Light On the Horizon

Brad Sullivan

Easter Sunday, Year A

Sunday, April 20, 2014

St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX

Jeremiah 31:1-6

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Colossians 3:1-4

John 20:1-18 

It has been a wonderful Easter so far, starting last night with the ancient service of the Easter Vigil.  My daughter Ellie was baptized at the service and it was a joyful time all around.  We lit the new fire outside in the courtyard, symbolizing the new light of Jesus' resurrection coming into the world, and Ernie reminded me of another ancient custom of which I was unaware which we apparently used to celebrate here at St. Mark's.  We were preparing for the new fire of Easter, and Ernie asked, "are the kids going to road marshmallows on the fire before the service?"  I said, "Of course they are!"

It was great, the kids had a wonderful time eating S'mores, the acolytes started roasting marshmallows, and I thought, "wait, that's going to get on your robes...oh who cares, enjoy!"  It's been a wonderful celebration of life and new life after the season of Lent and Holy Week in which we're really focused on death.  

I'm so glad we have that time to focus on death, to honor that there is death in our lives, to celebrate that Jesus is with us not only in life and in resurrection, but also in death, but today is all about resurrection.  Jesus was resurrected from the dead, promising us that we will share in his resurrection after our lives have ended, and as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we follow Jesus' way of resurrection throughout our lives, resurrection following the thousands of deaths that occur in our lives, the failures, disappointments, the broken relationships, etc.

I'm about to sing a song about resurrection from these kids of deaths in our lives.  The story from the song is from a friend of mine whose marriage ended.  I was thinking of two friends whose marriages died, one ended in divorce, and the other ended up staying together.  The one couple, their marriage was dead, absolutely dead and in the tomb; they acknowledged it, said, "we're done."  Not long afterwards, they realized they didn't want their marriage to be dead, and they worked hard and prayed hard, and their marriage was resurrected from the absolute death that it had suffered.

My other friend, his marriage ended in divorce; he wanted it to survive, but it just couldn't happen and so for months his marriage was dead and in the tomb and starting to smell, and he was calling his friends, telling them that he was getting divorced, and one friend said to him, "Wow, a shot to the engine room!  Your life is going up in flames.  This is so exciting my friend!  Your life is never going to be the same."  

That was exactly what my friend needed to hear.  Having sat in the tomb of the death of his marriage for months, he needed to hear words of resurrection, and that's what his friend gave him, and I heard this story and thought, "that's the story I need for this song."  So I asked him, "hey, can I use the story of what your buddy said when you got divorced for this song I'm writing?"  He said, "of course, Brad, there's no copyright on the Holy Spirit."  So, this is song about resurrection.  This is called, "Light On the Horizon."

Light On the Horizon

Words and Music by Brad Sullivan, BMI

Traveling some forgotten road; Light on the horizon comes

I’ll journey on and bear my load; Light on the horizon comes

I’d spent a lifetime worrying,

If this was that or right or wrong, always a fight

Then coming up for air

And down again to wrestle on

I won’t let go, but the blessing was never right,

Or never really there

A man said, “be not afraid.”

“Win or draw you may lose just the same,

There’s far worse, and far less.”

“So my son, let it go.

Remember life is a song,

A song in progress.”

I’ll traveling this forgotten road; Light on the horizon comes

I’ll journey on and bear my load; Light on the horizon comes

Leaning back on the hood of my car,

As the ferry takes me across the bay,

Neither here nor there

Singing songs with my guitar,

Remembering why they call it play,

Music and open air

The job was bad and the hours long,

The money was not worth losing my soul

She said she understood.

“For better or worse, for rich or poor.”

Seems better and rich was far as she would go,

Or far as she could

I’ll traveling this forgotten road; Light on the horizon comes

I’ll journey on and bear my load; Light on the horizon comes

A shot to the engine room; your life is up in flames

Exciting times my friend, you’ll never be the same.

Light on the horizon comes.

Light on the horizon comes.

Light on the horizon comes.

Light on the horizon comes.

Bouncing to Jesus

Brad Sullivan

Maundy Thursday, Year A

Thursday, April 17, 2014

St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17

1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35           

Paul said whenever we have communion, we proclaim Jesus’ death.  I thought it was all about Jesus’ life and resurrection, and it is, but Paul said we proclaim his death.  Why is that, what’s that about?  Basically I think it goes like this:  Jesus is with us not only in life and resurrection, but also in death. 

I’m going to go right out on a limb and say death stinks.  I’ve said death is a doorway to resurrection, and it is, and at the same time, death is still terrible, and we’re proclaiming that Jesus is with us throughout our lives and in resurrection, and in our deaths and in the thousands of little deaths we have throughout our lives, the disappointments and failures.  Jesus is there with us, and we’re proclaiming that Jesus is with us throughout all of that in the communion.

How exactly does that work?  I don’t know.  I don’t have the first clue.  We’re not supposed to know.  Jesus didn’t explain how communion works.  He simply said, “have a meal together, and I will be with you.  In life, death, resurrection, have a meal, and I’m with you.”  We’ve wasted countless hours and years and lives in the church arguing about and trying to figure out how the mystery of communion works. We have fancy words to describe it, “transubstantiation”, “consubstantiation,” how stupid.  We don’t need to know how it works, it is a mystery, and we’ve had fractions within the church because people understand this mystery differently.  How incredibly stupid. 

Kids don’t worry about how communion works. They just love getting to come be with Jesus.  I’ve seen kids literally bouncing up to have communion, which, if your kids bounce on the way to communion, don’t you dare stop them.  If your grandkids or some kids whom you don’t even know bounces on the way to communion, don’t you dare stop them.  Let them bounce.  They’re joyfully coming to be with Jesus.  They don’t care how it works.  It’s a mystery, and they love it.

What isn’t a mystery is Jesus’ command to his disciples to go, and serve, and love.  That’s what he was teaching them when he washed their feet.  Now I don’t know if feet were different back then…maybe they wore sandals instead of encasing their feet in these sweat producing shoes, but nowadays…I’m not a bit fan of feet.  Washing each others’ feet is uncomfortable and awkward, and intimate (I mean, you don’t give a foot massage to someone unless you deeply know and love them, that’s an intimate thing), so washing each others’ feet is intimate and quite possibly smelly, and I think that’s the point. 

Jesus wanted his disciples to go, and serve, and love, and going and serving and loving is often uncomfortable and awkward, and intimate.  If you go to someone’s home to help serve them in some way, that’s intimate, and it may be smelly, but have you even noticed that with the foot washing, after the awkward and intimate and smelly, there is a profound presence of love. 

When we serve others, it may be uncomfortable and awkward and intimate and smelly, and then afterwards, there is the profound presence of love.  Go, serve, love.  That’s who we are as Jesus’ disciples.

Last year we collected books for Tennie Holmes elementary for the first graders so they would have books to read over the summer.  We’re doing that again this year, and we need someone to spearhead it, to get folks to buy the books and collect them here, and then have a party to wrap them up and get 3 or 4 folks to bring them to the school and deliver them.  I’ve had  a couple “no”s so far from folks who wanted to lead it but couldn’t, so if you want to say yes…just throw something at me.  Throw your shoe at me, you’re about to take it off anyway, and we’ll get those books gathered for the first graders at Tennie Holmes again.

We’re also going to do something to serve the kids at our two other elementary schools as well.  I don’t know what yet, but we’ve got teachers and librarians and nurses in those schools, and they’re going to ask and tell us what is needed, and we’re going to work together and fill that need. 

We used to be known for having fajita dinners here at St. Mark’s to help fund the Honduras Medical Mission trips we’d take, and I propose we start having those fajita dinners again to pay for whatever service we’re going to be doing for the elementary schools.  We need someone to spearhead that too, by the way, so throw your shoe as well.  We’ll do the Cinderella thing and talk afterwards.  

That’s who we are as Jesus’ disciples.  We’re people who go and serve and love.  That’s what Jesus asks us to do.  Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “I’m about to die, so make sure to worship me properly.”  Jesus said, “I’m about to die.  Share a meal together and I’ll be with you.  Life, death, resurrection, I’m with you.  So be with me, and then go, serve, love.”  Go.  Serve.  Love.  Amen.

...Song In Progress

Brad Sullivan

Palm Sunday, Year A

Sunday, April 13, 2014

St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX

Matthew 21:1-11

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16

Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14- 27:66

Episcopal priest and author, Chuck Meyer, summarized scripture as “God’s search for humankind and humankind’s rejection of that attempt to communicate, to heal, to love, to reconcile, to reconnect.” (Dying Church, Living God)  Realizing that God’s search for us also bears fruit, there is a lot of rejection of God on our part.  He said it must have been frightening for Jesus, knowing, based our history for rejecting God, that people would ultimately reject him. 

People wanted Jesus to do it all for them, but Jesus constantly turned the responsibility back onto them.  You heal them; you feed them, Jesus said. 

Ultimately, he became a threat to the political establishment and to the religious establishment.  He was unsettling, revolutionary, radical in his belief…He saw the universe from a totally different perspective, one that confronted the culture’s prejudices and the religious establishment’s smug certainty about the nature of God…He demanded justice, equality, and above all, love.  So because the culture and the religious establishment felt threatened by him, it was inevitable that Jesus would die. (Dying Church, Living God)

People rejected God, yet again in rejecting Jesus, and yet, killing Jesus didn’t put a stop to God’s reaching out to us through Jesus.  Instead, “the power of God exploded out from him and imploded into everything and everyone, permanently and indelibly.”  (Dying Church, Living God)  God took our rejection of him and used it to be with us even more fully. 

That is the full story of scripture, our rejection of God and God using our rejection to unite with us ever more fully.  It’s a story that keeps on happening over and over throughout scripture and ever since scripture.  Looking particularly at humanity’s propensity for stopping people through whom God is speaking, only to have God’s message explode out more fully through the person’s death, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was killed because God was speaking through him and being a threat to established society, and when he was killed, his message and God’s work exploded out of him and imploded into our society. 

There are countless other stories like this of God speaking through people, those people being silenced, and God’s message breaking out even more strongly.  There are countless stories in the church’s life and in individuals’ lives of God’s presence and power alive and active in their lives.  Sometimes God works through people, bringing healing, reconciliation, and love.  Sometimes God works in ways we don’t know or understand, bringing healing, reconciliation, and love.

A friend of mine has a daughter and when she was two, she wasn't talking much, so they were sitting around one day talking gibberish to each other.  The grandmother was there too, and years before, she had prayed for and received a prayer language.  The language is unknown, and she doesn't know what she is saying.  It is like stories in scripture where God's Spirit speaks through people in languages they don't understand.  My friend prays this language in private, the words praying to God those things on her heart, things of which she may not even be aware, the "sighs too deep for words."

So, the two year old daughter and her mother were speaking gibberish to each other, and the grandmother, not being overly adept at gibberish, begins speaking to her granddaughter in the prayer language.  When they were all finished, the granddaughter looks at her grandmother and clearly says, "yes."  No one knows what was said, but the granddaughter understood what her grandmother was praying.

My point is this:  the stories of scripture are still being written.  The story of God reaching out to us, of us often rejecting God, and of God using our rejection to reach out to us even further is a story which God continues to write in each successive generation, in all of our lives.  We’ve all got stories of God’s healing, reconciliation, and love in our lives; we’ve all got stories of people bringing healing, reconciliation, and love in our lives. 

These stories are our scripture.  We’ll go little “s” on this scripture.  The stories of the Bible are still the Holy Scriptures of the church, Holy Scripture for all of us, and the stories of God continuing to heal and reconcile and love in our lives are also our stories, our scriptures.  We need to tell our stories, share with each other the scripture that is still being written. 

God’s power and presence has imploded into us.  In God, we live and move and have our being.  Nowhere we can go will remove us from his presence, nothing we can do will separate us from God’s love.  As often as we personally or humanity may try, nothing will stop God writing his story in our lives.  Not killing Jesus, not killing countless prophets since Jesus, not running from God’s message, not stuffing cotton in our ears, nothing will stop God writing his story of healing, reconciliation, and love.  God’s healing, reconciliation, and love is our story, our song, a song still in progress.  Amen.

Order Out of Chaos

Brad Sullivan

4th Sunday of Lent, Year A

Sunday, April 6, 2014

St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

           

Since January, I’ve been helping to teach a leadership class called CLAY Leadership in the elementary and middle schools.  The classes are 30 minutes every two weeks in every class in the schools, and folks around the community have signed up and trained to lead these classes.

Good days and bad days – by and large, the student seem to respond pretty well…In these classes, we get to hear some from the kids’ lives, and some of the things and situations these kids are facing.  There are discipline problems and kids acting out.  Of course there are.  You get that sometimes from kids living with two parents in a stable, loving home.  There are kids living with hardly one parent, very little stability, and a very little love given.  Looking at the big picture around the schools, at the home life of some of these kids, it seems sometimes like the world is slipping into chaos.

 We’ve had several family members of parishioners die in the last couple of weeks.  There was another shooting and suicide at Fort Hood.  With an awful lot of wonderful things and good in the world, it sometimes feels like the world is slipping into chaos.

Chaos is how the world began.  In the beginning the world was a formless void – there was chaos, and out of this chaos, God spoke, and the words God spoke created order out of chaos, created something out of nothing.  Light, etc…

In Genesis 2, God fashioned things with his hand to create order and beauty and life.  Adam was fashioned by God’s hands out of the dust of the ground.  Places him in the garden, and for the first time, something isn’t good.  The man is alone, and that isn’t good, so God fashions animals out of the dust of the ground, and finally fashions Eve out of Adams rib. 

God speaks to create order out of chaos, and it is good.  God fashions life out of the dust of the ground to make life and companionship and beauty. 

In our gospel lesson last week, Jesus, fashioned new eyes for a blind man out of the dust of the ground.  He made mud with dirt and saliva, spread it on the man’s eyes, and the man could see.  Jesus fashioned the world with his hands just as God did in creation.

In our Gospel lesson today, when Lazarus died, Jesus spoke, and it came to be.  “Lazarus, come out,” Jesus said, and Lazarus, though dead until Jesus’ words were spoken, came out of the tomb, alive and well.  Jesus spoke life into death, spoke order out of chaos, just as God had done in creation.

Jesus showed himself to be God, the same bringer of order out of chaos that spoke in creation, the same former and fashioner of the earth that formed and fashioned all of life.  Jesus also showed us who we are because Jesus was fully human.

We’re made in God’s image, as we’re told in Genesis 1. 

Our words have power. 

We’re made to do creative and meaningful work with our hands and bodies. 

We are made as light bearers, carrying the fire of Jesus to help bring order out of chaos as well. 

We take part in God’s story of bringing order out of Chaos.

We’re meant to do creative and fulfilling work, and our jobs may be that work.  Our jobs may also be tasks we fulfill.  Our creative work that God has given us to bring light and life, and order out of chaos may be different than our jobs.  Our creative work is our ministry, something God has fashioned us to do to help bring beauty and life into creation, to help bring order out of chaos.

Our words also have this power to bring order out of chaos.  Our words can destroy, and our words can create.  We talked in the CLAY Leadership classes about the power our words have to discourage people from their dreams.  Even people who love us and want to encourage us sometimes say the wrong thing and end up discouraging us.   Our words, of course also have the power to encourage, to give life.  We may not just say “get up” to a dead body and it will, but our words our tremendous power to give life. 

The kids in our schools who have such tragic home lives need words to give them life.  They need more positive influences from loving people full of the light and life of Jesus.  They need to know they aren’t alone in trying to raise themselves.

We’re not fully human if we are alone.  The first part of creation that was not good was that Adam was alone.  We’re made for deep and meaningful relationships.  We’re mean to be naked with each other and with God.  We’re meant to share vulnerability and intimacy with loving friends and family. 

Words of love given intimately and nakedly, metaphorical nakedly are ways we bring order out of chaos.  Creative work to bring life and light to the world are ways we bring order out of chaos.  Jesus brings order out of chaos, and we carry his fire, his spirit with us to bring that order out of Chaos.

Over the next two weeks, CLAY Leadership is having what they call “Parent University”.  Tuesday and Thursday nights for the next two weeks, the trainers and other adults we can gather will be at the three elementary schools and the middle school to have some time with the parents and the kids together.  It’s going to be simple things, playing games together, there will be a lesson.  It’s a chance for some relationship and knowing that there is light and life, that there is order to be brought out of chaos.

I’ll be at two of the four; I’ll be here on the other two.  We need folks from here to come to these as well.  We need folks there to help with the activities, and folks to be there to be carriers of Jesus’ light.  It’s public school, so from the front, we don’t really mention Jesus, but we bring his light anyway, and we do get to mention Jesus in private conversations. 

Talk to me.  Sign up for a school after church.  Take a chance to speak words of life to people in need of those words.  Take a chance to do some creative work, fashioning life out of the dust of the ground.  Take an opportunity to help bring order out of chaos.  Amen.

Mucking Things Up In-Utero

Brad Sullivan

4th Sunday of Lent, Year A

Sunday, March 30, 2014

St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm 23

Ephesians 5:8-14

John 9:1-41

God’s plans for Israel were seemingly in ruins when Saul turned out to be such a terrible king.  When the people of Israel first demanded a king, God told them that they wouldn’t like it, but he went along with it, and God chose the man who would be king of Israel, God anointed him as king, and not too terribly long afterwards, Saul ended up doing a terrible job, breaking covenant faithfulness with God, placing his trust in improper ritual observance, rather than placing his trust in God.  By doing so, Saul was leading the people into not trusting God. 

God’s plans to form Israel as his people who would love and serve him and spread his light to the ends of the earth seemed to be falling apart with the debacle of Saul’s monarchy, and yet when the prophet Samuel was bothered by Saul’s demise, God simply said, "How long will you grieve over Saul?  I have rejected him from being king over Israel.  Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons." (1 Samuel 16:1-2)

God’s plans for Israel were going up in smoke, and God just said, “ok, moving on, let’s try this.”  While God certainly cares when we sin, and God certainly desires for us to live well, God is also utterly undaunted by out sin.  The more we sin, the more God just keeps shining light in our darkness.

In Jesus’ time, people felt that God was constantly seeking vengeance upon sinners, and you could tell the severity of someone’s sin by how badly off they were.  They thought they were sinners in the hands of an angry God, an idea which has unfortunately persisted even to this day.  Even reading Paul’s words, I often mistakenly hear the idea of God’s vengeance.  As Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them [so that Jesus can unleash his mighty and terrible vengeance upon them].”  Paul didn’t actually say that last part, but I often hear tones of vengeance there.  I think a more accurate hearing of that passage would be, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them [so that Jesus can shine his light upon them and help dispel the darkness in people’s lives].”

Jesus doesn’t seek vengeance on us whenever we mess up.  This may seem obvious to us, but it certainly wasn’t obvious to the people in Jesus’ time, believing God was constantly seeking vengeance on anyone who messed up.  Imagine being the blind man whom Jesus healed, and imagine hearing the incredibly good news that you aren’t being horribly punished by an angry God for every little sin.  Imagine the joy of finding out that the problems you have or infirmities you suffer aren’t because God is angry with you, but simply because life happens. 

Jesus doesn’t get all freaked out when we sin and mess up.  He just grabs a flashlight. 

Jesus shines a light on our darkness, to help heal us and bring us to the light.  As Paul wrote, “Once you were in darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.” (Ephesians 5:8)  “Live as children of light – for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.  Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”  We expose the unfruitful works of darkness not to bring shame or ridicule, but to bring healing with the light of Christ. 

We talk a lot about sin in the church, and we even have this season of the church year seemingly devoted to focusing on our sins, although the real purpose is to shine the light of Jesus on our sins, not just to harp on them over and over. 

Jesus isn’t interested in branding people as sinners.  Jesus is interested in healing, restoration, and reconciliation.  The Pharisees, on the other hand, were very interested in branding the blind man as a sinner; even Jesus’ disciples wanted to brand him as such, but Jesus wasn’t buying in their brand.  The Pharisees were trying so hard to be righteous, they were so full of vim and vigor that they ended up pouring bowls of contempt on those around them.

Jesus, however, came not full of vim and vigor, but full of grace and truth.  Jesus came full of forgiveness, declaring us innocent and reconciled. Jesus came revealing to us who we truly are.  We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God as the Pharisees would have had people believe.  We are not continually punished by God over and over for our mistakes.  We are beloved children of God whom God forgives, justifies, declares innocent, and reconciles to himself.  We are beloved children of God who often do walk in darkness, but when we do, God is undaunted by it, simply finding some new way to shine light into our darkness. 

Jesus exposed the works of darkness in his encounter with the blind man, not because of anything the blind man had done, but rather because of what the people were doing to him.  People expected that since he was blind, the man must have done something deserving of God’s wrath, and since he had been blind since birth, either he had done something really terrible in-utero, or his parents had done something terrible and God’s vengeance had passed on to their son. 

Jesus pointed out how ridiculous that was.  Neither the man nor his parents sinned (to cause the blindness).  He was born blind.  Period.  A crummy thing happened, and it wasn’t God’s vengeance.  The works of darkness Jesus was exposing were not the blind man’s works of darkness, but the peoples’. 

Do not put a stumbling block before the blind, scripture teaches, (Leviticus 19:14)  and people were indeed putting a stumbling block before the blind man, declaring him guilty for being blind, rather than showing him compassion and mercy for being blind.  Jesus shined light into their darkness, giving sight to the blind man, and giving the light of God’s grace and love to the people who had been walking in the darkness of God’s assumed vengeance and wrath.

Unfortunately, many of the people remained there, in the self-imposed darkness of God’s vengeance and wrath.  The healed blind man told them their story, while they knew he could see, they just couldn’t or wouldn’t see God’s grace and love in the healing.  The grace and truth of Jesus ran counter to what they believed about God.  They were daunted by the thought that God could be undaunted by our sin.  They just kept telling the blind man he was a sinner so they could be safe in their beliefs and certainties.  Certainly the blind man had sinned, but God was undaunted by it, and God certainly didn’t seek vengeance on him for it. 

We are disciples of Jesus.  We are God’s people formed to be a beacon to bring the light of Jesus to Bay City and to the ends of the earth.  As God’s people, we mess up and sin all the time, and God is absolutely undaunted by it.  We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God as the Pharisees would have had people believe.  We are not continually punished by God over and over for our mistakes.  We are beloved children of God whom God forgives, justifies, declares innocent, and reconciles to himself.  We are beloved children of God who often do walk in darkness, but when we do, God is undaunted by it, simply finding some new way to shine light into our darkness.  Amen.