The New Garden

Brad Sullivan

Easter Sunday, Year C

March 27, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

John 20:1-18

The New Garden

Mary thought Jesus was the gardener.  As she was weeping outside Jesus empty tomb, wondering who had stolen Jesus’ body, she turned, and Jesus was there, having been raised from the dead, and she thought he was the gardener, and so he was.  Jesus was the one who made the very first garden in Eden, and so standing in this new garden of Jesus’ resurrection, Mary is the first one to see and experience the resurrection life.  Jesus calls Mary by name, and then she knows him, and she clings to him, her heart full of love and joy at seeing Jesus before her, standing with her in the rebirth of creation.

Then, Jesus tells her to go to his disciples and tell them that he has been raised, “do not cling to me,” Jesus says, and as much as Mary wants to stay, to hold on to Jesus forever, she trusts him.  She lets go, and she goes to the disciples to tell them the good news that Jesus has been raised.  This new Eve in the new garden trust in Jesus, and we see the effects of resurrection immediately taking place.  The serpents’ whispers to stay or she will never see him again fall on deaf ears, and she trusts in Jesus. 

Of course we still mess up, don’t we?  There is still sin in the world.  There are still countless ways that we harm each other, countless ways that we separate ourselves from each other and separate ourselves from God, which is why Jesus joined himself to us and took all of our sins upon himself on the cross.  We sin and we die, so Jesus took all of our sin and death and joined it to himself.

In the incarnation, becoming human, God joined himself fully to humanity in Jesus.  That was the point, to restore us to unity with God.  If we’re going to be fully restored to God, then we must be restored to God even in death, and if we’re going to be fully restored to God, then we have to be restored to God even in sin.  I supposed Jesus could have suddenly started sinning, God sinning against humanity in order to join with us even in ways that we harm each other, fracture our relationships, and separate ourselves from God and each other, but he didn’t.  God loves us too much suddenly to decide to sin against us, and we’ve got more than enough sin and harm to go around, so Jesus took our sins upon himself on the cross so that even our disconnection from God has been united to God. 

On the cross, Jesus took all of the ways that we harm each other and disconnect ourselves from each other and from God, Jesus took all of that, and united himself to it, so that even at our worst, we can still be united to God.  Those who have murdered people and raped people, those who have abused their bodies with drugs and harmed other people with drugs, those whose hearts are hardened by unforgiveness and those whose hearts are broken by shame, even those who kill themselves and others in acts of terrorism:  all of their sins were united to Jesus on the cross.  All of our sins were united to Jesus on the cross.

Having taken our worst upon himself, Jesus died to unite us to God even in death, and then he was raised so that we get to be united to God in new life. 

That new life began on this day almost 2000 years ago as Mary stood with Jesus in the new garden.  Jesus, the new Adam trusted in God with his life and death, and Mary, a second Eve, standing there in the garden, trusted in Jesus.  In the resurrection, the world is changed, and we are changed. 

In the resurrection, in the new garden, we are given grace upon grace.  Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor who as a young woman had been addicted to drugs and alcohol.  She cared deeply about people and had grown up in a church (rules) – ended up breaking free from those constraints and into drugs and alcohol.  She was trapped. 

She then went on a date with a guy named Matthew (whom she later married), and Matthew happened to be a Lutheran seminary student who had the same passion for community and caring for those in need as she did. Reluctantly she went with him to a Lutheran church, and she loved the liturgy.  She called it “choreographed sacredness,” she called it. “It felt like a gift that had been caretaken by generations of the faithful and handed to us to live out and caretake and hand off.”  That sounds like the Episcopal Church, doesn’t it? 

Grace, however, was the key for her conversion.  She hadn’t learned about grace in the church where she grew up.  There she had mostly learned a bunch of rules she had to follow lest Jesus be angry with her.  “But I did learn about grace,” she said, “from sober drunks who managed to stop drinking by giving their will over to the care of God and who then tried like hell to live a life according to spiritual principles.” In the Lutheran church (like the Episcopal Church), she found the centrality of grace. 

Nadia found resurrection – new life, restoration, and reconciliation.  The resurrection of Jesus in the new garden, lived out in a community of grace.  She’s one of countless people whose lives have been transformed by Jesus’ resurrection.  She didn’t turn her life around and then come to Jesus.  She came to Jesus as she was, and he loved her as she was, and then gave her grace and offered her a new life trusting him, doing her darnedest to follow in his ways, and accepting his grace when she messed up.  That’s life in the new garden.  

In the new garden, we don’t hide behind fig leaves.  In the new garden of Jesus’ resurrection, we walk with Jesus as we are and we allow his grace to heal us.  In the new garden of Jesus resurrection, we follow Jesus, we trust in him, we follow where he leads, and we receive grace when we don’t follow all that well.  Out of the depths of despair, sitting beside whatever tomb we have made, we see Jesus who calls us to him by name, who holds us, gives us grace and new life in his new garden.  Amen.

Baptized Into Jesus' Death

Brad Sullivan

Easter Vigil, Year C

March 26, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Romans 6:3-11

Luke 24:1-12

Baptized Into Jesus’ Death

Alleluia, Christ is risen!  Gosh that feels good to say.  We get to revel in the glory of Jesus’ resurrection again.  I know we still have been throughout Lent, but our focus was more on our shortcomings and failings and the reasons for Jesus suffering and death.  Now, our focus is more squarely on Jesus and his resurrection, the effects of his suffering and death.  Those effects are life, restoration, and reconciliation for all.

Why did Jesus have to die?  We get questions like these from kids, from adults, from Christians and from non-Christians.  We often say, “to pay for our sins,” and that is true, but it also leads to questions about why, if God is so forgiving, did God not just forgive us outright?  Why take the penalty on himself?  There are a variety of answers posed:  to satisfy God’s justice, to satisfy God’s vengeance, simply because it just doesn’t seem right not to have someone pay the penalty.   All valid and possibly true answers, but let’s look at Jesus’ death from the standpoint of his life and incarnation.  Why did Jesus have to die?  Because we die.

In the incarnation, God joined himself fully to humanity in Jesus.  That was the point, to restore us to unity with God.  If we’re going to be fully restored to God, then we must be restored to God even in death, and if we’re going to be fully restored to God, then we have to be restored to God even in sin.  I supposed Jesus could have suddenly started sinning, God sinning against humanity in order to join with us even in ways that we harm each other, fracture our relationships, and separate ourselves from God and each other, but he didn’t.  God loves us too much suddenly to decide to sin against us, and we’ve got more than enough sin and harm to go around, so Jesus took our sins upon himself on the cross so that even our disconnection from God has been united to God. 

On the cross, Jesus took all of the ways that we harm each other and disconnect ourselves from each other and from God, Jesus took all of that, and united himself to it, so that even at our worst, we can still be united to God.  Those who have murdered people and raped people, those who have abused their bodies with drugs and harmed other people with drugs, those whose hearts are hardened by unforgiveness and those whose hearts are broken by shame, even those who kill themselves and others in acts of terrorism:  all of their sins were united to Jesus on the cross.  All of our sins were united to Jesus on the cross.

That’s why Jesus had to die, to unite us to God in life, in sin, and in death. 

Then, Jesus was resurrected.  Jesus defeated death and rose again from the dead to eternal life.  Jesus was and is still united to humanity in his resurrection, so in Jesus life, death, and resurrection, we are united to God in life, sin, death, and in eternal life after death. 

Death has been transformed into a vehicle from life to life eternal.  That is why Jesus had to die, so that we could live.  Even at our darkest moments, in the pit of despair, at the bottom of the sea of silence, in the suffering of sin and the finality of death, Jesus is there saying, “come with me, for our life together is not over.  Come with me into the light, and share with me in life everlasting.”  Amen.

Braving the Tranquil Sea of Silence

Brad Sullivan

Good Friday, Year C

March 25, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

John 18:1-19:42

Braving the Tranquil Sea of Silence

Silence.  That what is called for often in our liturgy, silence.  Silence can be the sound of prayer, the sound of relaxing and taking a break for a while.  After a long day and once the kids are to bed and before binge watching Netflix or reading starts, it can be very healing to sit in silence for a few minutes.  Silence gives our brains time to unwind.  Silence allows us to notice our breathing and to marvel at the miracle of our lives, our bodies, the presence of God around us and within us.  Silence can be the sound and the sounds of life without the noise of everything else.

Silence can be a beautiful thing.  Silence can also bring to the surface things we’d rather keep buried.  Silence brings a void, and inevitably something will come to fill that void, often the memories we’d rather than deal with, the decisions which haunt us, the scars left by others.  In the tranquil sea of silence we see peace and beauty, but with pain and death lurking just beneath the surface. 

Perhaps that is why silence is so rarely sought.  Silence beckons to us, invites us to sail upon her waters, and yet we often dare not even approach the shore for fear of what may come forth, and so we draw back from the tranquil sea, retreating once again into the forest of voices and noise, hiding in the din of life, hiding from the truth that would otherwise rend our hearts.

As Simon and Garfunkel wrote in The Sound of Silence:

            And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence.

Silence is the sound of death.  Silence was the sound of Jesus tomb cut out of the rock.  Silence was the sound of Jesus’ body without the movement of breath, without the flow of blood, without the beating of his heart.  Silence was the only sound that was left when the sins of all humanity were poured out upon Jesus.  The author of life had been killed, taking upon himself the judgment due to all of humanity, and the Word of God which spoke the words “Let there be light,” in the beginning of creation was left was left in silence.

As humanity ran back into the forest of noise and distraction, Jesus sailed the sea of silence and then left the boat, only this time he did not walk on the sea, he sank down, swallowed up by all that lay beneath, and left the sea tranquil and calm as before. 

We know that Jesus was resurrected a few short days after his death.  We know that Jesus left the sea of silence, and yet, Jesus is still there, along with all of sins of humanity, the memories we’d rather than deal with, the decisions which haunt us, the scars left by others.  Jesus is there in the silence inviting us to face what we’d rather not face, inviting us to look into the face of the demons within. 

Jesus is inviting us to trust him, to follow him into the silence, to join with him there in the silence of his tomb, and to trust that he will bring us out with him as well, giving us new life with him.  First, however, we have to face the silence of his tomb.  We have to brave the waters of that tranquil sea and to face what lurks beneath.  We have to go down into the sea of silence.  Amen.

Nothing Will Keep Me From Loving You

Brad Sullivan

Maundy Thursday, Year C

March 24, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Nothing Will Keep Me From Loving You

Last weekend Kristin and I spent Friday night with my cousin and his wife in Tyler, TX.  We went to a great barbeque place and then to a pub and had some local beers.  While were there, Kelly, my cousin-in-law told us about talking earlier that day with her co-workers about what they were doing for the weekend, and Kelly said, “oh, we’re going to have a great weekend, my cousins are coming into town.”  Somehow, it came up that Kristin and I are both priests, and Kelly’s friends said, “Oh, what are you going to do?”  She said, “No, no, it’s ok.  They’re cool.” 

Somehow and for quite a number of reasons, Christians and especially priests are associated with no fun.  It’s like this guilt feeling like we get to have fun, so long as we don’ t get caught.  I remember in college hearing about a Christians on campus group that told their members that when they went into a bar, to be sure to hide any crosses they wore as jewelry so that no one would think badly of Christian folk. 

How crazy, messed up, backwards, and completely missing the mark is that? 

As Christians, as disciples of Jesus, we certainly do intend to live well.  We intend to live in such a way as not to bring harm to others and not to bring harm to ourselves.  In fact, if we’re really living as disciples of Jesus, we take it a step further and intend to live in such a way to bring about good for other.  We serve one another.  Of course we do.  That’s what love does. 

We also fail miserably a lot of the time both at not harming and at doing good.  So far I have described nothing that would separate a Christian from anyone else.  You don’t have to be a Christian to want not to harm others, and you don’t have to be a Christian to want to do good for others.  You certainly don’t have to be a Christian to fail miserably. 

What makes us Christians, quite simply, is Jesus.  We rely on Jesus.  We rely on his grace and his love to nurture us, guide us, forgive us, and love us. 

Jesus’ command to his disciples was that they love one another.  Jesus’ command to us is that we love one another.  Not that we don’t have fun, not that we try to hide having fun from each other, or God forbid from a priest.  Love one another. 

Love means digging deep.  Love is not a surface affair.  Love means we’re going to get our hearts broken.  Love means we’re going to get dirty as we love others who have fallen.  Love means being with and loving people as they are, not as we want them to be.  Love also means that no amount of failing at love will end the love.  “Nothing will keep me from loving you,” Jesus said, “now love each other that way.”

Not Fire Not Ice – Ben Harper.  

There is not a river wide.

Not a mountain high.

And neither sin nor evil.

Could change how I feel inside.

Could change how I feel inside.

Not all the strength of the ocean.

Not all the heat from the sun, from the sun.

Now, others have tried, I just can't deny.

For me you are the one.

For me you are the one.

The true love is priceless.

For true love you pay a price.

But there's nothing can keep me from loving you.

Not fire, no not ice.

Not fire, no not ice.

Like a hero or a champion.

You are the best, you're the best.

Like religion or superstition.

With you I am blessed.

With you I am blessed.

Now the river may grow wider.

The mountain may reach past the sky.

And wether or not you feel the same.

My love shall never die.

My love shall never die.

The true love you give and take.

The true love is sacrifice.

But there's nothing can keep me from loving you.

Not fire, no not ice.

Not fire, no not ice.

Not fire, no not ice.

Amen.

This Won’t Do (things we need to let die)

Brad Sullivan

Holy Monday, Year C

March 21, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

John 12:1-11

This Won’t Do (things we need to let die)

In the sardonic, silly, and hilarious series of books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, wrote a science fiction tale beginning on Earth which was quickly demolished to make way for an interstellar highway.  The one survivor from earth is then taken on a journey across time and space to the far reaches of the universes, and much hilarity ensues.  On one of the fictional planets Douglas Adams describes, the people were peaceful and loving, until the fateful day in which a spaceship from another world crash landed onto their planet.  Until this moment, they had no idea there were any other planets or stars for that matter.  Their atmosphere was surrounded by a cloud of dust which blocked from view any other stars or celestial bodies.  The spaceship punched a hole in their dust cloud, and for the first time, they saw the stars and the enormity of space beyond them.

Upon discovering that they were not alone in all of creation, they, as a people, uttered three words.  “This won’t do.”  Their understanding of life, the universe, and everything, had been irrevocably altered, and so they decided to annihilate the entire universe.  They eventually failed, but not before unleashing unimaginable carnage to the universe in an enormous intra-galactic war.  Did I mention these books were comedy and rather sardonic.  The people of this planet chose to destroy the truth rather than let die their old understanding and allow the truth to change them.

That sounds a bit like the chief priests’ reaction to Jesus.  Here Jesus was raising people from the dead, claiming things about himself and about God that didn’t mesh with their understanding of Judaism or their understanding of God, and rather than learn from Jesus or at least leave him be, they decided to kill not only him, but evidence of his good deeds, plotting to kill Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.  Their universe had changed and they looked at one another and said, “This won’t do.” 

To be fair, they weren’t trying to kill God.  They didn’t know or believe that Jesus was God, but had they believed, I wonder how different their reaction would have been.  Possibly not murderous, but still at least profoundly argumentative. 

Jesus was God incarnate.  For millennia, the people of Israel had wondered and marveled at the mystery of God.  They had the words of scripture to describe God and the way of life given in Torah for them to live out God’s ways, and yet, they saw in a mirror dimly. 

Suddenly, God was a human being, living out a human life, and that human life often didn’t jive with what they believed God to be, nor did Jesus jive with what they believed they were supposed to be.  Jesus simply wouldn’t do.

Jesus has a way of bringing about such a reaction, to think, “This just won’t do.”  Even for those of us, who have known Jesus and believe him to be both God and human, we often look at his life and teachings and compare them to our own lives and think, “this won’t do.”  Just as the chief priests, we too see in a mirror dimly, Jesus challenges us time after time about who God is and who we are. 

We have various ideas about what it means to be a man or be a woman in this country.  There are a variety of proofs of what it means to be a man, many of them centering about strength, physical prowess, control, or even mental acuity and accomplishment of something great.  Likewise, there are a variety of proofs of what it means to be a woman, having to do with femininity, attractiveness, fertility, as well as physical prowess, and skill in just about everything.

None of us live up to these feminine and masculine ideals, not even those who seem to, and yet we often keep some measure of these ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman in our minds:  thoughts of who and how we ought to be. 

Then we look to Jesus, to God incarnate, who shows us what it means to be truly human, and he challenges most of our masculine and feminine ideas.  Power?  No, humility.  Continual self-improvement?  No, dying to self.  Giving or getting what we deserve?  No, grace and forgiveness. 

When we truly look at Jesus, at God incarnate, at true humanity, and we compare him to who we are and how we want to be, we are continually called up short, and rather than let die that which needs to die within us, we often tacitly respond with, “This won’t do.”   We then seek not to kill Jesus, but to dismiss that teaching of his or that aspect of who he is, and thereby, we seek kinda to kill Jesus rather than let die that part of us that doesn’t mesh with Jesus. 

Thankfully, in the incarnation, Jesus not only showed who God truly is and who we truly are meant to be, Jesus took upon himself all of our failings.  He united himself to us, not only as we are meant to be, but as we are.  As Paul reminds us in Romans 8:38-39, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That is the incarnation, the fact that nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, not even our own desires to say, “This won’t do.”  Jesus’ incarnation has united us to him forever, and that union with God is then constantly pulling us, not forward as we would think of it, not to be better or do more.  Jesus’ incarnation is constantly pulling us toward the cross, leading us to let die those parts of us that need to die so that he can then reform us and remake us in his image, so that he can make us into true men, make us into true women.  Jesus is like that spaceship from another world bursting through the cloud of dust that obscures our vision and understanding of ourselves and inviting us to the beauty of what lies beyond, the enormity and beauty of God’s love.  Amen.

.  

The Hope of the Gospel Is in the Pit of Despair

Brad Sullivan

Palm Sunday, Year C

March 20, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Luke 19:28-40

Luke 22:14-23:56

The Hope of the Gospel Is in the Pit of Despair

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem has got to be the most disappointing political campaign rally in history.  Today, we got to hear the good part about him riding in on a donkey and the people putting palm branches down for him and shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”  The people all had their “Jesus for President 033” signs.  The place was littered with “Make Israel Great Again” posters, and the crowd was in a frenzy, waiting to hear what Jesus would say on this last stop on his campaign before taking over Jerusalem and then marching on Rome and kicking those guys out. 

It seemed to be glory upon glory as Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and yet the people’s hopes were disappointed.  What we didn’t hear in the story today is that Jesus rides a little further and begins weeping for Jerusalem.  “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side.” 

Jesus gave no victory speech.  He did not thank his supporters.  Other than a weeping lament, Jesus didn’t respond at all to the huge campaign rally.  Once he got to Jerusalem, Jesus went into the temple and made people upset by driving out the money changers and the animals.  The crowd who had gathered to hear Jesus speak to them looked at one another and said, “That was weird.”  “Yeah, and kinda lame.”  They were disappointed.  The great hope they had in Jesus had not been realized.  Their disillusionment in Jesus began.  Their hearts began to turn against Jesus even as Jesus’ life began careening headlong toward the cross. 

The hope of the Gospel was not to be found in the in the glory of Jesus’ march on Jerusalem.  His ride into town did not lead to glory but to the cross. 

It’s ironic today that the cross is so prevalent as a symbol of our faith.  We’ve got it on jewelry, on our hand, around our necks; people have crosses tattooed to them; crosses adorn our houses, some of our businesses.  We see crosses everywhere.  We see crosses as a symbol of hope, and yet we often forget why the cross is a symbol of hope. 

We remember Jesus when we see a cross, I know, but at the same time, we are a society that is rather pain and suffering averse.  There are huge industries of anti-aging products and procedures as we try to fool ourselves into thinking that we’re not going to die.  The stories we tell of ourselves via Facebook and selfies are carefully curated to present glowing, positive images.  After hard days, we often self medicate, even with just one or two drinks to take the edge off, and who can blame us? 

No one likes suffering and death, which is why our cross adorned lives are so ironic.  The cross is a symbol of suffering and death.  The empty cross has come to be a symbol of resurrection, but it is first a symbol of suffering and death.  Our faith in Jesus doesn’t let us avoid suffering and death.  Resurrection only comes after suffering and death.  Carrying crosses around reminds us that the hope of the Gospel is found in the pit of despair. 

The hope of the Gospel is found in the pit of despair, and that is very good news, because as much as our society is averse to suffering and death, we’ve pretty much struck out in avoiding suffering and death.  Any preacher who says you can avoid suffering by following Jesus, wasn’t listening to Jesus.  Jesus promised his disciples that suffering would happen.  It’s something of a relief to realize we’re not supposed to avoid suffering.  We’re not going to avoid suffering.  We haven’t failed as a disciple of Jesus because we suffer.  Suffering and sadness has happened and will happen to every one of us, and it is not because we’re following Jesus wrong or because our faith isn’t strong enough.  We can’t avoid suffering.  We move through suffering.  We can’t avoid the cross.  Jesus tells us to take up our cross.  For the hope of the Gospel is found in the pit of despair.

Only in the pit of despair are we truly able to let ourselves die.  “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.” (Luke 17:33)  There are parts of us which we need to let die, in order for God to give us new life.  Often our carefully constructed and cultivated identities, the very parts of us which we’ve formed to try to avoid suffering, are the very parts of us which we need to let die so that God can work his resurrection within us. 

We don’t get to that point through the glory of accolades and praise.  We only come to resurrection through the agony of the cross.  “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus,” Paul said, “were baptized into his death?... if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:3, 5) 

Our hope is in resurrection, in new life, but we can’t bring about new life.  Not even Jesus made himself resurrected.  He didn’t snap his fingers and skip over death into new life.  Jesus marched toward the cross.  He did not avoid suffering.  Jesus climbed down into the pit of despair with us.  He didn’t give us a way out.  He gave us a way through.  

The suffering of the cross is where our hope is to be found.  No one wants suffering.  We’d be fools to pray for suffering, but suffering will find us.  That is where we will find the hope of the Gospel, not in our own strength, but when our strength has failed us.  In the darkness of the pit of despair is where we see the light of Jesus most clearly.  In the darkness of the pit of despair, we see the light of Jesus, leading us onward through the darkness, through the death of our selves, and into the light of his resurrection.  Amen. 

Not the Righteous, but Sinners

That's who Jesus came to call, not the righteous but sinners.  On Sundays when I think I'm not good enough for church, I remember this passage.  Jesus didn't come for those who are good enough.  He came for those who aren't good enough.  He came for you and me.

Shame is very prevalent in our world today, along with it's cousin, Pride.  I've talked to some folks and heard from others who feel like they can't come to church because they aren't good enough.  Sometimes parents don't come because they don't feel their children will behave well enough.  This is backwards. 

The only people who don't belong in church are perfect people (Jesus excepted, of course!). 

Shame and pride need not keep us from an encounter with Jesus through prayer, scripture, people, and sacrament.  Shame and pride are the reasons we need such an encounter.   They are the reasons Jesus is calling us saying, "come, as you are; sit at my feet, and be healed."

Some have found churches to be judgmental, places where they aren't accepted because they've messed up, or they don't dress well enough, or act just right, etc.  I tell these people too, to come back, come to St. Mark's.  Experience grace, not judgment.   

That's what churches are meant to be, places filled with grace.  Churches are places where we see one another as broken by life and redeemed by Jesus.  We see one another as doing the best we can, and we offer grace for most of the times when our best isn't good enough.  We see one another as God's beloved Children, as Brothers and Sisters.  We see one another struggle and say, "it's ok, I'm here with you." 

Church is the place where Jesus has called us all together:  the broken, the sinners, the screw ups, the not good enoughs, the strivers, the lovers, the good-hearted, the broken-hearted, the shamed, and the scorned.  Jesus calls us all together to share in his grace.  Jesus calls us and says, "Come to me all who are weary and carrying heaven burdens.  Lay them down, and take up instead my forgiveness, my teaching, my blessing, and my love."  (Matthew 11:28, paraphrased).

Priceless & Imperfect: A Community of Grace

Brad Sullivan

5 Lent, Year C

March 13, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Philippians 3:4b-14

John 12:1-8

Priceless & Imperfect:  A Community of Grace

As Mary was anointing Jesus with costly perfume, Judas was complaining that she was wasting the perfume, that instead it should have been sold, and the money given to the poor.  Ok, he’s got a fair point, one which would have been better taken if he hadn’t been lying and stealing money from the common purse.  The perfume cost 300 denarii, that’s almost a year’s worth of wages.  In modern terms, let’s call it $50,000 worth of perfume that Mary poured onto Jesus’ feet.  That certainly does seem extravagant.  $50,000 could have gone a long way to helping out those in need.  In the three other Gospels, Jesus even teaches to do just that.

In Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18, there was a young man who asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life, and as the man had many possessions, Jesus said, “Go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, then come, and follow me.”  Here, Judas is saying that Mary should have done exactly what Jesus taught this young man in the other three gospels, and Jesus says – “No, leave her alone.  You will always have the poor with you; you will not always have me.  Mary has done right, being with me here now, using this perfume for my burial.”

Savor this time you’ve got with me, Jesus was saying, because I’m going to be crucified pretty soon.  “Slow down little sheep,” Jesus was saying.  You should indeed serve those in need.  Of course you should.  If you’re not serving those in need, you’re missing out on a big part of what it is to be the church, but don’t become so consumed with serving others that you neglect the love of those with whom you are serving.”

The need and the desire to serve those in need has been something I’ve talked about a lot at St. Mark’s.  I’ve focused a lot of my thought, study, and prayer to ways we can serve.  So, as I hear today’s Gospel, I hear Jesus speaking to me saying, “Slow down little sheep.  You should indeed serve those in need, but don’t become so consumed with serving others that you neglect the love of those with whom you are serving.”

Look around you.  I know you know who is there, but take a look again anyway.  We’ve got a great church here, a church of wonderful people.  We do indeed have a mission to serve others.  We also have a mission to love each other deeply.  We have a mission to appreciate one another. 

We always have people whom we can and should serve, and we should serve them.  Our service is made greater, however, when it comes not just from ourselves, not only from a compassionate desire to serve others, but when our service also comes from people who love each other and love spending time together. 

In the Gospel story today, Jesus and his friends were having a meal together.  Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, a family who loved Jesus, invited him over for dinner.  They took them time to spend time with those they loved.  As the church, at St. Mark’s, we’re called to give each other our time as well, to spend time together with those whom we love, and those whom we have a hard time loving, because both are part of our beloved family.  We always have people whom we can serve.  We don’t always have each other. 

Right now, our vestry is working on maintenance and restoration of our church building.  Last Wednesday, we met with Bob Schorr, the diocesan Manager of Church Plants and Strategic Development.  We walked through our campus seeing what needed to be done, and dreaming about what could be done to restore and improve our church campus for us and for the next many generations.  Our vestry is going to be working hard over the coming months to develop a plan for this work, and I encourage us all to pray for our vestry and the work they have been given for this church and for our campus.

During this same time, in these next two weeks of Lent and in the Easter season that follows, I invite us also to work on restoration and improvement of our relationships.  I’ve heard it said over and over that St. Mark’s is a place where the people obviously love each other.  That’s true.  There are of course conflicts and strained relationships.  We’re a family, that’s going to happen.  We are above all, though, a family that loves each other and that cares for each other. 

We’re a family who really understands what Mary did in our Gospel passage.  We may not wipe each others’ feet with our hair, but we understand the time and the cost that Mary took to care for Jesus.  We get that because we’re a family that cares for each other.  So I encourage us to keep nurturing that love we have for each other, because here, and in our relationships here, we find more than service.  We find Jesus, and having this community where we can love each other and encounter Jesus in each other is far more precious than $50,000 of costly perfume. This week, I got to remember how precious this community is.  This week, we all get to remember. 

This week, we hear Jesus saying to us, “Slow down little sheep.  You should indeed serve those in need, but don’t become so consumed with serving others, that you neglect the love of those with whom you are serving.”  Spend your money and your time with each other and on each other.  When we are here and with each other, we encounter Jesus.  When we are here and with each other, we experience grace.  We love each other imperfectly and letting each other down sometimes too, but then, that’s what grace is all about, isn’t it. 

$50,000 worth of perfume?  That’s a lot of money that could have been spend on those in need.  A community of grace, where we love one another imperfectly and encounter Jesus with and among each other?  You can’t put a price tag on that.  Amen.

The Parable of the Extravagantly Forgiving Father

Brad Sullivan

4 Lent, Year C

March 6, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

The Parable of the Extravagantly Forgiving Father

Everyone needs forgiveness.  We need to give forgiveness, we need to receive forgiveness.  We need the grace and healing that comes with forgiveness.  That’s because we all have scars and wounds inflicted upon us over the course of our lives, and we are also all the cause of other peoples’ scars and wounds.  As much as we need food, water, and air, we are starving and suffocating without forgiveness.  Without forgiveness, our past wounds keep on hurting us over and over, and they keep us from living the life of God’s kingdom.  Everyone needs forgiveness.  That’s why God gives forgiveness so extravagantly.

We call the parable which we heard today, “The Prodigal Son,” or the wasteful son.  He spent his inheritance wastefully and extravagantly and then came back to his father, penniless and starving, begging for his father to let him work as one of his servants.  The father ran out to him, having already forgiven him, and restored him, not as a servant, but as a son, and he threw a huge party in celebration that his son was back, essentially back from the dead. 

So, the title “the prodigal son” makes some sense, although, “the extravagantly forgiving father” might be a better title.  Calling the story “the prodigal son,” however, ignores the other brother, the one who stayed with his dad, helped around the house, and then was indignant when his brother came home and was given a party.  That, and the anger he had?  Totally understandable.  It wasn’t fair, he was basically saying, and he was right.  It wasn’t fair.  Of course he was angry, and forgiveness isn’t about being fair.  Forgiveness is about what we need.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote a book on forgiveness which came out of the process of healing and the choice of forgiveness after apartheid in South Africa.  He begins the book with a story of a woman and her daughter whose husband and father had been tortured, beaten, stabbed, dismembered, and killed.  They were speaking to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about the murder of their husband and father during apartheid in South Africa.  They ended by saying, “I would love to know who killed my father.  We want to forgive them.  We want to forgive, but we don’t know who to forgive.”

The perpetrators of this crime didn’t deserve forgiveness, but they needed it, wherever they were.  The mother and daughter, also needed forgiveness.  They had a need to give forgiveness.  That was their desire.  Archbishop Tutu wrote about them in his book, The Book of Forgiving:  The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World.  He wrote about the need we have to be forgiven and the need we have to forgive.  He writes:

To forgive is not just to be altruistic.  It is the best form of self-interest.  It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger.  These emotions are all part of being human.  You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things:  The depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger. 

However, when I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person.  A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator.  If you can find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator.  You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person, too.

The brother in Jesus’ parable had a need to forgive.  After rumbling with his anger and resentment for a while, he needed to release those emotions and forgive his brother so that he was no longer consumed by the anger and resentment, so that he was no longer hurting himself.  Forgiveness is the key to the parable Jesus told:  Our need for forgiveness, our need both to give and to receive forgiveness.  The parable really should be called the parable of the extravagantly forgiving father.  Then the focus is not on how we mess up, but the focus is on who God is, our extravagantly forgiving Father.  How beloved are we of God that he forgives us so extravagantly?

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, (1 Corinthians 5:18-20)

God knows that we only hurt because we have been hurt.  We only break others only because we have been broken.  As Archbishop Tutu writes: 

People are not born hating each other and wishing to cause harm.  It is a learned condition.  Children do not dream of growing up to be rapists or murderers, and yet ever rapist and ever murderer was once a child…Forgiveness is truly the grace by which we enable another person to get up, and get up with dignity, to begin anew. 

So, God has given us forgiveness and reconciliation to him, and then he has granted us to be his ambassadors that we might give forgiveness and reconciliation as extravagantly as he.  Our ambassadorship is not easy, of course, because forgiveness is not easy.  It was not easy for God to forgive and to reconcile the world to him.  We hear time and again about God’s vengeance and his wrath.  You can bet our sins anger God.

Just as with our rumbling with our anger and resentment, God was angry at humanity for the harm we cause each other.  Rather than exact vengeance on humanity, however, God took that anger and vengeance upon himself, becoming human, becoming Jesus, and suffering himself, suffering his own anger and vengeance on the cross.  God’s forgiveness of us was not easy, but it was and is extravagantly given. 

The anger and resentment we feel when we have been hurt is, like God’s anger and resentment, understandable and justified.  We need, however, to rumble with it and eventually to release it so that it no longer poisons us.  Such is our need for forgiveness, both to give and receive forgiveness.  And so we are ambassadors for Christ, constantly working to give and receive forgiveness, and constantly telling others of the extravagant forgiveness God has given us through Jesus, and of the healing that comes through forgiveness and reconciliation.  Such healing is not easy, because forgiveness is not easy.  We see in the cross of Jesus the difficulty of forgiveness, and whenever we forgive something in us has to die in order for that forgiveness and new life to happen.  Forgiveness is not easy, but it is needed, for restoration, for resurrection, for healing and new life.  And we are ambassadors of Christ in his extravagant gift of healing through forgiveness.  So I leave us with this prayer from Archbishop Tutu, called “The Prayer Before the Prayer.”

I want to be willing to forgive

But I dare not ask for the will to forgive

In case you give it to me

And I am not yet ready

I am not yet ready for my heart to soften

I am not yet ready to be vulnerable again

Not yet ready to see that there is humanity in my tormentor’s eyes

Or that the one who hurt me may also have cried

I am not yet ready for the journey

I am not yet interested in the path

I am at the prayer before the prayer of forgiveness

Grant me the will to want to forgive

Grant it to me not yet but soon.

Can I even form the words

Forgive me?

Dare I even look?

Do I dare to see the hurt I have caused?

I can glimpse all the shattered pieces of that fragile thing

That soul trying to rise on the broken wings of hope

But only out of the corner of my eye

I am afraid of it

And if I am afraid to see

How can I not be afraid to say

Forgive me?

Is there a place where we can meet?

You and me

The place in the middle

The no man’s land

Where we straddle the lines

Where you are right

And I am right too

And both of us are wrong and wronged

Can we meet there?

And look for the place where the path begins

The path that ends when we forgive.

Amen.

Changing the Narrative

Brad Sullivan

3 Lent, Year C

February 28, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Luke 13:1-9

Changing the Narrative

-          Did you hear about those poor Galileans whom Pilate killed?

-          Oh that was awful.  Pilate is a monster isn’t he.

-          I hear he mixed their blood in with their sacrifices.

-          What?  That’s sacrilege! 

-          How would that even work?

-          I don’t know.  They must have been awful people though.

-          That’s true, for God to have something like that happen to them.  Oh hey Jesus, did you hear about those awful Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices?

We don’t know exactly what the conversation was, but Jesus responded by asking them if they thought the Galileans whom Pilate killed were worse sinners than anyone else.  By Jesus’ response and by what we know about how people tend to talk about things, we can guess that Jesus was spot on, and the conversation about the tragedy of the day was quickly turning into nasty stories about those awful Galileans and thanksgiving to God that the speakers were not like those awful Galileans. 

The people talking about the Galileans were trying to make sense of their world.  They’d heard about this awful killing by Pilate.  They were probably horrified, sad, frightened, and threatened all at once, and so their brains did what peoples’ brains do.  They started making up stories to go along with what they had heard, to make sense of it. 

We do this all the time.  Someone is very rude to us, and our brains immediately start making up stories about that person, about how they’re just a jerk, or about how they’ve got some misplaced grudge against us.  In reality, the person who was rude was just having a bad day, and we met them in a bad moment, but we don’t know that story.  We only know the stories our brains make up about what a perpetual jerk that person is.  It doesn’t matter to our brains if the stories are true or not.  Our brains are hardwired for story.  Stories are how we make sense of our world, and when our brains make up these little stories, we get biochemically rewarded for having made sense of the world.  It also helps that we usually make ourselves the heroes and others the villains in these stories, right?

So that’s what the people talking about the dead Galileans were doing, and then Jesus did what he does so well.  He said, “That’s not the right story, guys,” and he gave them a new story.  “No, they weren’t worse sinners than anybody else.  Tragic, unexpected death can happen to anyone at anytime.”

“Well thanks a lot, Jesus.”  Our brains hate that.  Chaos, uncertainty, threats to our survival.  Our brains want to rest easy, knowing that we’re going to be ok.  Jesus keeps saying, “Guys, you can rest easy, knowing that you’re going to be ok, you just don’t get to do it by making up stories about how terrible everyone else is and about how righteous and therefore ‘God protected’ you are.”

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus said,

‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. 

We often devalue each other in order to make ourselves feel more secure, and Jesus says that when we do that, we are making ourselves less secure.  We’re pouring God’s judgment upon ourselves whenever we hate another person.  We’re pouring God’s judgment upon ourselves whenever we make up these stories in our own minds about how terrible someone else is. 

It seems crazy to us that just hating someone is tantamount to murder, but Jesus says it is.  It makes sense that a murderer is deserving of death, but are we really deserving of death in God’s eyes just for hating each other?  Well, yeah.  Jesus is pointing out just how darn important we are to God.  We are God’s children, the apple of God’s eye.  So when we are hateful and hurtful to each other, yeah, it really upsets God.  Imagine a parent whose child is being bullied so that they feel badly about themselves and withdrawing inward.  Do you think that parent is going to be pretty hacked off at those other kids.  That’s how God feels when he sees us hating and hurting each other.  That’s how God feels when he sees us making up our stories about how others are the villains and we are the heroes.

“Get the log out of your eye,” Jesus says.  How can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye”, when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (Luke 6:42) 

We’ll also see the other with compassion rather than self-righteous judgment, because when we take the log out of our own eye, when we see clearly our own mess, then we can see another’s mess with greater compassion.  When we see ourselves clearly and accept our mess, then we are no longer threatened by someone else’s mess. 

Further, Jesus teaches, there is something greater than ourselves in which we can place our security.  There is something greater than our own power and our own righteousness in which we can place our security.  There is a greater story than the countless self-serving stories our brains make up.  That something greater is our eternal, loving Father, and that greater story, is the Gospel story of love and creation, sin and redemption, second chances and reconciliation.

That’s the story Jesus led the people to when he told them the parable of the fig tree.  He first had to break them down and divest them of their false, self-serving narratives.  Then, laid bare, empty, and not the least bit afraid, Jesus clothed them and filled them up with the true story of God’s love for us and his striving with us.

In the parable Jesus told, there is the worthless fig tree which is taking up good soil and producing nothing, and the gardener says, “Give it another year.  Let me work with it. Let me tend it and care for it.  Let me give it even better soil, and we’ll see if it can then bear fruit.”  Looking at the idea of the garden, where were we all planted?  The Garden of Eden.  The fig tree is humanity.  Jesus is telling us that despite how often we give up on ourselves and how often we give up on each other, we’re in his garden, and he wants to keep striving with us. 

Does this mean, that once we accept Jesus, that bad things won’t happen to us, or we will be perfectly shielded from tragedy or unexpected death?  No.  Even while loving Jesus and loving each other, we can still die unexpectedly and suddenly.  When people do, however, our brains don’t need to make up stories about how they must be bad and such tragedy can’t happen to us. 

Jesus has given us the true story, that when we die, either tragically and unexpectedly or at a ripe old age, we continue on living with the Gardener.  We need not fear death because in death we are transformed from life to life. 

Accept and believe that story, Jesus says, and then let it be the story not only of your death, but of your life.  Let yourselves trust in God enough that you no longer have to make up stories about each other when you harm one another, but instead, I was going to say “put manure around each other,” following the parable Jesus told, but that doesn’t quite seem to work.  Jesus is saying that when you hurt one another, strive with each other.  Offer to one another, the compassion and forgiveness that God has given to you. 

Rather than making up stories about one another, accept he story in which we are all deserving of death, because we all have hatred in our hearts, and accept the rest of that story in which God does not say condemned, but rather says, “forgiven,” the story in which God calls us beloved. 

Accept and live the story in which there is still uncertainty in the world, but that uncertainty spurns us on to greater love, greater forgiveness, greater urgency in our desire for reconciliation, because when we love one another as God loves us, we don’t want one more day to go by with the other still hurting.  When we have enmity in our hearts toward someone and we’re living God’s story, then we don’t want one more day to go by without having embraced that person and offered and received forgiveness and love.  Living God’s story, trusting in his story, and placing our security in his story, we change the narratives we make up about others, no longer making them villains, but calling them beloved and forgiven.  Amen.