"That's Not How The Force Works!"

Brad Sullivan

St. Mark’s, Bay City

May 29, 2016

Proper 4, Year C

Luke 7:1-10

“That’s Now How the Force Works!”

The faith in Jesus of the centurion in today’s Gospel reading was absolute and his faith reminds me of the faith of another soldier, a man named Finn, former Storm Trooper turned good guy in the latest Star Wars movie.  Finn’s faith was not in Jesus but in the Force; for those who aren’t familiar with the films, the Force is a mystical, well “force” which some people in particular can partner with to do extraordinary things.  They call it using the Force, but there are only a very few people who can use the Force, and they must be trained in order to do so.  Finn was not one these people, in fact, he knew almost nothing about the Force, but he had heard about it, and he believed in it. 

He had been a soldier, a Storm Trooper for the evil First Order which was trying to subject the entire galaxy to its tyrannical rule, and Finn decided he wasn’t going to fight and kill for them.  So he switched sides, joined the Resistance, and went back to a First Order base to try to disable their defenses.  Being a former soldier of the First Order, it seemed that he would be able to do so, until it turned out that he actually had no idea how to do so.  He had returned there to save a friend who had been captured.  The man who was there with him was rather incredulous, reminding him that all of their friends and indeed the entire galaxy were counting on them to disable the defenses.  So Finn, who knew almost nothing about the Force, replied, “We’ll work it out; we’ll use the Force.” 

“That’s now how the force works,” his companion replied.  Finn knew almost nothing about the Force, and yet he trusted in the Force completely.  The centurion knew almost nothing about Jesus.  He’s never met him.  He just heard that he could heal people, and he trusted in him completely.  He believed Jesus could heal his servant, just by speaking a word.  The people around Jesus had to be thinking, “but that’s now how healing works!”  He was nowhere close to the servant at the time, and in fact had never laid eyes on the servant.  Jesus’ ability to heal an unknown, unnamed man from a great distance just by speaking a word wasn’t how healings had ever gone before, and yet the centurion trusted in Jesus that he could do it.  That’s what got Jesus’ attention, the faith of the centurion.  “Not even in Israel,” Jesus said, “[had he] seen such faith.” 

This centurion was a non-Jewish foreigner who was a part of the force used by Rome to keep their occupied territories in line.  He was likely viewed as an enemy to most Jews, possibly even to Jesus, and yet we are also told that this man had built a synagogue for the Jewish people where he lived.  Rather than treat the people harshly, which his job may have had him to, he treated his potential enemies as friends, and they in turn treated him as a friend.  By all accounts, this centurion was a good man with a bad job, following some of Jesus’ teachings without even having heard them, but even that wasn’t what got Jesus’ attention.     

The centurion’s trusting faith was what got Jesus’ attention. 

The centurion, by Roman thought was above Jesus, and yet he made no pretense about being greater than Jesus.  He was asking Jesus for help, and he understood from what he had been told about Jesus, that Jesus had authority over creation.  “I submit to you, Jesus,” was the centurion’s message.  “I’m asking you for help; I believe you can do it, and I’m not going to ask for anything more than that.  You don’t need to come here.  I don’t need to see.  I believe in you so strongly, just say the word and he can be healed.”  Those around Jesus were likely thinking, “but that’s not how healing works.”   

Maybe not before, but it certainly did that time.  The centurion trusted in Jesus, and he understood submitting to those with authority over him.  He understood Jesus to have great authority, and so he trusted in him absolutely. 

Trusting in Jesus and submitting to God’s authority ultimately means we are not in control of our lives.  We have personal agency and can make decisions, sure, but ultimately, our lives are in God’s hands, and control of our lives is an illusion.  The centurion’s faith showed that he understood his lack of control and he, a part of the conquering army of Rome, submitted himself to Jesus, an itinerant preacher from a nothing town in a conquered kingdom.  He submitted himself to Jesus because of what he had heard about Jesus, and he knew that if what he had heard was true, then he had no authority over Jesus; submission was the correct posture to take.

For us, or at least for me, submitting our lives to Jesus is not always the easiest thing in the world to do.  We like our illusions of control.  We trust in Jesus especially with our death, but trusting Jesus with our lives can be a little bit more tricky.  I find rather frequently that I want to fully submit my will over to him, and yet it isn’t all that easy.  There is the war within me between the flesh and the spirit which Paul wrote about in Romans 7.  The thing I want to do I don’t do, and I do the very thing I don’t want to do.  When I’m really honest with myself, I find often that I trust Jesus, but to do what exactly?  Sometimes I figure my way is good enough; at least it’s known.  Trusting my life more fully with Jesus may mean venturing out into the unknown, and being a good Episcopalian, change isn’t always my best friend.

Now, I have found when I do submit my will to Jesus, things turn out better.  I am more at peace.  Things don’t always turn out exactly how I thought they would, and usually, something of what I wanted to be has to die.  Ironically, sometimes the very thing that needs to die, along with my way of doing things, is my goal of doing the right thing and being a better person. 

That’s not because what we do doesn’t matter.  What we do matters very much, but if we could heal ourselves, we wouldn’t very well need Jesus.  I can want and try through my own efforts all I want to be better and to do better, to elevate myself, and I can succeed to some extent, but my efforts ultimately fall short of what I desire, and certainly fall short of what God desires for me.  Healing doesn’t come from my efforts, from me elevating myself, but from what the Rev. Canon John Newton calls, “falling into grace.” In his book, Falling Into Grace, he says we experience grace and healing not by striving harder and elevating ourselves, but rather:  we see the cross, accept acceptance, and wait in weakness. 

That’s what the centurion did.  Saw (or heard about Jesus) and sought him out.  He then sent emissaries to Jesus, just as he was.  He didn’t send soldiers to force Jesus to come, and he didn’t try to wow Jesus with his greatness.  He just offered who he was and gave his request.  Then he waited.  No mighty act, no cajoling, the centurion just waited in weakness. 

Waiting in weakness can be the biggest part of the struggle.  We tend to want thing now.  Amazon can overnight our purchases, and yet for Jesus, we have to wait, but that waiting can be key to our healing, and it can also mean waiting when we don’t get the healing we want.  Then we find out what healing we really need.  That happens as we wait in weakness and see the cross again, our own desire for healing being crucified as we accept not only God’s acceptance of us, but accept our own acceptance for life as it is, for us as we are, and then wait on God healing us in ways we were too blind even to know we needed.

We tend to know or to think we know exactly what kind of healing we want or need.  I think that’s why I often struggle with the healing stories of Jesus.  It’s not because I don’t believe in the stories.  I do.  I believe Jesus healed many people, that he loved and cared for people with a fire that we can only imagine.  I believe Jesus had power and authority over all of creation.  He still has that power and authority.  That’s why I often have a hard time with the healing passages.  I haven’t seen a miraculous, instantaneous healing, the kind we hear about in the story we heard today.  I’ve heard stories of modern day healing, and I do believe that miraculous healing still happens, but I struggle with the healing texts because I haven’t personally witnessed it. 

Then, I wonder about why sometimes people are healed and why sometimes people are not.  Why are not all followers of Jesus healed?  There are some simple answers to the questions of why and why not, answers which I think are completely false.  “We or those we love don’t believe strongly enough or in quite the right way and so Jesus doesn’t heal us.”  Totally false.

The most honest answer I can give as to why healing sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t is, “I don’t know.”  I don’t know how Jesus works, but I trust in him.  I trust in his goodness and love, and I ask him to heal the parts of me that don’t.

I haven’t experienced as much healing of the kind we heard in the story today, but what I have experienced is healing of souls and lives.  That goes to the primary healing Jesus came to give, the healing of our souls and the healing of our lives.  That healing comes as we see the cross of Jesus, acknowledging that death will come to us, even the death of parts of our lives that we may not want to die.  We then accept God’s acceptance of us, just as we are.  We needn’t elevate ourselves to be enough for God, in fact we can’t elevate ourselves.  Rather, God accepts us as we are, and our challenge is to trust in God’s acceptance and love of us.  Then, we wait in weakness for Jesus to transform us through his grace. 

We don’t necessarily know what that transformation and healing will be or how it will happen.  Like Finn in Star Wars, we have no idea how the Force works, but we trust in it anyway.  Ultimately we’re not even entirely sure how Jesus works, and yet we submit to him and trust in him just the same.  We submit and trust in Jesus because of the fierce love Jesus holds for us and the healing he desires for our souls and lives.  Like the centurion, trust in Jesus’ love, accept Jesus’ acceptance, and then wait in weakness for Jesus’ grace and healing.  Amen.

Heaven Dwelling Within Us

Brad Sullivan

St. Mark’s, Bay City

May 15, 2016

Pentecost, Year C

Acts 2:1-21

Romans 8:14-17

John 14:8-17 (25-27)

Heaven Dwelling Within Us

Pentecost of known as the birth of the church.  It is the day in which the Holy Spirit took Jesus’ 12 chief disciples, 12 followers of Jesus, and gave them power and authority to be 12 leaders of Jesus’ church.  Now Jesus had more than 12 disciples, and his church already numbered in the hundreds at this point.  A few days before the day of Pentecost, there were 120 followers of Jesus gathered together to fill the leadership void left when Judas betrayed Jesus.  Matthias was chosen and became one of the 12 apostles, one who had been with Jesus from early on and had witnessed Jesus resurrected during the 40 days after his resurrection before he ascended into heaven. 

So Matthias filled Judas spot, the 12 apostles were gathered together devoting themselves for prayer and were waiting, as per Jesus’ instructions, for the Holy Spirit.  The rest of Jesus’ disciples?  We don’t really know, but they were likely waiting too, wondering what was to come of them and what was to come of this new Jesus movement.  Then on the day of Pentecost, 10 days after Jesus’ ascension,  Jesus’ group of followers, waiting and kind of directionless became Jesus’ church with a mission to continue Jesus’ work of healing, reconciliation, and love.  a fledgling band of Jesus’ disciples were transformed by the Holy Spirit into a world altering force.  That’s the kind of thing the Holy Spirit does, transform, give power and authority, and unite disparate people into one.

On that morning when the Holy Spirit came among the disciples, tongues of fire rested upon them, and they began to speak in other languages so that all who heard them speak, heard them in their own native tongue.  This was a reversal of the confusion of languages that had happened all the way back in the book of Genesis with the tower of Babel.  In that story, the peoples of the earth all had one language, and they united together to build a great tower, reaching up into heaven.  There was no great and lofty purpose for this, they simply wanted to “make a name for themselves.”  They weren’t seeking each others’ good; they simply wanted to marvel at their own accomplishment.  Then the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech." 

In the story of Babel, God confused our speech to limit us so that we wouldn’t be able to accomplish as much mighty acts and feats as we wanted.  It’s not difficult to see why.  Many of our mighty accomplishments come with great human suffering.  The pyramids of Egypt, one of the seven wonders of the world, were built by slaves.  Men and women, beloved of God, were used up and discarded, their lives valueless to their Egyptian masters, all so that a few pompous Egyptian kings could have really pretty places to place their corpses.  To this day, we still marvel at the pyramids, I marvel at the pyramids, and in our marveling, we forget what matters most, what matters to God, the human cost of building such marvels.

So, knowing our propensity for marveling at our own magnificence while ignoring and totally devaluing other human beings, God chose to confuse our language, making it more difficult for humanity to work together to accomplish great marvels.

That is, until the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’ apostles and transformed them into the church.  For the first time, a religion was no longer the religion of only one people.  People throughout the world could unite under Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The power and unity that the Holy Spirit gave had a purpose, and that purpose was not for marvelous wonders so people could make names for themselves.  The power and unity of the Holy Spirit united people of all nations and languages so that they could care for each other and value each other, the least and the great alike, and continue the work of reconciliation and love which Jesus gave in his Gospel.. 

God entrusted to the apostles and through them to the whole church, what God had not entrusted to people since the earliest days of human civilization:  the unity to accomplish great things.  The Holy Spirit united the church and gave power and authority so that Jesus’ disciples could do great things, but not marvelous wonders.  They could do the same kinds of great things that Jesus did, caring for people.  If that ain’t good news, I don’t know what is.  The well being of people is the one purpose for which God entrusts us with the power and authority of his own spirit to accomplish great things:  only for the well-being of people.

The greatest things the church accomplishes are, of course, the very things that often go unnoticed by others.  Grand structures, buildings, institutions, those are things people notice, but that’s not why God gave the Holy Spirit. 

-          During times of plague, and the sick and dying had no one to care for them but a few strangers who happened to be disciples of Jesus, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit. 

-          Helping children who have difficult home lives and less than stellar role models, providing good role models for them and loving them, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit.

-          Allowing black South Africans, who suffered decades of apartheid, to forgive their abusers and embrace them as brothers and sisters, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit.

-          Choosing unity over division, love over being right, personal sacrifice for the sake of another, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit.

That is the Jesus movement.  Continuing the Jesus movement is why God gave the Holy Spirit.  God gave the Holy Spirit so his mission of reconciliation and love could be lived out within his church.  The Holy Spirit can do what even Jesus could not do, dwell and move and work among multitudes of people all at the same time.  Jesus left the disciples so that the Spirit could come.  The Spirit comes to us, where we are, God’s light inhabiting our bodies so that the love and reconciliation of Jesus can be lived out in us.  Poet Mary Oliver wrote:

The spirit likes to dress up like this:  ten fingers, ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning

                        in the blue branches of the world.

                        It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter.

                        Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite,

the oceanic fluids; it needs the body's world, instinct and imagination

                        and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility,

                        to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is--

                        so it enters us--in the morning shines from brute comfort

like a stitch of lightning;

                        and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.

God took no pleasure in our trying to ascend to heaven by some mighty act of building a great tower.  God took no pleasure in our trying to be great, but not because God does not take pleasure in dwelling with us.  Rather than have us harm each other and enslave each other to build some great tower to reach into the heavens, God sends the light of his Holy Spirit so that heaven may dwell within us.  We need not make a name for ourselves because God has already given us a name, and that name is beloved.  So to continue Jesus’ work of reconciliation and love, to continue the Jesus movement, God has given us his spirit and united us as one church so that Heaven will dwell within us and through us.  Amen.

Everyday Glory

Brad Sullivan

St. Mark’s, Bay City

May 8, 2016

7 Easter, Year C

Acts 16:16-34

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

John 17:20-26

Everyday Glory

I often pray, generally every day, at least once every day, and generally if I’m praying for something that I want, I’ll say a sentence or two about it, but sometimes I find that it’s something that I’m desperate for God to say yes to, and so I’ll not just give the one or two sentences, but then I’ll think, “Is there any other way that I can ask this and make sure to cut off any loop hole that God might be able to wiggle out of saying yes.  I feel that’s a little bit like Jesus’ prayer for his disciples at the end of John’s Gospel.  He’s praying that the disciples would be one, that they would be united in his love, and in all of the different kind of ways that he asks this, we find an awful lot of passion in this prayer.

We call Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and death, his passion, and we also find in this prayer his passion for his disciples.  He is giving this passionate plea to God the Father that God will take care of them when he has gone:  when he dies and when he ascends.  Jesus knows he is not going to be with them much longer, so he gives this impassioned plea to God, making sure God can’t wriggle out of it in any way, and what does he pray for? 

He prays for unity and love among not only his disciples who are there but also among future generations of disciples who will come to believe in him through their words.  Ultimately, then, Jesus prays that his disciples will be formed in and live out the image of God in which they were made.  John says “God is love.”  We understand God to be a unity of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bound together so completely in love, that they are one.  So Jesus is praying that his disciples would be one as he and the Father are one, that they would love one another, that they would know the Father’s love.  He’s praying that his disciples will live out the image of God in which they were made. 

Then, Jesus also prays that they will behold his glory, the glory that he was given before all of time.  What kind of glory was he hoping that they would behold?  Is this a prayer that they would see his heavenly glory as we hear about being revealed in Revelation in the heavenly city and heavenly throne that comes?  I think quite possibly, “yes.”  He’s praying that they will see this full revelation of his heavenly glory at the end of all time or at the end of their lives, but glory does not only come then. 

They see his glory also when he is resurrected.  They see his glory also when he is arrested.  They see his glory also when he is crucified.  I could call this “earthly, everyday glory,” Jesus’ glory of accepting death, accepting the cross, and trusting in God for the resurrection.  This everyday glory is the kind of glory we get to experience (hopefully) every day. 

I’m stealing the phrase, “everyday glory,” from the band Rush, and one of their songs called, “Everyday Glory.”  I’m not going to play the song; I tried playing a Rush song on my guitar months ago, and I think we can all agree that was a mistake.  So today I’m just going to give you the chorus:

            Everyday people.  Everyday shame.  Everyday promise shot down in flames.

            Everyday sunrise. Another everyday story. Rise from the ashes a blaze of everyday glory.

Well, that’s accepting the cross, dying, and being resurrected right there, the kind that happens in our everyday lives.  “Everyday people.  Everyday shame.  Everyday promise shot down in flames.”  The wonderful messiah that everyone thought Jesus would be as he accepted his death on the cross, shot down in flames.  Everyday sunrise - Easter.  Another everyday story. Rise from the ashes a blaze of everyday glory, and there we have resurrection.

In our everyday lives, then, what does everyday glory look like?  We rise from the ashes to what?  We rise from the ashes to Jesus’ prayer, to unity and love.  That’s the everyday glory that Jesus prays for us, that we would behold his glory in our lives.  That everyday glory, that everyday resurrection, that everyday unity and love doesn’t just come through resurrection; that is the resurrection.  The everyday glory comes through the cross. 

Here we are back in Lent again, and of course the prayer of Jesus is a prayer from Lent, his prayer for his disciples just before he is arrested and crucified, but the prayer teaches us something more about resurrection.  It teaches us that glory is not greatness.  It can but, but today, we’re talking about glory as waiting, and trusting, and letting something die.

That is the everyday glory that Jesus is praying for his disciples, that they would trust in God as he has trusted in God, even to the cross.  Jesus is praying for his disciples that they would wait patiently for God, even as Jesus waited patiently in the tomb.  I don’t know what three days feels like when you are dead, but I imagine it feels like an eternity. 

Jesus prays for his disciples that as he died on the cross, that they would let die within themselves whatever is keeping them from unity with one another, let die within themselves whatever is keeping them and love for one another.  Jesus showed us the way, on the cross, to everyday glory, and so we are called to follow him to the cross and to let die within us whatever needs to die, those things that we hold fast to in order to prevent ourselves from being harmed.  We don’t want to be wounded again as we get wounded throughout our lives and so we armor up, and Jesus is saying, “Let go of that armor.” 

We need to become weak.  We need to let ourselves die. 

Then, letting ourselves become weak, letting ourselves die, God takes over, and we allow ourselves the freedom to follow and to trust in God, trust in his way, in his way, trust that even though we may not know what in the world is going on, we’re going to trust in God.  As we do that, we find that we embrace death.  We embrace the cross, and then, from the ashes of that death, rises everyday glory. 

When we become weak enough, we find that we can love, because we are no longer so strong that we don’t need love.  When we become weak enough, we find that we can be unified because we must be.  When we are strong, we need no one else. 

To find the unity and love that Jesus prays that we will have through his impassioned, no-loophole prayer to God, he prays that his disciples will wait on God, that his disciples will trust in God, and finally that his disciples will let themselves die in an everyday way so that they could then rise in everyday glory.

An everyday people with everyday shame, with their everyday promises shot down in flames, but then an everyday sunrise with their everyday stories, rise from the ashes in a blaze of everyday glory.  Amen.