Brad Sullivan
6th Sunday of Easter, Year B
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Abide in my love, Jesus tells us. We’ve had an ongoing theme for the last couple weeks about abiding in Jesus: abiding in Jesus as the true vine, the one from whom we gain life and are grounded and rooted in God. Today we’re told to abide in Jesus’ love. If we keep his commandments, Jesus tells us, we will abide in his love, and we will conquer the world.
Ok, Jesus didn’t say that last part, but John did in the portion of his epistle that we read this morning. John wrote:
For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:3-5)
“Abide in my love.” Conquer the world. I found this to be rather odd when I noticed it. Visions of modern day crusades flashed through my head, Christians vanquishing all of their enemies (including each other?) and taking control of the world. This didn’t seem to fit too well with “abide in my love,” so I looked around for other instances of that word, “conquer”, and I found that it could also mean overcome. For instance, in Romans 12:21 Paul writes, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” That sounds a little better, a little more like abide in my love.
So, what if John was writing something a little closer to “…for whatever is born of God overcomes the world…the victory that overcomes the world [is] our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
Now, I realize overcome and conquer are synonyms, but overcome says something to me not so much of military victory over the world, but of not being brought down by the world or not being overcome by the world ourselves.
John felt Christians were in a struggle between seeking God on the one hand and seeking the world on the other. Now, while I think even John would say that the world God created is good, he saw some of our inordinate desires for riches, for pleasure, for too much and too many things as love of the world, the things of the world drawing us away from God. In first John 2:14-17, he writes:
"I write to you, young people, because you are strong and the word of God abide in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world – the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches – comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever."
Now we can see the idea of conquering the world in a little different light than military victory. By following God’s commandments, by having faith God, faith in Christ and following him, we can keep from being overcome by “the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches,” to use John’s examples. We all face this struggle between desire for things, for whatever each one of us desires and times when those desires get in the way of loving God and loving our neighbor. Have y’all all felt that, a struggle between some of our desires, some things we may want and loving God, loving our neighbor? I see a few head nods…sinners…kidding.
I’ve got another related question. Do any of y’all ever feel anxious, tired, worn out, at the end of your rope, or like you’ve got too much to do with too little joy in what you do? Maybe that was several questions. Some of our desires, desires of the flesh, desires for riches, etc. can make us feel anxious, tired, and worn out. I think of a friend of mine who is terribly overworked, but partially by choice so that their can have enough money to do the things they want, have certain expensive things, have a certain “standard of living”, and when I see my friend so stressed out so much of the time, I think are those things really making you happy? Are those things worth the stress and anxiety of your life? What I further think is my friend has been overcome by the world. As John wrote, the desire of all these things has overcome this person. Maybe to varying degrees that sounds familiar too.
I’ve been reading a book called “Downtime” by Mark Yaconelli, a book about the need we have to spend some time resting in God. I’m going to read a couple of passages from this book, and maybe some of these ideas will hit home with you.
"We minister among young people who are trained to no longer see the presence of God in the world. We minister among budding consumers, people who have been told ‘You are your appetites.’ We minister among people who are only allowed to live within a narrow band of their humanity, people imprisoned within the material world. We minister among kids whose worth is based on what Marcus Borg calls the three ‘As’ of Western culture: Appearance, achievement, and affluence. We minister among families and communities desperate for spiritual grounding. We minister among young people whose souls are malnourished and depleted by a culture that worships, not the God of Jesus, but a God of our own making – an anxious God who condones human greed, violence, and self-absorption. We minister within a culture that is putting the souls of our young people to sleep. Consider how Hillary Hunt, a middle-aged shop steward for the AFSCME union, describes the formation of her own soul within the North American consumer culture:
'I know most of my fellow workers very well, and they are wonderful people. But many of us meet for a drink after work and talk about how dead we feel after a day in our offices. I sometimes remember what a lively little girl I was, how full of life and energy, and I wonder whatever happened to that girl. It’s almost as if growing up is ‘coming down’ from a high. Here I am now in a life where everything seems so mechanized and out of control. Sometimes I feel like I’m a zombie surrounded by zombies – everyone doing their assigned role, trying to fit in and be the way they are supposed to be, and even in the way that people talk to each other, it’s so unreal and forced.'"
Downtime: Helping Teenagers Pray
- Mark Yaconelli, p. 19-20
Perhaps there’s something familiar to you in that. Well, the author further writes:
"In a society gone made with feverish activity, perhaps the gospel, the love of God, and the freedom of Jesus Christ are best communicated by inviting young people to rest and pray like Jesus. It’s the life of prayer that will help young people resist the frantic consumption that afflicts us. It is prayer that will inspire young people to trust and follow God’s hope. It is prayerful rest that will strengthen the spirits of young people so they will no longer fear difference or weakness or suffering. An it is prayer, much more than words, that will allow young people to feel the power and freedom of God’s love."
Downtime: Helping Teenagers Pray
- Mark Yaconelli, p. 26
Think of time spent in prayer as simply resting in God. Perhaps you’ll talk to God, perhaps you won’t. Maybe you’ll read some scripture; maybe you’ll simply be silent. Maybe you’ll go for a walk or simply sit outside. Two weeks ago, I had a wonderful chance to rest in God at CREDO, the clergy conference/retreat that I was on a couple of Sundays ago. For one thing, thank you for that opportunity to go to CREDO, and for another, I want to give y’all some of what I gained while there. The really short version is, take some time to rest in God.
I had a wonderful experience there of resting in which I kinda became a contemplative for a couple of hours. I was sitting in the chapel looking out at some of the trees, and as they gently blew in the breeze, and I became very calm and peaceful. I thought of being deeply rooted in God, like the trees are deeply rooted in the earth. I thought of the demands of life sometimes pulling in all these different directions, sometimes taking me right along with them. Now the trees get pulled along a little bit by the breeze, but except in the case of hurricanes and tornados, the trees come back to where they are, and so too for us, being grounded and rooted in God, we can move and sway a little bit with the demands of our lives, but we can come back to our center, to our grounding in God.
So, take some time to ground yourself in God. Not to place yet another demand on your lives, but if you don’t already, allow yourself to take some time for holy rest. Whether the demands of life or the desire of things are overcoming you, you can overcome these things, we can overcome the world by abiding and resting in God’s love. Love God and love your neighbor, these are not only Jesus’ commandments, but the way we were made to be. The only way our lives really make sense is by loving God and loving our neighbor. So abide in God’s love. As the Father has loved Jesus so he has loved each of us; abide in his love. Amen.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Why We Believe
Brad Sullivan
3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Why do we believe in the Gospel? We haven’t seen Jesus raised from the dead. We haven’t seen Jesus’ apostles heal anyone. By and large, most of us haven’t seen anything supernatural. We haven’t seen great signs; been given visions by angels, nor heard testimony from eye witnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
The apostles saw Jesus after his resurrection. The first heard about his resurrection from Mary Magdalene who was told of it by the angels. They were told again about his resurrection by Cleopas and his companion who saw Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and Simon saw Jesus. The disciples even proclaimed “The Lord is risen indeed…,” and then when Jesus appeared among them, they didn’t believe. They thought he was a ghost. Then, when they saw he has flesh and bones, they still felt it was too good to be true, so Jesus ate some fish just to prove that he really was alive there among them. He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t a reanimated corpse, like a vampire or a zombie. He was and is Jesus, alive and well, just like he told them he would be.
I find interesting the fact that the disciples believed until the saw Jesus raised. They believed the testimony of their friends which matched what Jesus had told them would happen, but seeing him alive before them, just three days after he had been killed was too much for them. Rather than increasing their belief and joy, seeing Jesus initially increased their fear and disbelief, and I think that’s a pretty reasonable response.
Imagine being in their position. Imagine a good friend of yours, an actual good friend of yours, someone you admire, someone who maybe teaches you. Imagine that person foretelling his or her death and resurrection. Imagine seeing that person die. Imagine the grief you’d feel, and then imagine seeing that person walking around three days later. My guess is, each of us would also meet our resurrected friend with fear and disbelief.
The disciples’ reaction to seeing Jesus seems pretty reasonable. Having never seen a resurrected human before, I can guess they had a little bit of fear of the unknown. This person before them looked like Jesus, but was he really? Was he a disembodied spirit? Was he still the Jesus they knew and loved? These were all reasonable questions for the disciples to have. Notice Jesus was not angry with them for their unbelief. Rather, he greeted them with peace. He told them to touch him; he ate in front of them. Jesus showed them that he really was the same person who had been their friend and teacher for three years.
So, what then does Jesus’ resurrection appearance among his disciples say to us? For one thing, Jesus’ resurrection tells us tells us that resurrection in general is true, that death does not triumph over God. The end of God’s creation is not death, but life. What kind of life is the resurrection? That is another question answered, at least in part, by Jesus’ resurrection appearance to his disciples. In the resurrected life, we will be largely who we were.
In his resurrection appearance, Jesus showed his disciples that he was the same person he had been. He was obviously changed in some ways. He couldn’t die anymore. He could appear and disappear at will, but he was still Jesus. So for us too, in the resurrection, we will be changed, but we will still be ourselves. Our loved ones will be changed in the resurrection, but they will still be themselves. As John tells us in his epistle, “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him…” (1 John 3:2) If the resurrected Jesus was changed and yet the same Jesus as before, then we will also be changed and yet be the same as before.
We don’t know exactly what the resurrection life will be like, so there is still some unknown, but that unknown can hopefully leave us with excitement rather than fear. One reason Jesus became human, died, and was resurrected was to “…free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:15)
Living in fear of death, one would hold on to all that one has with a vice grip, desperately grasping for anything to keep death at bay. Living in fear of death, one might accumulate exceedingly great wealth, things, and power, just to counter the powerlessness one feels regarding death. In today’s economic world, that one might hit home. Perhaps the folks responsible for our current economic downturn were living in fear of death and therefore accumulating too many things, driving up too much debt. The super rich aren’t the only ones who lived this way, aren’t the only ones responsible. Many Americans were living beyond their means. Many of us have too much debt. Many of us have more things than we need.
Perhaps many of us have been living with some fear of death. I include myself in this. I’ve never gone out and bought something thinking, “this will keep me alive another day,” but there have been times when I’ve felt a need or a longing for something and I’ve sated that need with a purchase of some kind. I think, on the one hand, my true longing was for God, but I also think mixed in there was fear of death and a longing for security.
Now, I usually don’t consciously fear death, but when I think of the resurrection, when I think of the next life, being at one with God, then I feel peace come upon me, and my desire for things tends to diminish. I find I have less desire for things when I think of the resurrection. So, I’m guessing I still have some unknown lingering fear of death, fear of the unknown that I sometimes try to quell with things. Maybe I’m not alone in that. Perhaps living out of our faith in Jesus can help keep us from over spending. So, our faith really can make a difference in our lives, in a tangible way by freeing us who have been held in slavery by the fear of death.
As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, quoting Isaiah and Hosea, “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:8, 1 Corinthians 15:54-55) One of the beauties of Easter is that death has no sting. By believing in Jesus’ resurrection and believing that we will share in his resurrection, we can live lives of hope and love without the need of material wealth and security. Further, as followers of Jesus, we can share our hope and faith and love with others so that those who do not yet have this hope might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. (2 Corinthians 5:15) We can share our faith, our hope, and our love so that those who fear death might not fear death, so that those who are longing to know God might come to know God.
Jesus told his disciples that they were witnesses of his death and resurrection, witnesses that were to share that witness with others, and I believe we also share in that witness. We get to witness to others the hope that is in us, the faith that we have been given. We get to witness as we have been witnessed to. We are not eye witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. We’re going on the testimony of Jesus’ disciples, of the witness they gave and the witness given by so many generations after them. We get to witness so that others may believe as we believe.
I asked at the beginning of this sermon why we believe. We believe not because of what we have seen, but because of what we have heard. We believe because of what we have been told by those who did see. We believe because of God’s spirit dwelling within us, praying for us, even in times of doubt, praying for us with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)
We also believe, I think because we want to. I want to believe that death is not the end. I want to believe that there is life after death. I want to believe that the resurrection life will be a wonderful life lived with our creator. I want to believe that I have nothing to fear in death. I want to believe that I don’t need to build up security here on earth because my life is in God’s hands and this life is not the end. I want to believe that God became human in the person of Jesus, that he, lived, died, and was resurrected all out of love for us. I want to believe, and so I choose to believe.
How much do I believe? How much trust do I put in the testimony that I have heard? Well, that kind of varies. At times I trust more than others. My prayer for all of us today, the message I want to leave us with is that we would believe the testimony we have been given enough not to fear death. My prayer and message is that we would believe enough in Jesus’ resurrection to trust him and to have lives filled with hope, love, and peace. Let us pray. “May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that [we] may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) Amen.
3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Why do we believe in the Gospel? We haven’t seen Jesus raised from the dead. We haven’t seen Jesus’ apostles heal anyone. By and large, most of us haven’t seen anything supernatural. We haven’t seen great signs; been given visions by angels, nor heard testimony from eye witnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
The apostles saw Jesus after his resurrection. The first heard about his resurrection from Mary Magdalene who was told of it by the angels. They were told again about his resurrection by Cleopas and his companion who saw Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and Simon saw Jesus. The disciples even proclaimed “The Lord is risen indeed…,” and then when Jesus appeared among them, they didn’t believe. They thought he was a ghost. Then, when they saw he has flesh and bones, they still felt it was too good to be true, so Jesus ate some fish just to prove that he really was alive there among them. He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t a reanimated corpse, like a vampire or a zombie. He was and is Jesus, alive and well, just like he told them he would be.
I find interesting the fact that the disciples believed until the saw Jesus raised. They believed the testimony of their friends which matched what Jesus had told them would happen, but seeing him alive before them, just three days after he had been killed was too much for them. Rather than increasing their belief and joy, seeing Jesus initially increased their fear and disbelief, and I think that’s a pretty reasonable response.
Imagine being in their position. Imagine a good friend of yours, an actual good friend of yours, someone you admire, someone who maybe teaches you. Imagine that person foretelling his or her death and resurrection. Imagine seeing that person die. Imagine the grief you’d feel, and then imagine seeing that person walking around three days later. My guess is, each of us would also meet our resurrected friend with fear and disbelief.
The disciples’ reaction to seeing Jesus seems pretty reasonable. Having never seen a resurrected human before, I can guess they had a little bit of fear of the unknown. This person before them looked like Jesus, but was he really? Was he a disembodied spirit? Was he still the Jesus they knew and loved? These were all reasonable questions for the disciples to have. Notice Jesus was not angry with them for their unbelief. Rather, he greeted them with peace. He told them to touch him; he ate in front of them. Jesus showed them that he really was the same person who had been their friend and teacher for three years.
So, what then does Jesus’ resurrection appearance among his disciples say to us? For one thing, Jesus’ resurrection tells us tells us that resurrection in general is true, that death does not triumph over God. The end of God’s creation is not death, but life. What kind of life is the resurrection? That is another question answered, at least in part, by Jesus’ resurrection appearance to his disciples. In the resurrected life, we will be largely who we were.
In his resurrection appearance, Jesus showed his disciples that he was the same person he had been. He was obviously changed in some ways. He couldn’t die anymore. He could appear and disappear at will, but he was still Jesus. So for us too, in the resurrection, we will be changed, but we will still be ourselves. Our loved ones will be changed in the resurrection, but they will still be themselves. As John tells us in his epistle, “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him…” (1 John 3:2) If the resurrected Jesus was changed and yet the same Jesus as before, then we will also be changed and yet be the same as before.
We don’t know exactly what the resurrection life will be like, so there is still some unknown, but that unknown can hopefully leave us with excitement rather than fear. One reason Jesus became human, died, and was resurrected was to “…free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:15)
Living in fear of death, one would hold on to all that one has with a vice grip, desperately grasping for anything to keep death at bay. Living in fear of death, one might accumulate exceedingly great wealth, things, and power, just to counter the powerlessness one feels regarding death. In today’s economic world, that one might hit home. Perhaps the folks responsible for our current economic downturn were living in fear of death and therefore accumulating too many things, driving up too much debt. The super rich aren’t the only ones who lived this way, aren’t the only ones responsible. Many Americans were living beyond their means. Many of us have too much debt. Many of us have more things than we need.
Perhaps many of us have been living with some fear of death. I include myself in this. I’ve never gone out and bought something thinking, “this will keep me alive another day,” but there have been times when I’ve felt a need or a longing for something and I’ve sated that need with a purchase of some kind. I think, on the one hand, my true longing was for God, but I also think mixed in there was fear of death and a longing for security.
Now, I usually don’t consciously fear death, but when I think of the resurrection, when I think of the next life, being at one with God, then I feel peace come upon me, and my desire for things tends to diminish. I find I have less desire for things when I think of the resurrection. So, I’m guessing I still have some unknown lingering fear of death, fear of the unknown that I sometimes try to quell with things. Maybe I’m not alone in that. Perhaps living out of our faith in Jesus can help keep us from over spending. So, our faith really can make a difference in our lives, in a tangible way by freeing us who have been held in slavery by the fear of death.
As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, quoting Isaiah and Hosea, “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:8, 1 Corinthians 15:54-55) One of the beauties of Easter is that death has no sting. By believing in Jesus’ resurrection and believing that we will share in his resurrection, we can live lives of hope and love without the need of material wealth and security. Further, as followers of Jesus, we can share our hope and faith and love with others so that those who do not yet have this hope might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. (2 Corinthians 5:15) We can share our faith, our hope, and our love so that those who fear death might not fear death, so that those who are longing to know God might come to know God.
Jesus told his disciples that they were witnesses of his death and resurrection, witnesses that were to share that witness with others, and I believe we also share in that witness. We get to witness to others the hope that is in us, the faith that we have been given. We get to witness as we have been witnessed to. We are not eye witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. We’re going on the testimony of Jesus’ disciples, of the witness they gave and the witness given by so many generations after them. We get to witness so that others may believe as we believe.
I asked at the beginning of this sermon why we believe. We believe not because of what we have seen, but because of what we have heard. We believe because of what we have been told by those who did see. We believe because of God’s spirit dwelling within us, praying for us, even in times of doubt, praying for us with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)
We also believe, I think because we want to. I want to believe that death is not the end. I want to believe that there is life after death. I want to believe that the resurrection life will be a wonderful life lived with our creator. I want to believe that I have nothing to fear in death. I want to believe that I don’t need to build up security here on earth because my life is in God’s hands and this life is not the end. I want to believe that God became human in the person of Jesus, that he, lived, died, and was resurrected all out of love for us. I want to believe, and so I choose to believe.
How much do I believe? How much trust do I put in the testimony that I have heard? Well, that kind of varies. At times I trust more than others. My prayer for all of us today, the message I want to leave us with is that we would believe the testimony we have been given enough not to fear death. My prayer and message is that we would believe enough in Jesus’ resurrection to trust him and to have lives filled with hope, love, and peace. Let us pray. “May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that [we] may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) Amen.
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