Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Give Grace Amidst Your Angst, and Be Healed


Brad Sullivan
4 Easter, Year B
April 22, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

Give Grace Amidst Angst, and Be Healed

Life is hard.  It’s also great, and we’re in the Easter season, so we’re not going too far down a dark path, but life is, in addition to being great, straight up, plain, old fashioned hard.  We have hurts that happen to us from the moment we are born.  Fears, feelings of abandonment, loss, and that’s for kids with great parents.  People let us down.  We let other people down.  We lose trust and faith in those we love, disease hits us and knocks whole families down, jobs are lost, security is tenuous, and we hurt and have a hard time reconciling with folks even in the best of circumstances.  We end up with a lot of angst.

My desire as a youth was maybe to avoid some of that.  In reading scripture back in high school, I had a strong desire to follow God in all his ways, as Jesus told Satan during his temptations in the desert, “love God and serve only him.”  Man I wanted to do that, and back in high school it felt like I could, like I could resist temptation, do the right thing, be peaceful, kind, and forgiving to all of those around me.  It turns out life was a lot harder than I realized, temptation to soothe life’s hurts far greater than I realized, and I fell pretty far from that ideal.  It was never a very realistic ideal, and I would likely only have really achieved it by being aloof, not overly connected to people so that I couldn’t really hurt them and they couldn’t really hurt me.  I therefore couldn’t have made a very good friend, husband, father, or priest.  I’d have probably ended up as a fairly judgmental person, staying aloof in order to stay, I don’t know…pure, unstained by the world.  That’s really just a shield from harm, a shield which causes harm, and it runs totally counter to the Gospel of Jesus in which God refused to stay aloof in guiding us, but became one of us.  As such, Jesus knows how hard life is, and he knows first hand that we are all broken-hearted and fearful.

We’re broken-hearted, having been harmed by people and things that happen in our lives, and we’re fearful of forgiving those who hurt us, fearful because forgiving means choosing to be wrong ourselves.  If we forgive and accept those who are wrong, then we’re almost condoning the wrong and therefore being wrong ourselves.  What if God isn’t pleased by that?  What a bunch of hooey.  Jesus teaches us to be wrong, to accept back one who is/was wrong.  Forgiving means letting go of our grief, and rightness, and letting our hurt die.  Forgiving means letting go of our sense of control, our shield, and laying down our lives for others.

Forgiveness isn’t easy, like the rest of life, but that place of forgiveness, grace, and love is where Jesus leads us, because it leads us to a place of peace.  He shows us forgiveness, grace, and love that we may be freed to love each other.  Jesus leads us to the ability and gives us permission to love and be loved, to forgive and be forgiven.  Jesus leads us and gives us permission to lay down our hurt, to lay down that which keeps us insular, aloof, and self-protected.  In short, Jesus leads us and gives us permission to lay down our lives, for others, thereby find peace.

Today we talk about Jesus leading us in these ways as Jesus being the good shepherd, and we call this “Good Shepherd” Sunday.  Being good shepherd Sunday, I was going to start off with a quick one liner about how dumb sheep are, something like, “Sheep are dumb.”  Then, I decided to actually do a little bit research into whether or not sheep really are stupid, and it turns out, they really aren’t all that dumb.  In fact, for quadrupeds, they’re pretty intelligent.  They were described instead as intelligent, complex, and sociable.   They can recognize people, voices, even facial expressions, and they help each other out and they clearly exhibit emotional responses to the circumstances in their lives, kinda like us.

We’ve often thought of sheep as stupid because they wander off and get lost, kinda like us, or because they can exhibit herd mentality and panic together when they perceive a threat, kinda like us.  So, sheep aren’t really all that dumb, they’re kinda like us.  It’s easy to discount sheep as dumb, just as it’s easy to discount others as wrong, sinful, bad, whatever else, but Jesus, as our good shepherd, chose not to discount us as dumb, but to lead us as a fellow sheep.

John tells us that Jesus laid down his life for us, and that he most certainly did by becoming human.  By becoming human, God showed us, in ways that we could truly understand, something of God’s self in Jesus’ love, forgiveness, grace, and peace.  Then again, of course God can be all of those things:  loving, forgiving, graceful, peaceful.  Jesus showed us God’s character and nature, and he also showed us our own character and nature, or at least our potential character and nature.  Jesus showed us that we too can be full of love, forgiveness, grace, and peace.

By becoming human, God laid down his life.  Rather than be insular and protected, unhurt and untouched by the terrors of this world, God became human and left himself vulnerable to being hurt, left himself fully immersed in our lives, living with us the joy and the pain that we all feel.

Again, Jesus showed us that we have his permission to love and forgive others.  Folks who have messed up in big ways that we could readily name and label, Jesus would lead us to a place of forgiveness, grace, and love, leading to peace.  Knowing how hard life is, Jesus would lead us to a place of compassion and understanding, knowing that the harm the person caused was brought about in them by their own fears or the harm that they had endured, or maybe even by following the advice of someone who led them in a bad way, someone who had also been led badly and been harmed.

Life is hard, and knowing this, Jesus knows that even forgiveness is hard, grace is hard, love is hard, and Jesus knows that life is even harder when we keep our shields up, keep resentments with us, dragging us down like a dead albatross around our necks.  

Jesus leads us instead to life, peace, joy and greater acceptance and love of ourselves through greater acceptance and love of others.  Jesus leads us to freedom from the tyranny of being shielded, right, or resentful.  Jesus leads us to grace, forgiveness, and love, knowing that if we follow him to that place, we will be healed.  We will be kinder to others, less bothered by the wrong and hurtful things they do and that as a community, we'll be more willing and able to give help to others; their lack of worthiness would not stop us.

This place of forgiveness, grace, and love is not easy, just like the rest of life.  We’ll still have the angst of hurt with us.  In fact, we can’t have grace without angst.  To give grace, to say, “I forgive you, even though I’m still hurting,” there is going to be angst.  The grace says, “I love you despite my angst and my broken heart.  I see you as hurting and trying your best, and I want to love you as a fellow imperfect person in need of love and grace.  I will, therefore, love and accept you and keep working at giving grace and forgiveness, even though doing so causes me angst.  That is my burden to bear.  That is me laying down my life for you.”

Doing so, following Jesus in that way, leads to life, and peace, and joy.  Laying down our lives, laying down our burdens, heals us.  Follow me, Jesus says, as a fellow sheep who understands how hard life is, and give grace, amidst your angst, and be healed.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Even When the World Tells Us Not To


Brad Sullivan
Easter Sunday
April 1, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
John 20:1-18

Even When the World Tells Us Not To

Happy Easter y’all, as we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, his victory over death, and the fullness of his great love for us.  I love that God joined with us even in death, and then in Jesus’ resurrection, God has shown us the full measure of his grace towards us.  We get to share in his eternal life and love, forgiveness and reconciliation. 

That’s the nuts and bolts of our faith, we get to share in God’s eternal life and love, forgiveness and reconciliation.  I absolutely love our faith, our faith in Jesus and in his resurrection, and I also keep hearing more and more folks who nowadays think we’re kinda nuts for believing in Jesus, or even for believing in a God at all, and that’s fine.  To be fair, I don’t know if our faith is true; I can’t prove it, but I love it, and I choose to believe.  We choose to believe that there is a God who made us and loves us, frees us and redeems us.  We choose to believe that despite our brokenness, God will never quit on us.  That is what Jesus’ resurrection means.

God will never quit on us, and yet believing that, we still tend to quit on each other with a fair amount of regularity.  I know Lent is over y’all, but such is our condition, our lot in life, that we tend to quit on each other, which is why we need Jesus’ grace and resurrection life in the first place.  We start off liking one another and then, we often end up stopping our relationships or letting them slip away.  Sometimes it feels like we’re supposed to quit each other for various reasons, such as the insurmountable problems and irreconcilable differences that we face like how we voted in any one single election, our beliefs about those whom we think God may or may not be pleased, how we choose to spend our money, raise our kids, or even how we dress.  These are some of the insurmountable barriers that we raise and differences that we face for which we end up quitting each other.

Some in the world may say that division over these differences is ok, but Jesus not so much.  We’ve always had differences, reasons why we choose to erect barriers between ourselves and others, but God shows in Jesus’ resurrection that he loves us for who we are, and he wants us to love each other for who we are.  Republican.  Democrat.  Lesbian.  Gay.  Bisexual. Transgender.  Queer.  Atheist.  Muslim.  Jew.  Christian.  Fundamentalist.  Conservative.  Liberal.  Radical.  Black.  White.  Latino.  Asian.  Legal.  Illegal.  Tree hugging, gun loving, gluten free, home-school, hippie.    

We have so many labels now, we have a hard time even coming up with enough words to accurately label everyone we see.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  Maybe that will force us to love each other based on grace and Jesus’ love and resurrection, rather than just by seeming similar enough with some folks to kinda like each other ok.  Jesus was raised from the dead to reconcile us to God and each other.   His final commandment to his disciples was to love one another, regardless of our stripes, our skin, our labels, our ethnicity, sexuality, beliefs, or legal status.  Middle class, high class, low class, no class?  “Love one another,” Jesus said. 

People are starving for love, even for an ounce of love.  People are going to go where they are loved and accepted.  Jesus’ resurrection says, “you are loved and accepted,” and yet people often don’t feel loved and accepted in the church, and so they go elsewhere for love and acceptance.  We’ve seen this happening as people are leaving the church in droves.  Ideologies?  Beliefs?  Various social activities?  Folks can adapt pretty well to many different beliefs, so long as they are loved, and people will stay where they are loved.  I’ve often heard adults say they are no longer sure about the faith, but they love the people and community of their church and so they stay.  I think Jesus is ok with that. 

Lack of faith?  Unsure about Jesus and his resurrection?  No problem.  A loving community can hold a person through doubts and lack of faith.  Hopelessness?  We can hold a hopeless person in love, and their hope can be restored.  That’s why above all else, Jesus commanded us to love each other. That is why Paul wrote that love is greater even than faith and hope, why John wrote that we cannot claim to love God if we do not love each other. 

Jesus commanded that we love one another as he loved us, as he loved his disciples. He loved them so much that the first thing he did once he was raised from the dead was to talk to Mary, assure her that he was alive, and to have her spread the good news to the rest of his disciples.  Jesus loved his disciples and loves us to the end, and that is the gospel news for us - however messed up we are, Jesus keeps on loving us, and it’s really not because we’re perfect or even good enough.  Think about how often Jesus could have and maybe even should have chosen to quit his disciples, get rid of them, and start over with some better ones.

Jesus was transfigured before them, and Peter pipes up, “Hey Jesus - let’s make some booths!”  “Seriously Pete, that’s your response?  Yeah, ok, we’re done, just um, you stay here, build a transfiguration theme park, something like that.  I’m outta here.”

Then there was the time James and John said, “Um, Jesus, we know you’re busy with this whole upcoming death thing, whatever that is, but we want to sit at your right and left hand when you’re all powerful and glorious in majesty.  We kinda think we deserve it.”
“Oh, so you’ve been listening intently to all that I’ve been saying and teaching over the years.  You’ve really taken none of it in at all.  Great.  Tell you what, go to the next town over, about 4 miles away. Get a couple of chairs so you can sit on either side of me, and we’ll wait right here.  No, don’t dawdle, just go and do not look back.”

What about everyone else, the sex workers and thieves, the refuse of society with whom Jesus so often hung out?  “Yeah, you guys are really disgusting and foul, I think I’m just going to leave.”

Jesus didn’t do that.  He stuck with them.  Just like God keeps staying with us and choosing to love us.  Despite our continued brokenness, God sticks with us.  That’s the resurrection life, which Jesus invites us to share.  Do the hard work of continuing to choose to stay together, and do the hard work of continuing to die daily to self so that you can share in his resurrection, not because people are perfect or even good enough, but just because people are, and just because you can choose to love one another.  In Jesus’ resurrection, he shows us that we can love and forgive each other; it’s ok.  We’re allowed to, and we need to.   

We need love.  That’s what Jesus resurrection is ultimately all about, God’s unwavering love for us.  God is love, and love how Jesus wants us to be with each other.  That’s the resurrection life.  We are Jesus’ beloved, the one’s for whom he sent Mary to say, “Jesus is raised from the dead,” and so we get to keep loving each other as he loves us.  Even the weirdoes and the uber conservatives.  Even the crazy hippie liberals and straight laced conformists.  Even the sex workers and thieves.  It is ok for us to love those whom others may feel are unlovable.  It is ok for us to love each other despite how messed up we all are.  It is ok for us to believe in Jesus and find hope in his resurrection.  We get to do that despite what others may say.  Who cares if people think we’re nuts?  Our faith tells us to love each other.  Jesus sticks with us and wants us to stick with each other, to share in the joy and the love of his resurrection.  We have his permission to do so, even if the world tells us not to.