Brad Sullivan
Proper 7, Year C
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
1 Kings 19:1-15a
Psalm 43
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39
In both the old testament reading and the Gospel reading today, we have stories of spiritual warfare. In the reading from Kings, Elijah had just won a major victory for God against Jezebel and the prophets of Baal. Baal was a Canaanite deity, and Jezebel, wife of Ahab, king of Israel, Jezebel was uncompromising in her devotion to Baal. The fire and zeal she had for Baal dwarfed the devotion that the people of Israel at the time had for God.
Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord, and finally, Elijah had a contest with the prophets of Ball to see whose God would win. Elijah called the people of Israel to watch the contest between God and Baal, represented by Elijah for God and 450 prophets of Baal. Baal’s prophets called repeatedly for him to come down and consume an offering by fire to absolutely no effect.
Then, Elijah called on God who immediately consumed with fire the offering, the wood, the stones and all of the water Elijah had pored on it. The people turned back to God and had the prophets of Baal killed. As a result, we get the story we heard today. Jezebel was going to have Elijah killed so Elijah fled and met God on the mountain.
The contest between God and Baal was spiritual warfare lived out physically through Elijah and the prophets of Baal. The spiritual and the physical were united in the conflict.
In the Gospel too, we have today a story of spiritual warfare. Jesus casts demons out of a man of Gerasa. This was not the first healing done by Jesus nor was it the first time he had cast out demons, but in today’s story, Jesus cast out not one demon, but many, and those many demons were called ‘Legion’. Well, a legion was a Roman military unit of several thousand soldiers. This military unit of demons had possessed a poor man from Gerasa. As far as he knew, when Jesus cast out the demons, he’d been healed. Hearing the story as told by Luke, however, we know there was more going on than a man being healed. Jesus was engaged in spiritual warfare with these demons, and like Elijah called on God in his battle with the prophets of Baal, there was no contest. The demons, even a legion of demons, had no power against Jesus.
Spiritual warfare was lived out in a very concrete and physical way in the contest between God and Baal and in the contest between Jesus and the legion of demons, and that spiritual warfare is still being lived out today. We talk about people fighting their inner demons, and we tend to mean people simply have struggles within themselves, and the stories of our faith tell us there truly are forces of darkness that assault us. An example of where I see the assaults of demons attacking humans is in the reaction of so many people to the oil leak in the Gulf.
I realize this is a touchy subject, and the fact that people are very upset is perfectly understandable. Folks are worried about jobs, worried about plant and animal life, worried about the economy. These are all justifiable concerns and worries. People’s anger and fear is totally understandable, and yet amidst all these worries and fears, there have been calls for murder. Folks have said that people from BP should kill themselves or that various politicians should kills themselves. Anger and frustration is one thing, but calls for murder and suicide, that’s something else entirely, perhaps even the influence of demons.
Demons have at times been personified as the darker aspects of humanity. That we become angry when tragedy strikes is understandable. That our anger can become so all consuming that we are blinded by it is perhaps us suffering from the attacks of demons. Perhaps at times we too, like the man from Gerasa whom Jesus healed, are assaulted by demons.
That’s part of why Jesus is our savior to drive away “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God.” You may have noticed I was quoting from one of the renunciations in the baptismal covenant. The other two things we renounce are “the evil powers of this world” and “all sinful desires.” I would include vengeance, hatred, self-righteousness as sinful desires and evil powers.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Healing, Death, and Trust in God
Brad Sullivan
Proper 5, Year C
Sunday, June 6th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
What happens when we die? Why did Jesus heal the boy in this story? Was he showing compassion to a widow? Was he showing us his divine nature? Why don’t we still see healings like this in our world today? These are all questions that were raised for me in reading our Gospel story today. Looking first at the question about Jesus’ divine nature, then we look at the story, and if we believe Jesus was God, then his raising the boy to life in the story we heard today was in some ways no big deal. Jesus was God, of course he could raise this kid from the dead. At the time, of course, people didn’t believe Jesus was God. When he raised the boy, the people didn’t say, “look, there’s God.” They said, a “a mighty prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!”.
I’ve often heard folks comment on the people’s lack of understanding as to who Jesus was. “How could they not know Jesus was God? Look at what he did; he raised this boy from the dead.” Jesus’ miracles were the power of God being shown forth, but they were not obvious statements of Jesus’ divinity. The people’s belief that Jesus was a prophet, and not God was not because they were dim witted or unfaithful. Even after seeing him raise the widow’s son from the dead, the people had no reason to believe Jesus was God. Both Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead. They were both mighty prophets, and they both showed God’s favor to his people. So, the people’s response to Jesus raising the widow’s son from the dead was totally appropriate.
I find rather interesting the paradox, that the people, seeing Jesus raise the boy from the dead, were amazed and yet didn’t think Jesus was God. We, on the other hand because of our belief that Jesus was God, might find ourselves no longer amazed. This thought led me to one of my other questions, “why not now?” Why don’t we still see Jesus’ power to raise folks from the dead and to heal disease demonstrated in the world today, in the church? Didn’t Jesus give that power to the apostles? Shouldn’t it still be among us? Shouldn’t we be able to go to the healers whenever we’re sick and be healed just as readily and as surely as the boy in the story today?
If we look at the history of the prophets, and Jesus was a prophet, we find that God would show up occasionally with great power through a prophet. This was often done with the purpose of delivering his people from oppression or in order to call the people back to God. Why did the power of God manifest in the prophet not continue? Why did the miracles of Jesus not continue in an obvious way for all of his followers? Why do we still die and get sick? Why are we left feeling so powerless for so much of the time? Perhaps the power of God is a power too great for us to wield.
Imagine 12 people who were given God’s power to heal and to raise the dead. Those 12 would pass the power on, and pass it on, and pass it on. So there was always, throughout history, this group of people who had the power of God to perform miracles, to heal and raise the dead. Suppose people came to them to be healed and to raise the dead. If they said yes to everyone, then all they would do would be to heal and raise. People would clamor continuously for the miracles.
People might come to expect the miracles or demand them as a right. What if one of the healers ever refused? I can see that one being killed for the refusal. I can also see these healers being elevated as gods over the rest of us. Perhaps they would never be corrupted by this power, but we’ve seen far too many with far less power become corrupted far too often to believe that 12 people perpetually given the power of God would remain uncorrupted forever.
Further, when would the healing and life giving end? When people reached 120 years? 200? 900? Would people ever accept death as the natural end of life? Would we ever let go of life and trust in God?
Would these healers become those who determine when people live and when people die? You I’ll heal; you I won’t. You’ve lived long enough; you can keep going for a while. Might we end up hating the healers and God along with them because they didn’t bow to our every wish?
Perhaps, again, the power of God is too great a power for any human to wield for more than a very short time. We tend to want what we can’t have, dislike those who won’t give it to us, and all of this, largely due to our fear death and loss. Having healers like Jesus with us continually would not allay our fear of death and loss. It would simply put those fears off and possibly increase them over time.
Why, then, did Jesus exhibit his power over disease and death? I believe he did so, as did the prophets before him, to call the people back to God and to show the people who God is. Consider the words of today’s psalm:
Proper 5, Year C
Sunday, June 6th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
What happens when we die? Why did Jesus heal the boy in this story? Was he showing compassion to a widow? Was he showing us his divine nature? Why don’t we still see healings like this in our world today? These are all questions that were raised for me in reading our Gospel story today. Looking first at the question about Jesus’ divine nature, then we look at the story, and if we believe Jesus was God, then his raising the boy to life in the story we heard today was in some ways no big deal. Jesus was God, of course he could raise this kid from the dead. At the time, of course, people didn’t believe Jesus was God. When he raised the boy, the people didn’t say, “look, there’s God.” They said, a “a mighty prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!”.
I’ve often heard folks comment on the people’s lack of understanding as to who Jesus was. “How could they not know Jesus was God? Look at what he did; he raised this boy from the dead.” Jesus’ miracles were the power of God being shown forth, but they were not obvious statements of Jesus’ divinity. The people’s belief that Jesus was a prophet, and not God was not because they were dim witted or unfaithful. Even after seeing him raise the widow’s son from the dead, the people had no reason to believe Jesus was God. Both Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead. They were both mighty prophets, and they both showed God’s favor to his people. So, the people’s response to Jesus raising the widow’s son from the dead was totally appropriate.
I find rather interesting the paradox, that the people, seeing Jesus raise the boy from the dead, were amazed and yet didn’t think Jesus was God. We, on the other hand because of our belief that Jesus was God, might find ourselves no longer amazed. This thought led me to one of my other questions, “why not now?” Why don’t we still see Jesus’ power to raise folks from the dead and to heal disease demonstrated in the world today, in the church? Didn’t Jesus give that power to the apostles? Shouldn’t it still be among us? Shouldn’t we be able to go to the healers whenever we’re sick and be healed just as readily and as surely as the boy in the story today?
If we look at the history of the prophets, and Jesus was a prophet, we find that God would show up occasionally with great power through a prophet. This was often done with the purpose of delivering his people from oppression or in order to call the people back to God. Why did the power of God manifest in the prophet not continue? Why did the miracles of Jesus not continue in an obvious way for all of his followers? Why do we still die and get sick? Why are we left feeling so powerless for so much of the time? Perhaps the power of God is a power too great for us to wield.
Imagine 12 people who were given God’s power to heal and to raise the dead. Those 12 would pass the power on, and pass it on, and pass it on. So there was always, throughout history, this group of people who had the power of God to perform miracles, to heal and raise the dead. Suppose people came to them to be healed and to raise the dead. If they said yes to everyone, then all they would do would be to heal and raise. People would clamor continuously for the miracles.
People might come to expect the miracles or demand them as a right. What if one of the healers ever refused? I can see that one being killed for the refusal. I can also see these healers being elevated as gods over the rest of us. Perhaps they would never be corrupted by this power, but we’ve seen far too many with far less power become corrupted far too often to believe that 12 people perpetually given the power of God would remain uncorrupted forever.
Further, when would the healing and life giving end? When people reached 120 years? 200? 900? Would people ever accept death as the natural end of life? Would we ever let go of life and trust in God?
Would these healers become those who determine when people live and when people die? You I’ll heal; you I won’t. You’ve lived long enough; you can keep going for a while. Might we end up hating the healers and God along with them because they didn’t bow to our every wish?
Perhaps, again, the power of God is too great a power for any human to wield for more than a very short time. We tend to want what we can’t have, dislike those who won’t give it to us, and all of this, largely due to our fear death and loss. Having healers like Jesus with us continually would not allay our fear of death and loss. It would simply put those fears off and possibly increase them over time.
Why, then, did Jesus exhibit his power over disease and death? I believe he did so, as did the prophets before him, to call the people back to God and to show the people who God is. Consider the words of today’s psalm:
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
What is God?
Brad Sullivan
Trinity Sunday, Year C
Sunday, May 30th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Canticle 13
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
I glanced at an interesting article earlier this week, regarding Trinity Sunday, and this article referred to God as a thing. Rather than ask the question of who God is, the article raised the question of what God is. I find this both an interesting and a helpful question on Trinity Sunday. Today, we’re specifically celebrating God as Trinity, one God in three Persons. How can God be three and yet one? We don’t know. It’s a mystery. At the heart of the Trinity, however, is person: God as one in three persons, not one in three things. Asking the question of what is God seems rather antithetical to an understanding of God as three persons.
One essential thing the trinity tells us about God is that loving relationship is part of God’s very nature. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is this unity of persons bound together so tightly in love that they are one. So, “who is God?” seems a much more appropriate question than “what is God?”.
Even before there was ever any doctrine of God as Trinity, there was an understanding of God as person in some way. God spoke in creation, on Mount Sinai, through the prophets, and many other ways. God cared for his people like a mother or a father. In God’s interactions with our forefathers, with Israel, God seems much more like a who than a what.
Still, I find the question, “what is God?” to be a helpful question to ask from time to time. We understand God as a person and largely experience God as a person. Our doctrine tells us that God is three person united perfectly into one. We have some understanding of God based on scripture’s and our experiences of God, and yet, we don’t want our understanding of God to go unquestioned.
“What is God?” is a useful question because it helps prevent us from feeling like we know or understand God better than we do. I’ve got a pretty good grasp of the concept of the Trinity. God is three and yet one doesn’t bother me. I can deal with that. I love that understanding of God. When I consider, however, the enormous lack of understanding that I truly have of God, then what seems like a better question than who. Consider the answers to the questions.
Who is God? God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What is God? I don’t know.
Trinity Sunday, Year C
Sunday, May 30th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Canticle 13
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
I glanced at an interesting article earlier this week, regarding Trinity Sunday, and this article referred to God as a thing. Rather than ask the question of who God is, the article raised the question of what God is. I find this both an interesting and a helpful question on Trinity Sunday. Today, we’re specifically celebrating God as Trinity, one God in three Persons. How can God be three and yet one? We don’t know. It’s a mystery. At the heart of the Trinity, however, is person: God as one in three persons, not one in three things. Asking the question of what is God seems rather antithetical to an understanding of God as three persons.
One essential thing the trinity tells us about God is that loving relationship is part of God’s very nature. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is this unity of persons bound together so tightly in love that they are one. So, “who is God?” seems a much more appropriate question than “what is God?”.
Even before there was ever any doctrine of God as Trinity, there was an understanding of God as person in some way. God spoke in creation, on Mount Sinai, through the prophets, and many other ways. God cared for his people like a mother or a father. In God’s interactions with our forefathers, with Israel, God seems much more like a who than a what.
Still, I find the question, “what is God?” to be a helpful question to ask from time to time. We understand God as a person and largely experience God as a person. Our doctrine tells us that God is three person united perfectly into one. We have some understanding of God based on scripture’s and our experiences of God, and yet, we don’t want our understanding of God to go unquestioned.
“What is God?” is a useful question because it helps prevent us from feeling like we know or understand God better than we do. I’ve got a pretty good grasp of the concept of the Trinity. God is three and yet one doesn’t bother me. I can deal with that. I love that understanding of God. When I consider, however, the enormous lack of understanding that I truly have of God, then what seems like a better question than who. Consider the answers to the questions.
Who is God? God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What is God? I don’t know.
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