of Jesus to others, saying, “Get up, and do not be afraid.”

Brad Sullivan

6 Epiphany, Year A

February 12, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Sirach 15:15-20

Matthew 5:21-37

The Quest

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” That’s where we left off last week in Jesus’ sermon in Matthew chapter 5. At a first hearing, it sounds like Jesus is giving a major, “you’ve got to be good enough for God” kind of statement. “You’ve got to be righteous enough in God’s eyes in order to be good enough for God.” That’s certainly where my teenage brain took this passage when I read it back in high school. “Man, I’ve got to be even better that the religious leaders in order to be good enough for God?” Yikes!

Well, I’ve got a few critiques to that particular understanding of Jesus and the Gospel. The first is, let’s face it, if Jesus wants us to be better people than the scribes and the Pharisees, he’s setting the bar kinda low. Just about any time Jesus mentions the scribes and the Pharisees, he’s saying not to be like them, calling them hypocrites. So, not too much of a high standard of perfection there. The second critique of the “You’ve got to be good enough for God” understanding of Jesus’ sermon is this: “You don’t have to be good enough for God.” Striving to be good enough for God, striving to be righteous for one’s own sake is missing the point of Jesus entirely. Jesus is much more concerned with people’s well being than he is with people’s righteousness. That’s the lesson I get from our story in Matthew’s Gospel today, not reward and punishment, but Jesus’ genuine concern and care for the well-being of people.

Several years ago, I was gently pushing our then three year old son, Rhys, on a tire swing in the front yard of our house. We were having a lovely time, and then our neighbor’s granddaughter came over. She was about six, and she asked if she could push Rhys. To be honest, I had some trepidation about the prudence of allowing such a young girl to push my son, but not wanting to be an overly protective helicopter parent, I decided to just let them play. That worked really well for a about 20 seconds, after which time, she spun the tire swing too hard, and Rhys fell off the swing, breaking his collar bone. Way to go, Dad.

Amidst Rhys’ crying and my checking to see if he was as hurt as I feared, the little girl began apologizing profusely, the fear in her voice and face communicating two things: “I’m sad I hurt Rhys,” eclipsed almost totally by “It was an accident; I’m so afraid that I’m in serious trouble.” For my part, I had almost forgotten that our neighbor’s granddaughter was still even there, focused exclusively on Rhys and what appeared even by looking at it to be a broken collar bone. I was certainly not interested at all in my neighbor’s granddaughter being in trouble. I knew it was an accident, and my only concern was for my son’s well being, not the girl’s being in trouble or not. Assuring her that it was ok, I quickly scooped Rhys up and took him to the hospital.

What strikes me about that story is or neighbor’s granddaughter’s concern about being in trouble eclipsing her concern for Rhys’ well-being. Now, to be fair, she was a little kid. Of course that’s how she felt. She didn’t know what else to do or how else to deal with the situation, so no chastisement of her intended in any way.

But, now imagine that the little girl was an adult who had just accidentally hurt someone, and imagine this adult is more concerned with being in trouble or even worse, being righteous in God’s eyes, than this person is concerned with the well-being of the other person. That is the situation I find when we hear Jesus critiquing the religion and way of life of the scribes, Pharisees, and other religious leaders of his day. Be it the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the religious leaders pass by on the other side of the road when they see someone hurt, or be it the actual practices of the religious leaders in which they are shown to take money from poor widows in order to pay a temple tax, or pray about how wonderful they are compared to those around them, we see a group of religious leaders concerned with their own righteousness before God, worrying about being in trouble, while having almost no concern for the well-being of the people around them.

Jesus, in his constant healing of people; in his care for the orphan, the widow, the downtrodden, and the outcast; and in his preaching, including the sermon of his that we hear today, Jesus showed how much he cared for people’s well being, and how interested he wasn’t in people being righteous before God for their own sake. Our being righteous before God, being good enough to please God, Jesus took care of that on the cross. Jesus’ desire for us was then not that we would continue to be worried about being righteous or good enough before God, but rather that we would love God and love people. From a place of fear about our own righteousness before God, Jesus sent us on a quest to love God and love people without fear. That quest of love is what we hear Jesus teaching about in his words that we heard today, a far more complicated, rewarding, and beautiful understanding of life than simple reward and punishment.

In the teaching that we heard today, Jesus was basically going through the 10 Commandments, saying that on the quest of love, a basic rule based keeping of the 10 Commandments is not sufficient. Some probably hear his words and are rather disheartened. “Not only can we not kill people, we’re not even supposed to hate them? No fair, that’s way too hard! Not only can we not cheat on our wives and our husbands, we’re not even supposed to fantasize about it?” From a trying to be good enough standpoint, no we can’t live up to that. We’re not perfect. We’re not going to be. Jesus is teaching that the point of the commandments is not to be perfect, not to be righteous before God for one’s own sake. Rather, the point of the 10 Commandments is to live in such a way that your life is a quest of love, a quest of loving God and loving people without fear.

See, the 10 Commandments are a pretty good start to things, but you can keep all 10 of them and still be a pretty terrible person. Imagine talking to someone who makes sure to keep the Commandments. This person worships God, has no idols, goes to church on Sunday and does no other work, has never committed perjury or lied about someone to get them in trouble; he doesn’t talk back to his parents; and he’s basically content with what he’s got and doesn’t steal from others. He sounds like a pretty good guy. Now let’s say he then starts talking about how righteous he is, and you call him on it because you’ve noticed some rather less than wonderful habits of this person.

“So, I hear you saying how righteous you are, but you’re also kind of a bully. You routinely beat people up when they anger you, and are constantly insulting and verbally abusing others.”

“Well, yeah, that’s true, but hey, at least I haven’t killed anybody!” Check, commandment kept.

“Uh huh. Ok, well how can you be so righteous, considering how terribly you treat your wife?”

“Hey, I don’t have to treat her well, I just have to not commit adultery. I haven’t.” Check, commandment kept.

See, there are all kinds of ways we can be really terrible to each other and still keep the Commandments. Even in following Jesus’ more stringent code, we can find ways to hurt each other. “Ok, Jesus, I got it. No adultery, no ogling other women, and no divorce. Beyond that, I can be as big of a prat to my wife as I want.” Far from giving us a more stringent set of rules for us to follow in order to be righteous before God for our own sake, Jesus is showing us that the whole point of the commandments, is to care about the well being of others as God does.

Now, there’s still this part where Jesus says that if we treat people terribly, we should be thrown into the hell of fire. He’s saying we should be thrown into Gehenna, the burning garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. Have you ever known someone who was such a horrible louse that they seemed like human garbage? That’s what Jesus is talking about. People matter so much to Jesus, and so he taught that if you treat people terribly, you’ve turned yourself into human garbage, good for nothing but the burning garbage dump, metaphorically speaking. Far from actually wanting us to cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes, Jesus is teaching that even small practices of treating others terribly can lead to an entire life of treating others terribly, so stop with the seemingly insignificant practices in which you treat others without love so that you don’t end up living your entire life treating others without love.

Jesus is showing us the heart of God, a heart not interested in keeping rules for one’s own sake, a heart not interested in fear and punishment, but a heart interested in using the rules to show us how better to love people and to care for their well being. Jesus really is far more concerned with people’s well being, fare more concerned with love than he is with people’s self-serving righteousness.

Jesus is inviting us to follow him in a life that is a quest of love, a quest to give and receive love. In this quest, we have our eyes and our hearts open to check in with ourselves and ask, “am I really living as a loving person? Am I full of anger and resentment? Maybe I’m generally ok, but need some help with loving right now. Maybe I should seek that help.” In this quest of love that Jesus has given us, we don’t go it alone. Love cannot be a solitary venture.

We’re on this quest with each other, we have our eyes and our hearts open to the people around us. Are they doing ok? Do they have enough? Do I have enough? Do I have more than I need? Is the path that my life is on serving only myself, or is the path that my life is on also being a light of love for others? Is the path that our lives are on serving as a light of love for others. That is the path of the quest Jesus has set us on, a quest in which we care not about our own righteousness before God for our own sake, a quest not of reward and punishment. Jesus has set us on the quest of genuine concern for the care and well-being of others, the quest in which we love God and love and serve people without fear, the quest of love.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Brad Sullivan

4 Epiphany, Year A

January 29, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Matthew 5:1-12

Smacked Upside the Head by Hope

“I get it, guys. The Gospel sounds foolish, and you feel kinda dumb for proclaiming it, but just go with it. That’s how God works.” That’s basically what Paul is saying in his letter to the Corinthians. He says Jesus seems like foolishness to the nations, although for us, he calls Jesus the wisdom of God. “For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.” It’s as if Paul is saying, “I get it, guys. The Gospel sounds foolish, and you feel kinda dumb for proclaiming it, but just go with it. That’s how God works.”

Jesus’ words sounding foolish, at least on some level, certainly seems to be happening with the beatitudes, the beginning of his sermon in Matthew 5. Now, I love, this sermon, this list of blessings, this list of people who are blessed. I love that Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s fantastic. There is hope in those words, as if even in our darkest moments, life is still moving towards hope. At the same time, I can see how Jesus’ words sound kinda foolish.

“I am so blessed because I’m really down right now. I feel kind of bereft of spirit, life, energy…I just don’t have anything left right now. I feel so blessed.”

What!? I think his disciples might have been thinking the same thing. “What are you talking about Jesus?”

“I am so blessed because I’m mourning and in deep sorrow over the death of my father. It feels like the world stopped when he died, and everyone else is silly enough to think the world is still going. I feel so blessed.”

“I am so blessed because I don’t really speak up for myself all that forcefully. I don’t really insist on things going my way, and consequently, things often don’t go my way. I feel so blessed.”

“I am so blessed because I’m not really all that righteous. I really want to be, but I’m just not. I keep on messing up, not loving God or others the way that I’d like to. I feel so blessed.”

I’m guessing that kind of threw Jesus’ disciples for a loop. It doesn’t make an overabundance of sense on the first hearing. None of those really falls into the category of things or people that feel particularly blessed. Maybe not necessarily cursed, but blessed? Phrases regarding blessing that sound more familiar to us are, “I am so blessed because of all that God has given me: my talent, my family, my success, my money, my friends, etc. I’m blessed because of my many obvious blessings.” That makes sense. That we get.

Looking again at what Jesus said about blessing, we kinda get some of the last ones. The merciful, who doesn’t like them? They’re merciful. They’re great; of course they’re blessed. The peacemakers? We love the peacemakers. We give them prizes from Sweden. Sometimes we kill them. The peacemakers! They’re great, of course they’re blessed.

The pure in heart? Those who are persecuted for being righteous. Well, of course God’s going to bless those people. They’re his favorites, right?

But what about when they’re not anymore? What if they stop being persecuted, or what if their hearts aren’t quite so pure anymore? Are they still blessed? Do they move to a “blessings pending” category? I think if we were in charge, they probably would.

I think if we were in charge, blessing would be given based on our perception of merit, and those who are considered blessed would be those whom we perceive as obviously blessed with whatever great things.

Fortunately, God doesn’t seem to work that way. Those peacemakers who lose heart, who are so tired of living in a world of conflict, a world that just won’t make peace no matter how hard they try to make peace; those peacemakers who end up losing heart and being totally bereft of spirit, life, energy that they just don’t have anything left, God has already declared them blessed. Not blessings pending or blessings removed. God has declared the poor in spirit to be blessed.

Those who were persecuted for righteousness’ sake so much that they just couldn’t take it anymore, and are no longer the paragons of righteousness that they had been even though they still really want to be righteous, God has already declared them blessed. Not blessings pending or blessings removed. God has declared those who hunger and thirst for righteousness to be blessed.

Blessed are the perfect? No. Blessed are those who never mess up? No. Blessed are those who are God’s favorites, those who do everything right? Jesus didn’t say that. There is no hope in that. If that were the case, if God only declared as blessed those who did everything right, then God would be forever counting our sins against us and holding the carrot of blessing over our heads, smacking us upside the head with it when we mess up. Does that sound anything like the Gospel of Jesus crucified? Do the beatitudes sound anything like the words of someone who is interested in constantly holding our sins and past mistakes against us? No. There is no hope in constantly being condemned for past mistakes. There is no new life, no resurrection. The beatitudes are full of hope.

While our brains tend to get hung up on our own past mistakes and the past mistakes and sins of others, the crazy, awesome, foolishness of the Gospel is that God doesn’t get hung up on our past. God is constantly looking to our future, vastly more concerned with what we can do than what we did do. Such forgiveness, such hope often doesn’t make sense to our brains, and yet, such forgiveness, such hope is what we are so in need of. We long for hope, and sometimes we just can’t see it. That’s why Jesus sometimes takes hope and smacks us upside the head with it so that we can finally see the hope that he sees and has for us.

I’d almost like to rename the beatitudes, “smacked upside the head by hope,” because Jesus offers us hope in something greater than ourselves. Hope that we are part of that something greater. Hope that our lives have meaning, even when we can’t see it. Hope that mourning and sadness are not the end, but part of a journey through darkness and into light.

When my dad died, I was mourning, and I didn’t feel particularly blessed. I was comforted though, comforted by hope through our belief in Jesus, comforted by the church sharing and proclaiming our belief in resurrection, comforted by the love and support family and friends gave. Through all of that, our whole family was tremendously blessed.

During difficult times, feeling very poor in spirit, I have seen blessing, often on the other side of those times, not only for having been carried through those dark times, but also for looking back and realizing the Kingdom of God, the Gospel, Jesus himself never left during those times. We’re still part of the Kingdom of God in and through the darkness.

During Bible study last Sunday, we were in the Derrick Tavern reflecting on Psalm 23. Chris Delange had brought the topic and we talked about the many times and places in our lives which feel like the valley of the shadow of death. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil for we trust in the shepherd, we trust in Jesus, to lead us from grazing place to grazing place. Sometimes we must be led through the dark valleys, the valleys of the shadow of death, in order to come to the next grazing place. Blessed are we when being led through the valley of the shadow of death, for Jesus is leading us to a green pasture, beside still waters.

The valley of the shadow of death may be those times when we mourn, those times when we are poor in spirit, those times when we feel far from blessed. Even in those times, even in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus teaches us that we still have hope, that we are still part of his kingdom, beloved of God simply because we are beloved of God. Jesus’ words of hope may not always make sense to us; they often don’t. Those times are when we especially need his words. When we are in the valley of the shadow of death, we need Jesus’ foolish sounding words to smack us upside the head with hope.

Brad Sullivan

2 Epiphany, Year A

January 14, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

John 1:29-42

Fumbling In the Dark

Repentance leads to seeing Jesus. That is what I heard in our Gospel story this morning, as John was declaring Jesus to be the Lamb of God, the one who would take away the sins of the world. John said that he came baptizing so that Jesus would be revealed to Israel. Now John came with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and his doing so led to Jesus being revealed as God’s son after he was baptized by John. This baptism of repentance led to a revelation of Jesus, seeing him as more than a carpenter’s son, but as the Son of God who has saved the world from their sins. For us, repentance leads to seeing Jesus as well and being guided by the light of Jesus, without which, without Jesus, we’re fumbling in the dark.

We may not feel like we’re fumbling in the dark. We’re so often guided, after all, our own lights, one of which being the light of some truth that we hold. Guided by our own lamps of truth, it’s little wonder we end up fumbling in the dark, especially considering how vitriolic our lamps of truth have become as of late. We know that we are right, or even if not completely sure of our own correctness, we know with absolute certainty that the other side is wrong. That vitriol, that certainty in our own truth leaves us fumbling in the dark..

Jesus is the light of the world, the light of God, we’re told in the first chapter of John, and we’re told that Jesus came with grace and truth. Jesus came with truth, and we tend to hold onto that truth as best we understand it, especially when we’re fumbling in the dark. Even more than the light of Jesus’ truth, however, we need the light of Jesus’ grace.

Jesus’ grace didn’t demand total understanding of truth from people. Jesus spent time with a lot of people who certainly didn’t seem to have truth wrapped up particularly well. Jesus was called a friend of sinners, and as such he didn’t lambast or lecture them. He had dinner with them. When he saw people fumbling in the dark, he gave them grace and love to be their light along with his truth.

Jesus came with grace to see us as fumbling in the dark as well, doing our best as we walk along the well worn paths of our lives, when we’re often not even guided by light anymore, but simply by repetition, following in the same old paths, the same old ways that we can follow with our eyes closed, ways that don’t lead anywhere good, but ways which we know so well that they just feel right. Jesus came with grace enough to give us light so that when we repent, when we turn from those well worn paths toward a new path, we have light to follow in the way of Jesus.

Back in high school, I believed I was following in the way of Jesus. I’d grown up a Christian my whole life, and I knew nothing but the truth. I knew about the Gospel and about Jesus. He was the truth, and that was that. So, at times back in high school, I ended up following a particular path, a path called: moral superiority and mocking of liberals and various morally unacceptable people in the guise of righteously upholding Jesus and Christian values. It felt like truth. It was really just bullying.

My views on various things changed over the years. Various truths changed, but I still believed in Jesus. In my late teens and early twenties, I began to repent of the ways I had been walking, so certain of my truth that I could denigrate others for not holding the same truth.

Then, in seminary, I found myself agreeing with some of the more liberal views on several issues, especially the hot button issues of the time. I was sickened, however, at how the opposing views, views which I had previously held, were not really welcome on campus. The goal of Virginia Theological Seminary was for all views to be welcome, but in practice, VTS was following the same path I had followed back in high school, though at VTS it was called: intellectual superiority and mocking of conservatives and various morally unacceptable beliefs in the guise of love and respect for all people. It felt like truth to those on that path. It was really just bullying.

Those of us who have been on that path, the path of (assumed) truth without grace, believe our own beliefs to be right and afford little or no grace to those with opposing views. When I have been on that path, I was blinded. I knew where I wanted to go. I knew the end, what was right, where we should all (I assumed) go as a society, but getting there, I was fumbling in the dark.

Repenting of that certainty, that truth without grace, I found myself less certain about where I was going, but more confident in how I was getting there, guided by the light of Jesus.

Over the last week, I realized that I again needed to repent from walking that same, well worn path of self-righteous, supposed truth. My supposed truth without grace was in the belief that the wrong candidate had won the presidential election. I wasn’t really excited about Hilary, but I was so turned off by Trump’s rhetoric and seeming character flaws. I knew I was right and the other side was wrong, until I finally really listened to my cousin, a Trump supporter, and I realized how self-righteous I had been in my belief. Supposed truth without grace and bullying had become my path again, and I was wrong. I needed to repent of that path and let the light of Jesus be revealed to me once again.

My less than stellar views of our president elect didn’t change, but I can hold those views more lightly now. I may very well be wrong. He may be exactly what this country needs. More importantly, having repented of the path of supposed truth without grace, I can follow Jesus again when he says to his disciples, “come and see”, rather than be deaf to his invitation or too caught up in thinking myself right even to care. In my supposed truth without grace, I was blind to Jesus all around me. I was blind to Jesus in people all around me. I was wrong. I needed to repent of that path. I’m guessing I’m the only one.

Here’s what I think now regarding the election, and I offer these thoughts for all of those still struggling with the decisions or the reactions of those on the other side. People made the best choices they could with the information they had and the information which they were able to believe. Folks on both sides of this thing have asked, “how could you possibly have voted for [this candidate], knowing [this terrible thing] about them.” How could you be so stupid or immoral as to vote for whichever candidate? That’s about the sentiment I’ve heard quite often. Now, not wanting the other candidate to win is pretty normal, but good gracious, it seems that an awful lot of people on both sides viewed the other candidate as the latest incarnation of Satan. Some even thought the comparison gave Satan a bad name.

How could either side vote for a candidate who seemed so horribly flawed to the other side? Well, it’s really kind of simple. Our brains will only allow us so much cognitive dissonance before they begin jettisoning some bad information (or assuming it to be false) so that they can handle and align what we do with what we believe.

Adding to differences of policy off, folks were fearfully and (strongly) against Trump because of what he’d said and done/reportedly done. They saw a particular character emerge from the information given, a character which could not be supported. Folks who were against Hillary, saw a similarly deficient character emerge based on what Hillary had said and done/reportedly done, a character which could not be supported.

Both groups did the best they could with the information they had, and many within both groups had to ignore/gloss over, or explain away some of the more troubling aspects of each candidates’ character. Regarding the truth of either candidate and the soundness of a vote for either, we’re all fumbling in the darkness, doing our best with very limited knowledge of truth. We have incomplete truth. We can’t have anything but incomplete truth.

Grace, on the other hand, well that we have in abundance, and grace is something we can give in abundance. Many want us to come together as people, as the body of Christ, and we need to. We need to give each other grace with our competing, incomplete truths, grace enough to say, “I truly believe you were doing the best you could.”

Otherwise both sides of any issue continue to walk on well worn paths that feel like truth, but which are really just bullying. When we’re on those paths, no matter how certain we are, we’re blind, our paths lighted only by the darkness of certainty and truth without grace which end up leaving us fumbling in the darkness of bullying.

Repenting of that path, we can see Jesus again. Turning toward Jesus, with his light to guide us, we don’t always know exactly where we are going, or where we’ll end up, but we do know the way. Jesus is the way. With the grace of Jesus and restored relationships to guide us, we travel together toward an uncertain future, secure not in the destination, secure not in the end, but secure in each other, and secure in the grace of Jesus to guide us.

Brad Sullivan

Christmas Eve, Year A

December 24, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Becoming Human On A Lark

And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. Every time I hear Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth, I hear Linus telling the Christmas story to Charlie Brown, letting him know what Christmas is really all about. Christmas is about the joy of God becoming human and how fantastic it is that God thinks highly enough of us, love us enough, that he actually wanted to be one of us. How crazy is that? How great, but is God just totally nuts? Maybe. Now, rumor has it that becoming human: living, dying, being resurrected for our sake, was always part of God’s plan, but what if it started on a lark, kind of just a crazy, whimsical idea? Imagine Jesus, before becoming human, saying to his Father:

Jesus: Dad, you know how much we love those humans?

Father: Yeah, Son. I do.

Jesus: Have you ever thought about how great it would be to actually be one of them?

Father: What do you mean, Son?

Jesus: Well, we love them so much, I’d really like to be one of them, like how people share their lives and experiences with each other, and they draw nearer to each other through sharing their lives together. You know how you’re always wanting humans to draw nearer to you? Well, how much nearer can you get? We become one of them.

Father: (considers for a moment) You know, that’s really not a bad idea. Let’s see what the Spirit says. You’ve been listening, I take it?

Holy Spirit: Of course I have, and I think it’s a lovely idea. Connect with them, show them how much we care. You know, it may even be a chance to redeem them.

Jesus: Hey.

Father: Hmm, you know that’s a heck of an idea, something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

Holy Spirit: I know you have.

Father: They separated themselves from us in the Garden.

Jesus: So we join ourselves back to them by becoming one of them.

Father: Hmm…except there’s still that sin problem.

Holy Spirit: Oh, there you go again.

Father: Well, it’s a big problem.

Holy Spirit: I know it is.

Father: They keep hurting each other, hurting themselves, putting up barriers between each other, barriers between them and us.

Holy Spirit: Uh huh. (kind of patronizing)

Father: We are love. We don’t have any barriers between us. It’s not like we can have Jesus go out there and sin.

Holy Spirit: I know.

Father: (sigh, exasperated) All I ever wanted was for them to love each other like we love our-self, like we love them. It gets very frustrating.

Holy Spirit: Well you know, if he becomes human, Jesus could join with all of their sins in his death.

Jesus: Wait, what?

Father: Oh, now you’re talking. We could somehow pour all of humanity’s sins onto him so even their sins won’t separate them from us.

Jesus: Um…guys, I’m not so sure…

Holy Spirit: It’d have to be a memorable death, too, something gruesome…

Jesus: Ok guys, hold it. I was thinking of something simple, like a little weekend tryst…

Father: Oh, no that wouldn’t do. You’d need to do the whole thing, you know, grow up, be born…

Jesus: Ewe! You’re joking, right? You’ve seen how that whole birth thing happens?

Father: You said you love them.

Jesus: Oye! They are awfully cute. Ok, full deal. When do you think I should be born? The 1970s had really good music, Star Wars…no, late 1940s, early 50s England. I‘ll grow up with David Bowie. It’ll be awesome.

Father: Oh Son, I’ve got just the place.

Ok, so lest I lead us all into heresy forever, I pretty sure that conversation never took place, but I love the idea of God becoming human, of Jesus being born, on a lark, as someone who really loves someone else and simply wants to spend more time with them. That’s what Christmas is all about. God saying to humanity, “I love you, and I’d really like to spend more time with you.” That may seem awfully simple, but I believe nothing in creation has greater healing power than relationship and love.

In Eden, we walked with God, naked and unashamed. There were no barriers to our relationships with God and no barriers to our relationships with one another. Over time then, we kept on and keep on putting up more and more barriers to each other. Initially, we decided that we wanted knowledge: Adam and Even ate from the tree of knowledge. There was much unknown in creation and the fear of the unknown began gnawing at us, eroding our trust in God, until we decided that we desired knowledge more that trust, and the first barrier to relationship was raised.

Then we felt ashamed for what we had done and so we hid, and we covered ourselves with fig leaves, and the next barrier to relationship went up. Then God came and found us and asked what had happened, and we lied, passing the buck onto the serpent, passing the buck onto Eve, rather than fessing up to our fears and our lack of trust, and so another barrier to relationship went up. We went from naked and unashamed to hidden and full of shame, and ever since then, we’ve continued to put up barriers to relationships, as broken people raising defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from harm. The result of course, is that we end up harming our relationships with God and with each other…wars, murders, fights, broken friendships, all because we choose not to trust but seek instead to protect ourselves from harm, when the risk and trust of relationship is really the only thing that can heal us.

So in order to heal us, God gives us the very risk and trust of relationship that we so desperately need. God gives us himself, naked and unashamed, vulnerable as a newborn baby: Jesus, born in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph, a young couple, faithful and kind. They were not great rulers. They had no great power to offer God any great protection once he became human. God decided to trust us with the vulnerability of his human life, offering us his vulnerable, naked, and unashamed self, trusting in nothing more than the care of two loving and faithful parents.

See, God wants us to love and trust him and so God chose to love and trust us. God also knows that life is hard, and knows we’re not always great at trusting anyone, especially someone who hasn’t walked in our shoes. So, God became human to say, “I love you, and I think you humans are pretty fantastic. So I am going to show up in your life, naked and unashamed, so that you can trust me, and if you will allow it, I will take down all of the barriers that you have put up.”

That’s what Christmas is all about. That’s a pretty serious deal, God healing humanity by becoming one of us. At the same time, I have to think that for the creator of everything to become human, he’s got to be kind of crazy, whimsical, fun too. Imagine God as a toddler walking around in his creation, living amongst his beloved humans, constantly delighted by what’s around him. Imagine 2 year old Jesus running around constantly thinking, “This place is great! Look at that tree; I love that tree. Ooh, a lake! I think I’ll go swimming or maybe walking.”

The very fact of the incarnation, God’s crazy notion to become human and live here with us shows us just how fantastic it is to be living here on this earth and that in God’s eyes, we really are pretty fantastic.

We also need to remember of course, that life is also not always fantastic, that life is sometimes rather terrible, that we are sometimes rather terrible, and on Christmas we celebrate that Jesus came to live that part of our life too. God gets the messy parts of our lives, the times in our lives and world when things are far from fantastic. Jesus claimed even those bad times and those bad parts of our lives as his own when he became human. That’s what Christmas is all about.

The greatest gift God ever gave us was the gift of God’s-self. God gave us the gift of being naked and unashamed with us, loving and trusting us so that we might once again be naked and unashamed with him and with each other. The greatest gift we can give each other, then, is the gift of ourselves, fully living, loving and trusting one another.

Jesus became human so that we could love each other in and through the bad times and the good times, and then see each other and see this world and think, “this is fantastic.” Jesus became human so that we could remove our barriers, trust each other and trust God, and then love fully, love with whimsy, love on a lark. That’s what Christmas is all about. Amen.

Brad Sullivan

3 Advent, Year A

December 11, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

Avoiding Suffering and Death: The Great Lie of Life

We hear in our story from the Gospel according to Matthew today a story about John the Baptist, sitting in prison and wondering if all he had done had been worth it. Was God’s kingdom truly coming? Was salvation actually at hand? Or, had he thrown his life away, been miserable out in the wilderness, eaten locusts for God’s sake (literally for God’s sake), and ended up in prison, soon to be killed, all for a lie, a misguided zealot’s farce? Was Jesus truly the messiah, the anointed one? So he asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus could never give a simple “yes” or “no”, could he? When John’s disciples asked the very direct question, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another,” Jesus answered, “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

I can hear in Jesus’ response, the tacit, “Of course I am, John. Doesn’t that sound like salvation? Doesn’t that sound like the kingdom of God?” But then I can imagine John thinking, “Thanks, Jesus, that sounds great for those people, the lepers, the deaf, the dead, the poor, but I’m sitting here in prison. Have I thrown my life away for nothing or not?”

To that second, unasked question, Jesus preemptively says, “blessed are those who take no offense at me.” “Take no offence at me, John, even though I am not all that you thought I would be. Fear not, even though I have allowed you to be imprisoned. Fear not, even though I have not taken command of Israel and destroyed Rome. Fear not, John, because the Kingdom of God, that political, social, and religious revolution for which you entered the desert, for which you have been imprisoned, that revolution will not come at the point of a sword, nor will the turning of the world upside down come with the violent upheaval of mighty forces and fields drenched in blood.

“The turning of the world upside down, the revolution, the movement for which you have given your life, John, will come with each life which repents of anger, destruction, and isolation, and which turns instead towards love.

“Remember all those people who came to be baptized, John, those who were so thirsty for the waters of repentance, that they entered the Jordan River with you, those muddy waters, filthy, dirty as sin. Those people entered those waters not so that I could take up the sword against the occupying nation of Rome. Those people entered the waters not so that we could shed blood and turn the waters of the Jordan from brown to red.

“Those people entered the waters of the Jordan because they wanted to draw near to God and they didn’t want their past or future sins and wrongdoings to prevent them from drawing near to God ever again. They entered the waters of the Jordan to be free. They wanted to be free from the shackles which the religious elite had placed on them, telling them that they were never good enough to approach God. They wanted to be free from the same old ways of life which they thought would bring healing and wholeness, free the same old ways of life which they thought would soothe the suffering of their souls and fill the void, but which only left more brokenness and the void in their souls even greater. Those people entered the desert with you so that they could wash, be made new, and then leave the desert for the promised land of life in God’s kingdom.

“God’s kingdom is not brought about through the continual shedding of blood, the killing and exclusion of those we believe to be unworthy of God, and the only way I could free you, John, would be to let the bloodletting begin again, so no, John, I am not going to free you. ‘Am I the one who is to come or should you wait for another?’ Here’s what’s happening, John. ‘The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’ Remember, it was for such as those that you baptized, John. So take no offense at me, for the Kingdom of God is indeed at hand.

“At the same time, yes John, you are going to die in prison. In fact, you’re going to be beheaded at the hands of a faithless, immoral, and impulsive ruler, simply because he was turned on by a young woman’s dancing. The kingdom of God is at hand, and you are going to die senselessly for your efforts in bringing it about.

That’s probably not what John wanted to hear.

For us, 21st century disciples of Jesus, those of us who are a part of the Jesus movement which John helped start almost 2000 years ago, we too get to be a part of the Kingdom of God. We too get to help bring about the Kingdom of God and live into the Kingdom of God, continually turning toward love, continually turning toward Jesus, and offering that love to others, offering Jesus to others…everyone we see, including the poor, the blind, the lame, the marginalized, the overworked, overstressed, those trying like hell to live life the right way, and certain that most of the time they are failing. We get to offer love, grace, forgiveness, mercy. We get to offer Jesus.

At the same time, like John, we will at times still find ourselves in prison, wondering when Jesus is going to come, and the only answer we will receive is, “I’m not coming.” Like everyone in the world, we who are part of the Jesus movement have sicknesses which are not healed, loved ones who die too soon, relationships which are broken. Like everyone else in the world, we suffer from sorrows, addictions, times of being overwhelmed and feeling trapped, times in which we feel imprisoned by life.

Contra some clap-trap out there that various preachers peddle as gospel, believing in Jesus and following in the Jesus movement does not earn us a get out of suffering free card. We all know this. We still struggle with life: bad jobs, no jobs, difficult or failed marriages, disease, sickness, senseless death, dashed hopes. Like with John, this is probably not what we wanted to hear this Sunday, but we’re fooling ourselves if we try to pretend anything else.

Like John sitting in prison, following Jesus, giving our lives to his teachings and his service, trusting him and following in his movement…all of that affords us no special protection. We suffer and we die just like everyone else.

The great lie of life, the great lie of medicine, the great lie of wealth, and even the great lie of some modern pseudo-Christianity is that we can avoid suffering and death.

Avoiding suffering and death is not the Gospel. The Gospel is that our suffering and death is not punishment from a capricious, child-like God with a nasty temper and a mean streak a mile long. Suffering and death is simply a part of life, and the Gospel accepts that truth. The Gospel then tells us another truth: we are not alone in suffering. We are with a God who likes humanity so much that, even with our human frailty, he thought it would be a really good idea to become one of us. God loves us so much that he actually wanted to be human. So the Gospel truth is we are not alone even in death, and death does not have the final word. Life continues through suffering. Life continues after death.

Accepting that fact, accepting that we are all dust, and to dust we shall return, we can then let go of the countless ways we try to avoid suffering and death. We can let go of that fruitless struggle and then grasp with both hands the life that truly is life. Letting go of fear, we can truly live and see all of the joy and beauty in this world, even in the midst of suffering and death.

It’s a risky road, the Jesus movement, the revolution for which John prepared the way. Love always is a risk. But, the life of the Jesus movement, the life in which the downtrodden and unacceptable are loved and included, that life is worth the risk. The life of the Jesus movement, the life in which God is with us in our sorrow and death, the life in which we are never alone, and we remain with each other even in our sorrow and death, that life is worth every risk, even the risk of feeling disappointed as we sit in whatever prison we find ourselves hearing Jesus tell us that he isn’t coming this time.

If we’re truly honest with selves, all of life is a risk. Waking up in the morning is a risk. In the Jesus movement, however, we risk with each other. We risk for each other. We risk with God for the sake of all of those who come to the dirty as sin waters of the Jordan seeking freedom, seeking acceptance, seeking Jesus. Amen.

Brad Sullivan

1 Advent, Year A

November 27, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

I’ll Take First Watch

“I’ll take first watch.” That is a frequent refrain on the AMC hit TV series, “The Walking Dead”, a show which I have been watching the TV show now for years. For those unfamiliar with The Walking Dead, it is a show about a zombie apocalypse and the struggle for survival of those few humans left who are not the walking dead. Whether the survivors are walking through the wilderness or living in the moderate safety of a walled-in community, there are constant threats from zombies (what they call “walkers”) and even from other humans. So, “I’ll take first watch” is a frequent refrain on the show, a life or death situation.

“I’ll take first watch” was also about the first thing that popped into my head when I read this Sunday’s gospel lesson from Matthew 24, in which Jesus told his disciples to keep awake and be ready. Jesus telling his disciples to stay awake and be ready for the second coming…keeping watch during a zombie apocalypse…they’re pretty close, right?

Jesus had given these calamitous images of what would precede his coming again. There is going to be a lot of darkness in the world before the return of the light. So, in the mean time, keep watch. Keep your lights burning.

The apostle Paul had this to say about keeping our lights burning:

You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:11-14)

Ok, so that actually sounds like a bit of a far cry from taking first watch against the threat of zombie attack. Then again, these ideas of keeping alert, of laying aside the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light kind of fit with the walking dead analogy.

Keep ready, lest you become one of the walking dead. Put on the armor of light, lest you become one who is living, but who has little real life within him, what Paul calls in his first letter to Timothy, “the life that really is life.” (1 Timothy 6:19) Stay alert lest you become one who has lost compassion. One who has lost humility. One who has lost unconditional love. Stay alert lest you become one for whom forgiveness is rarely if ever freely given, but rather is given only as quid pro quo for some form of restitution. Stay alert lets you become the walking dead, one who demonizes the other out of fear. One for whom fear and anger have taken hold so much so, that despair and hatred are a way of life. Stay alert lest you become a lifeless walker, one for whom belittling, beating, or even killing out of fear, or one’s religion, is preferable to taking the risky road of love, the risky road of living in peace. The list of the walking dead goes on and on.

So, “I’ll take first watch” actually fits rather well with our Gospel for today, although taking watch does look decidedly different than arming oneself hand and foot to try to take down a zombie.

For us, taking the watch looks a bit more like the prayer of St. Francis. Rather than simply pray this prayer, I am going to sing it. This is something I do from time to time during sermons. This is a particular arrangement that I wrote combining the Prayer of St. Francis with the Serenity Prayer.

Lord, make us servants of your peace. Where there is hatred may we sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord, union.

Where there is doubt, may we sow faith. Where there’s despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, may we sow light. Where there is sadness, joy.

Lord, grant us serenity to accept what we can’t change,

Courage to change the things we can,

Wisdom to know the difference,

And make us servants of your peace.

Grant that we may not so much seek To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love,

For it is in giving that we receive,

And it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are raised to live.

Lord make us servants of your peace.

That’s what taking the watch looks like in Jesus’ kingdom. The prayer of St. Francis is keeping alert in Jesus’ kingdom, putting on the armor of light, as Paul wrote.

Paul, Francis, Jesus are saying that what we do really does matter. For Paul, this may seem a little paradoxical, considering that he and many in the early church believed Jesus was coming back very soon. They were thinking, “Any day now, Jesus is going to come back and redeem the whole world.” Well, with the belief Jesus was coming back very soon to redeem the whole world, why would what anyone did matter? Jesus was right about to fix it, and yet, Paul believed that what they did, the actions they took in their lives, mattered a great deal.

Our actions matter not because our actions are ultimately going to redeem the world. Jesus is going to and has already redeemed the world. Jesus is going to restore all of creation. Some would think then that nothing we do matters. Not so.

Jesus is Lord of all creation, and Jesus is Lord of each of us. He has offered to be Lord of our hearts. Why? Because if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

We can’t bring about the ultimate redemption of the world. We can, however, help in the redemption of countless lives in the mean time. We can help in the redemption of countless broken relationships. We can help in the redemption of countless seemingly hopeless situations. We can help in the redemption of the countless poor choices people make and poor paths people take. We can be the light for those in darkness, helping them to see the light of Jesus, and the light of his way.

We get to keep watch, to keep the light shining in the darkness. Like stars shining in the night, the darker the night seems, the more stars you see. As my five year old goddaughter, Avery, said while dancing and singing to herself in her house, “Every single star you see is one good act.” The more we keep watch, the more stars people see, the more we shine in the darkness to guide people to the light of Jesus, to the life that really is life.

So, be a servant of God’s peace. Be a light in the darkness. Take first watch. Amen.

Brad Sullivan

Proper 28, Year C

November 13, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

Isaiah 65:17-25

Luke 21:5-19

Life After The Apocalypse

Your worst fears are coming true, but fear not. That’s basically part of what Jesus was saying in the discourse to his disciples that we heard today. “Guys, you’re about to be living in Diaspora again. You are about to be scattered among the nations, living in places that don’t really support your faith. The Temple that you love so much…it’s gonna be gone in 40 years, and in about 100 years, Israel is going to be gone too.” Jesus didn’t get that specific with the timeline, but he was telling them about the future destruction of the temple and of the nation of Israel itself.

“Continuing to live out your faith is not going to be easy, guys,” Jesus was saying. “You won’t be able to depend on the beauty or even the existence of the Temple. You will have no state, no Jewish government to allow you to keep in the ways of your faith. Also, y’all who are following in my way, before the total destruction of Israel, you’re even going to be persecuted within Israel. So here then, is how y’all will need to live post apocalypse.”

“Be steadfast in your faith, more than ever. Trust in God and in the ways of his Gospel, because you will have no temple, nor any government to turn to. You will have no great community around you making it easy for you to live out your faith. So be steadfast, live out your faith with intentionality. Live out your faith with each other, and continue to follow in my ways, even when the culture around you says and does otherwise.”

As disciples of Jesus in the 21st century, we find ourselves in a much less dire but similar situation to what Jesus was preparing his disciples for. In America, we’re not exactly persecuted for our faith, but we do live in a culture that often says and does things counter to the Gospel. Truth be told, we often end up taking that culture as our own, and not following in the ways of Jesus ourselves all that well.

Some of Jesus’ teachings are rather difficult and don’t exactly jive with our mainstream culture or even our natural inclinations. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” Jesus said. (Matthew 16:25) ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (Matthew 5:43-44) ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;’ (Matthew 5:38-39)

Not easy, right. If someone were to punch me, I would really want to punch them back. Instead, I’m supposed to not lose my temper, not give into my anger and my hurt, and instead take a breath and say, “ok, do you need to hit me again, because if you do, here I am, you can.” I believe that way of Jesus will bring about more peace and love in the world; I think it might actually resolve the situation, but it’s not exactly easy, and it’s not exactly the American way. “Speak softly but carry a big stick” is a far cry from “turn the other cheek.”

As Christians, we are somewhat a people in diaspora. We don’t live in a Christian nation. We don’t live in a Christian theocracy like the first century nation of Israel. We don’t have some overarching governmental authority to help guide us and keep us in our faith. As Wendy Claire Barrie wrote in her book, Faith at Home, the way of Jesus is “counter-cultural, revolutionary, and not quite what mainstream culture would have us believe.” So, she writes about many ways we can live out our faith at home or at any time, when we’re not surrounded and supported by our church buildings, by the sanctuary that our church community makes for us.

Make the dinner table the altar in your house. Prepare your meals and then eat together in such a way that the whole meal is a prayer, in which you share your stories of faith, you share where Jesus has been working in your life. Offer up that meal to God in remembrance of Jesus, like we do here on Sunday morning.

Turn your bedtime into a time of reflection like Jesus took when he went away to a lonely place so often to pray and offer up his life to God, take that time at bedtime to God the day that is past: the good, the bad. “How have I turned away from Jesus? Where have I seen Jesus in my life?” Offer that time of reflection to God as you end your day, and as you rise in the morning, dedicate the day to come to God. Look for all those times and places where you may see him. You will have turned your bedroom into a sanctuary, into a sacred space for God.

Rather than seeking retribution when wronged, seek peace and forgiveness, following after the ways of Jesus.

“Follow my way anywhere and everywhere,” Jesus said. That’s another part of what Jesus was teaching his disciples when he told them that the temple would be torn down. Jesus revealed to his disciples that when the temple was gone, they would need to and also be able to find him and follow in his ways anywhere in the world. That was an apocalypse for them, apocalypse meaning a revealing, a revelation. “God’s not just here in the Temple, or just here in Israel,” Jesus was saying. “God is everywhere and we can live out our faith anywhere.” So too do we get to find God anywhere in the world, anywhere in our lives. That’s life after the apocalypse, life after the revealing. “Your worst fears are coming true,” Jesus was saying, “but fear not, for you can find God anywhere.”

For many folks, people’s worst fears came true when Donald Trump was elected president. To be fair, I think a lot of people’s worst fears came true when Barak Obama was elected president…and before that, and before that. People’s worst fears often come true when we elect a new president (or when darn near anything happens that people don’t like).

In both cases, with both our president-elect and our current president, I think some of people’s fears were probably well-founded. Presidents make bad decisions, we see who is coming, and we expect those bad decisions. I think also that some of those fears are not well founded, but largely emotional reactions that get so worked up that we’re afraid it’s all coming to an end, but I don’t think that particular apocalypse is going to happen because of who’s sitting in office. The real apocalypse for me, the real revelation has been to see how much hope or despair we place in one person.

I’ve seen it written and heard it said many times that “We need to bring God back to our country.” When did he leave? Perhaps we at least thought he left when anyone started thinking that it is up to our president or anyone in our government to allow us to believe in God, follow in the ways of Jesus, or teach us how to follow in the ways of Jesus. I don’t want the government teaching us how to follow in Jesus’ ways. They suck at it. Sorry, but they do.

Whether we’re talking about the president or congress or any government official, whoever it is, is not Jesus. That one person, whoever it is, is not in charge of us following in the ways of Jesus. Regardless of who is president, regardless of if we like that person or not, we are still a people in diaspora. We are still disciples of Jesus living among a nation, within a culture that does not seek first and foremost to follow in Jesus’ way, and it is not up to any president to teach people to follow in Jesus’ way.

It is not up to a president or anyone else to teach our children to follow in Jesus’ way. It is not up to a president or anyone else to show people the light of the Gospel, the love of Jesus, and the peace of his way.

It is rather, up to us, Jesus’ disciples, to show people the light of the Gospel. It is up to us, Jesus’ disciples, to show people the love of Jesus. It is up to us, Jesus’ disciples, to show people to peace of Jesus’ way. It is also up to us to notice all of the times, and places, and ways that we see Jesus in the world.

That is life after the apocalypse. God still the creator, ruler, and redeemer of all creation. God is still anywhere and everywhere in the world, and as disciples of Jesus in this house or in our own houses, or anywhere in the world, we get to see God’s presence and point it out.

Regardless of what anything in the culture or world around us may say, regardless of whether our worst fears have come true or our prayers have been answered, the question we ask ourselves is: “What do we give our hearts to?” That’s what belief really is, not just what we think is true, but what do we live and follow? What do we give our hearts to?

Living in diaspora, it is easy to give our hearts to all kinds of ways that are not the way of Jesus, and we usually do so for really good reasons, like being connected with other people or seeking solace from the storms of life. At the same time, living in Diaspora, we can find Jesus and find people following in his ways in all sorts of places and situations that on the surface don’t seem particularly Jesusy.

Jesus is alive and well in all kinds of ways and places, in our religious culture and even in the culture around us. In giving our hearts to Jesus, we don’t need to rail against and point out all the places, and people, and situations that are “bad and evil” and say, “Jesus isn’t there.” Jesus might argue that point with us. Giving our hearts to Jesus and living in disapora, living in a culture that is not particularly Christian, we get to point out all the ways and places that Jesus is there, all of the ways and places where we see Jesus in the culture and the lives of people all around us. Even in the places where people think, “I shouldn’t tell the priest that I’m going here tonight...it’s Saturday night, I’ll pray on Sunday morning.” No. If you’re somewhere on Saturday night, Jesus is there too, and you get to point it out. You get to notice, and see, and show where all the blessing are in this world. That’s life after the apocalypse.

Wherever we see grace, we see the way of Jesus. Wherever we see forgiveness and love, we see the way of Jesus. Wherever we see people doing their best to make the right choice, we see the way of Jesus. Even living in disapora, even living in times when our worst fears have come true, fear not, Jesus says. Fear not, and give your hearts to me. Do not fight against each other or the culture around you, but follow in my ways, practice your faith even if it is counter-cultural, and then open your eyes to see me everywhere in the world around you. Amen.

Brad Sullivan

Proper 26, Year C

October 30, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Luke 19:1-10

Climbing Trees and the First Winter Breeze

“The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” Thank God for that! Amen, and Alleluia! I could almost end right there…I won’t, but I almost could. Thank God that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. It’s a crazy world, and it is pretty easy to get lost in this world. Zacchaeus, as we heard in our Gospel story today, was one who got lost, lost seeking after riches and security for himself.

As a tax collector, Zacchaeus was a Jewish man who made his living collecting taxes for Rome. He was the ultimate turncoat. Not only did he not hate Rome, he got rich by collecting exorbitant taxes for an occupying nation from his own people and then taking more than necessary to line his own pockets.

He was kinda the scum of the earth, and yet Jesus saw him as lost…lost and wandering in the desert, desperately trying to find his way home, trying to find his way back to God. Zacchaeus was lost, and in his efforts to find his way back, he was doing terrible things. He was defrauding people, stealing, getting rich off others’ misfortune and oppression. For him to do that, however, he had to have been lost already. Maybe he felt helpless and powerless, and he wanted more power. Maybe he was afraid of Rome, afraid for his life and well being, so he joined them to find security. Maybe he just hadn’t been raised all that well and had been a greedy jack-wagon ever since he was a kid. We don’t know, but he was lost in the desert even before he started collecting taxes for Rome.

So, Jesus called Zacchaeus out of a tree and asked to have lunch with him. Imagine being part of the throngs of people wanting to see Jesus, crowding around him, and then seeing him ask to have lunch with this scumbag. I think we’d be pretty upset, just like the crowd was, at the seeming injustice. Zacchaeus should have been scorned by Jesus, or at least given a throughout tongue lashing, and instead, Jesus asked to go be a guest at his house. There’s this part of me that feels like that just doesn’t seem right, but “the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.”

That part of me that feels upset about Jesus showing mercy to Zacchaeus is a part of me that is also lost in the desert. What if the crowd had gotten their way, if they had been given free rein to chastise Zacchaeus (and make themselves feel more righteous in the process)? They would have ended up lost in the desert just like Zacchaeus was. No good would have been done. They’d have felt righteous for a time. They’d have been able to get their hate out and feel some temporary power over this man who had power over them. Then, Zacchaeus would have continued doing what he was doing, except he’d have felt even more justified in collecting their taxes. He’d have probably taken even more for himself from those jerks who were mean to him.

Zacchaeus would have stayed in the desert, and the people would have just joined him there, but Jesus came to seek out and to save the lost. Jesus invited Zacchaeus out of the desert and into the promised land. Notice that this story takes place in Jericho.

Anyone remember a place named Jericho? A guy named Joshua fought a famous battle there, and the walls came a tumbling down. So the people of Israel were lost in the desert, waiting to go into the land of promise, and once they got there, the first stop they made was to the huge city of Jericho. They saw the wall of this hugely fortified city, and they knew they were in trouble. They figured, we should just go back to the desert and give up now before we get hurt. Josh talked to God and said, “No, guys. We’re good. We just need to march around the wall a few times and blow some trumpets, and it’ll come down.” So, they did, and crazily enough, it worked. God led the people out of the desert and into the promised land.

I bring this up because in today’s story, Jesus (whose Hebrew name was Joshua) was in Jericho, and Zacchaeus, like Israel, was lost in the desert. Like the people of Israel trying to make their way in the promised land, Zacchaeus was trying to see Jesus, and like the people of Israel, he found himself hindered by a wall. In his case, being a rather short dude, he was hindered from seeing Jesus, hindered from entering the promised land, by a wall of people. So, Zacchaeus climbed a tree.

That was kind of a childlike thing to do, right? Little children climb trees. Adults tend not to quite as much. Jesus said that we need to become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Childlike wonder. Childlike joy in the world. Childlike viewing of creation as beautiful and the world as our playground, alight with wonder, beauty, and joy.

Zacchaeus climbed a tree, like a little child and went from being lost in the desert of greed and security to entering the promised land of Jesus. He met Jesus, and immediately his heart was transformed. He was no longer lost in the desert of greed and security. He was found in the way of Jesus, the way of loving God and loving people.

Way of Jesus hard to see sometimes. It seems crazy that the way of loving God and loving people is hard to see, but we also know that the way of Jesus is at times hard to see. We know Jesus’ way, we get it, and still we find ourselves lost in the desert. We want to find Jesus, and we think we’re almost there, then we find ourselves running into a wall in our faith and in life. We can’t get where we want to go. We want to live with joy. We want our hearts full of hope, full of wonder, full of love. Sometimes, however, we just can’t get there. We’re going through life in the doldrums, not that hopeful, or joyful, or even loving.

Sometimes we look around and we realize we’re lost in the desert, and we know Jesus is near, but we just can’t find him. We’re too busy or too stressed. It feels like there’s a wall in the way to the joy of Jesus that we just can’t get through. We want to be transformed. We want to live in his light and spread his light, and we can’t see over the wall. Maybe then, like Zacchaeus, we just need to climb a tree.

Maybe we need to recapture our childlike joy and wonder in creation, in the presence of God all around us, in the people we see, even in ourselves. We need to become children again. Climb a tree. Open our eyes, ears, heart to see and hear Jesus all around us. Constantly saying, “hey, I came to seek you out. I need you for my kingdom. I want to transform your life, maybe for the first time, maybe all over again. I am seeking you out because you’re lost again, and I want you to be found, to be able to love God and to love people and to experience joy and wonder in creation once again.

This call from Jesus can come from anywhere. Once a year, at least, I get to re-experience the joy and wonder of creation when I hear and feel the first winter breeze of the year. When I was in first grade, walking outside to go to gym class, I heard what sounded to me like a winter breeze. It was not cold outside (I grew up in Houston), but there was a crispness to the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves. I was so excited for the promise of the return of winter, a rest from the 9 month heat and humidity of Houston, and the rest that comes with the season (back then it was Christmas break for us elementary school kids).

Every year since then, I’ve heard the first winter breeze, and without fail, the Spirit of God blowing crisply through the leaves transforms my heart, brings me out of whatever desert I am in, and leaves me with the joy and wonder of a child. Even if for a moment, I am found with Jesus and all the worries of life are gone. I’m back in the promised land of Jesus, and I am free to love God and love people once again.

Any authentic encounter with Jesus sets us free. Jesus set Zacchaeus free from his love of money and fearful need of security so that he could instead love people and use his money as a means toward loving people. Trusting in Jesus sets us free from our fears and anxieties, from whatever desert we find ourselves in.

Sometimes the very craziness in our lives that is keeping us in the desert can also be Jesus inviting us to have lunch. We just need a change of perspective. We just need to become like a child again, and climb a tree, to see Jesus right there already in the midst of our lives calling us out of the desert and into the promised land, calling us to rest in him, to be freed from our fears and anxieties, and to love God and love people with childlike joy and wonder once again. Amen.

Brad Sullivan

Proper 24, Year C

October 16, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Luke 18:1-8

Catastrophizing Our Lives. Trusting In God.

Does anyone else ever find themselves catastrophizing their lives? Imagining the worse scenario happening, maybe even what would you do if? I thought it was pretty uncommon, maybe even that I was the only one who did that, but I find more and more that catastrophizing our lives is actually quite common. We’re afraid of things, and our brains seem to like to try to prepare us for possible tragedy by playing out our fears. It doesn’t actually help, but our brains sometimes just don’t get that. When we’re afraid, we often live into our fears, and we can’t really spread that much love and joy and hope when we’re catastrophizing our lives.

In the midst of our worries and fears, Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.” “Do not worry.” “Do not lose heart.” Jesus repeated these refrains throughout his ministry, which tells us his disciples and all those whom Jesus taught were rather anxious and worried as well. It may be rather gratifying to realize that we are not the only ones who are living in an anxious time. We are not the only ones who worry about the present, the future, heck even the past. Into the darkness of our anxieties and fears, Jesus brings us the light of hope, and as Paul wrote in Romans 5, “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…”

At the heart of Jesus’ teaching and the practice of hope, was his teaching and practice of praying always and not losing heart. At the core of Jesus’ teaching is a persistent hope and trust in God, and God’s abiding love for us is at the heart of this hope.

God’s abiding love for us is at the heart of the parable Jesus told about the unjust judge (who didn’t care about God or anyone, we are told) and the widow who kept bothering him. The judge in Jesus’ story didn’t care a hill of beans for this societally unimportant widow. She wasn’t going to help get him re-elected. She couldn’t bribe him, but she was terminally annoying in her persistence. She was like a toddler asking for something. If you ignore them, they just get louder. So with no love in his heart, the judge granted justice to the widow just out of self preservation.

God, on the other hand, deeply loves us, Jesus is reminding us. So fear not, for he will grant justice not out of annoyance, but out of love. Hope in God, even in the dark times, for God is sovereign, good, and the source of all light, love, and grace.

Jesus’ teaching about our hope in God and the need to pray always and not lose heart was a part of a greater discourse in which he had been teaching about the kingdom of God. The Pharisees has been questioning Jesus, seemingly concerned about when the Kingdom of God was coming. My guess is that this was playing into some of those worries and fears and catastrophizing life.

There seemed concerned about when God was coming so that folks could clean up their acts just in time. Getting the house cleaned up before the guests arrive…“No, our house always looks this good; what, yours doesn’t?” Don’t worry about when God is coming, Jesus said. Don’t fret about when to clean the house. Don’t fret about not being good enough for God. You’re not good enough for God. That’s the point. God is ok with that. God’s grace is what makes you good enough, not your efforts at cleaning. God’s grace is more than sufficient to clean your house for you once he gets here, if you really need him to. Truth be told, though, God’s already seen the clutter of your house and is really over it. He’s pretty well unimpressed by it. We’re all a mess, and God gets that. His grace is more than sufficient for us.

So, rather than worrying about when God is going to show up, like the bogeyman, Jesus answered the Pharisees, “the Kingdom of God is among you.”

The kingdom of God is among you, so live the kingdom life. Live as my disciples. Live the way, the truth, and the life that I am, Jesus taught. Do not worry. Do not be afraid. Do not let your fears and anxieties rule your life. Pray continually, and do not lose heart. Pray continually for God’s kingdom to be lived out among and within you. Pray continually for God’s kingdom to spread to those around you, in your homes, in your work, in your communities, cities, in the world. Pray continually that God’s Holy Spirit, having been poured into your hearts, will lead you and strengthen you to live out God’s kingdom, to share his love and justice and peace.

You see, contra some modern gospels and preaching, Jesus is not the great self help book in the sky. Jesus teaching to pray continually and not lose heart was for his disciples’ sake, to be sure, but his teaching went beyond helping the disciples just for their own sake. “Pray continually and do not lose heart so that you can life out my kingdom,” Jesus was saying. Pray continually and do not lose heart so that you will not constantly catastrophize your fears and will instead be filled with faith, hope, and love, and spread the joy of faith, hope, and love, to those around you in your words and actions.

Anyone hear of an election coming up pretty soon? Talk about catastrophizing our fears, this election is one in which many are losing heart. There is a huge amount of fear on both sides that the other candidate will win, and many on both sides seem like they can’t imagine anything worse in the world than the other candidate winning. Some people are even becoming afraid of admitting to supporting whatever candidate they support. Some are afraid of losing friends. Some are afraid of being told how stupid they are for possibly being an idiot enough for support the other candidate. Some are actually afraid for their physical well being. It feels like as a nation, we are catastrophizing this election.

As disciples of Jesus, we have a duty during this election, to pray continually and not lose heart, to spread the light of hope, the light of faith and love, into the darkness of all the anxieties and fears over this election. The bottom line is this, in the upcoming election, anywhere from 40-60% of the population is going to be mightily disappointed in the result, regardless of who wins, and regardless of who wins, God is still sovereign. God is not going to abdicate ruling the universe either to Donald or to Hillary.

God is here and with us, and God is for us regardless of who wins. God is here and with us and for us during the trials and misfortunes of life, and God is here and with us and for us during the joys and blessings of life. God is here and with us and for us when we make great decisions and when we make bone-headed decisions. So pray and do not lose heart.

Pray continually, and do not lose heart for all those times when you and everyone around you falls short of God’s kingdom. We always have and we always will continue to fall short of God’s kingdom. We have and we will continue not to love as we have been loved. We have and will continue the let our fears and our anxieties rule our actions. We have and will continue to want to control the actions of others, concentrating on how the speck in their eye is ruining the world, rather than trying to heal the world by removing the log in our own eye.

That’s why God has given us grace. Fear not those who don’t live out God’s kingdom way. Fear not during these anxious times, but rather continue to pray and continue through your prayers to open yourself to God’s Holy Spirit which has been poured into your heart to live out God’s kingdom. Do not be afraid and do not lose heart.

Practice gratitude instead of fear. Rather than catastrophize your fears, remember and give thanks for all that is good in the world. Remember and give thanks for all that is good in your life. Then cast your anxieties where they can be best handled. Cast your anxieties on God, and trust him with the running of the universe, for at the heart of our hope, at the heart of our gratitude, at the heart of Jesus’ teaching and practice of praying always and not losing heart is a persistent trust and hope in God. Amen.