Monday, December 17, 2018

“I Love You.” “I know.”


Brad Sullivan
3 Advent, Year C
December 16, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
Isaiah 40:1-11
Luke 1:26-38

“I Love You.”  “I know.”

There’s a scene in the movie, “The Empire Strikes Back” in which one of the heroes, Han Solo, is about to be taken away by the villainous, evil Empire, and just before he’s taken away, one of the other heroes, Princess Leia, says, “I love you.”  Han replies, “I know.”  They’d had this on again off again, flirtatious angry relationship, never fully admitting how they felt for each other.  Then, as everything is going downhill fast, Princess Leia makes sure Han knows how she feels about him, and Han replies with the perfect answer.  Rather than the expected, “I love you too,” Han sees how much Leia wants him to know that she loves him, and so he replies, “I know.”  In that, “I know” is of course heard, “I love you too,” loud and clear.

Now, aside from being a Star Wars nut and having been given a couple of Christmas coffee mugs yesterday with Leia on one and Han on the other that say, “I love Yule;” “I Noel,” why in the world would I bring this up?  I bring this up because it actually seems to fit our Gospel reading for today.

Through the angel Gabriel, God tells this young woman, Mary, that she is going to conceive a son in her womb, not by her fiancĂ©e, Joseph.  No, this son is going to be conceived within her by the Holy Spirit of God, and the child will be called Son of God, and he will be holy, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever.  God says to Mary, “I’m going to give you a son, conceived by me, and your son is going to be the anointed one, the Christ, the savior of humanity.”

“I love you,” God says to all of humanity through Mary, and Mary responds, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to your word.”   “I know,” Mary responds on behalf of humanity, with the accompanying, “I love you as well,” heard loud and clear.

“I love you,” is a familiar refrain of God to humanity throughout scripture.  In Isaiah, we hear God saying “I love you,” by giving Isaiah words of comfort for Israel, and  Isaiah responds with “I know,” by crying out God’s words.  “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

Comfort, God says, but we hear God’s cry of “I love you,” not only in his words of comfort, but also in the why, the why God’s words of comfort were spoken.  She has served her term, and her penalty is paid.  Israel has been punished, and even in that punishment, humanity is being told, “I love you” by God.  In the punishment, God is saying to Israel, “y’all are supposed to be my people, living as a light to the nations, and here you’ve been so lax in following my ways, that the rich among have been hoarding your wealth and keeping wages low for the poor, you’ve been so lax in your prayer and worship that you’ve ceased to gain any of the strength and love and kindness that comes from begin with me, and you’ve show yourselves not to really love one another and therefore not to really love me.  That’s not following in my way, and you can’t call yourselves my people when you act so contrary to my way.”

Even in that, God is saying, “I love you,” chastening to teach a still better way, and Isaiah, by crying out to the people, is responding on behalf of humanity, “I know.”  I understand, Isaiah says to God, that in times of judgment and in times of forgiveness, you are constantly saying, “I love you.” 

God is constantly saying, “I love you,” and not just to any one person or to any one people.  God’s “I love you” is for all of humanity.  That’s why God is our savior, why God has always been our savior. 

In Psalm 62:1 we hear, “For God alone my soul in silence waits, from him comes my salvation.”  Salvation in all its many forms comes from God, and God is the one thing alone for which our souls are longing, the one thing alone which is our salvation.  God is love, hope, truth, light.  God is the way for our lives to bring about community and healing in times of division, serenity in times of strife, love and compassion in times of loneliness, sorrow and repentance in times of harm, and friendship and celebration in times of joy.  

God is the constant, “I love you,” to humanity, and in becoming human, that constant “I love you” becomes one with humanity.  “I know,” Mary says.  “Thank you, God for the love you have for us, for all of us, and so ‘Here am I the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.’”

God’s constant, “I love you,” is all around us, in scripture and prayer, in kindness and compassion, even in chastening and calls for repentance, God is constantly crying out, “I love you.”  So how do we respond with “I know?”  With the words of the prayer of thanksgiving at the end of Morning Prayer, we respond to God, “I know,” “not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Monday, December 3, 2018

Prisoners of Hope


Brad Sullivan
1 Advent, Year C
December 2, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

Prisoners of Hope

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly.”  Happy Advent everyone.  Here at the beginning of the church year, we have Jesus talking about what almost sounds like a doomsday scenario.  Be on guard, guys, because it’s gonna get bad, then it’s gonna get worse, then the Son of Man is going to come, and you’ll really have to watch out.

That’s not what’s going on here.  “That day,” Jesus said.   “Be on guard…[lest] that day catch you unexpectedly.”  They day he was referring to was the day of the son of man, an allusion to Daniel chapter 7.  The son of man, or one like a son of man, or a regular dude, (depending on how you interpret the words of Daniel), a regular dude is going to come with the clouds of heaven, and he is going to lead the people of Israel, and from then on, the people of Israel will be honored and praised by all the world, and all nations will look to Israel for peace and justice and the way of God throughout the earth. 

This was Daniel 7:13-14, after the first twelve verses of Daniel 7 described four terrible kingdoms of the earth rising up and wreaking havoc on Israel.  So, four kingdoms of the earth, followed by a kingdom whose origin is from God, a divinely ordained and ordered kingdom for God’s people, Israel.

That hasn’t happened yet.  If we’re looking for historical cognates to the four kingdoms mentioned in Daniel, there are plenty of contenders like Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, but the point of Daniel’s vision is less about particular historical cognates, and more about God’s restoration of Israel after and even through destruction. 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,” Jesus said.  Remember Daniel’s vision?  Yes, dark days are coming, and God will be with us in and through those dark days, and afterwards, we will be restored.  “When I am killed,” Jesus was saying, “when Rome sacks Israel, when the temple is destroyed, do not become prisoners of despair, weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”

Don’t become prisoners of despair during the dark times.  Whether it’s Rome sacking Israel, Harvey sacking Houston, the Camp Fire sacking northern California, we have no lack of dark times.  We’ve got distress among the nations, roaring of the seas, fires, floods, we’ve definitely got fear and foreboding.  We’ve got plenty of reasons to numb ourselves.  That’ really what Jesus is talking about, being weighed down by dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.  Numbing.  Numbing out so the worries of this life seem muted, or at least for a little while, we don’t have to care as much.  Jesus is warning against responding to the worries of this life with dissipation and drunkenness. 

Don’t be prisoners of despair.  Be on guard lest you numb out and spend your life in frivolous amusement, wasteful expenditures, dissolute living…basically a lot of excess and pleasure seeking in order to numb out and avoid the darkness and worries of life. 

Almost everyone numbs in one way or another to avoid or to get a temporary reprieve from the darkness and despair and worry of so much going on around us.  We all numb out in one way or another, but don’t become prisoners of despair, Jesus taught.

Instead, Jesus taught, be prisoners of hope.  This idea of prisoners of hope comes from Zechariah 9:12, and I am completely stealing this idea from Rabbi Annie’s sermon last month during the Shabbat for Solidarity.  Become prisoners of hope.

Jesus knew he was going to die.  He knew the Temple would be destroyed and his people would be scattered to the ends of the earth.  He was acutely aware of the darkness and hardships around him, and he knew things were going to get worse, and yet he remained a prisoner of hope. 

Remember Daniel’s vision, guys.  Remember that one day, God’s kingdom will be fully lived out with Israel at the helm.  Remember the brightness of the future which casts out all the darkness of the present.  Remember, and be prisoners of hope. 

Love deeply.  Party with your friends, and enjoy life, that’s what Jesus did.  Honor and respect yourself and those around you.  Be faithful and true to who you are and who you want to be.    Serve others when they are in need, and let others serve you when you are in need.  Spend lots of time in prayer.

Jesus was constantly reconnecting himself to God through prayer.  He got overcome by the darkness of the world, just like we do, and so he spent a huge amount of time reconnecting to the light of God through prayer. 

As a people, we’re re-learning how to reconnect to the light of God through prayer with ancient practices like centering prayer and meditation.  A group meets here at Temple Sinai on Thursdays at 5:00 for Centering Prayer.  Bible Prayer groups are beginning to meet to pray though passages of scripture and to let the Spirit of God speak through the scriptures.  Groups of people are meeting for prayer in online communities when work and travel and distance won’t allow them to meet together in person. 

Praying the hours is becoming cool again.  Early in the life of the church, folks were becoming overwhelmed by the fast pace of life and the constant demands of their time and attention by second and third century society.  So, monastic communities began forming as folks left the cities to devote themselves to quieter lives of prayer, and far from drudgery, lives of service and prayer gave light, life, and joy to those who had been weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.  Nowadays, we find a new interest in monasticism in which people don’t have to become monks and nuns but continue to live their regular lives and also join with monastics in lives of service and prayer.  More and more folks are choosing to become prisoners of hope.  Morning, noon, evening, and night, we Episcopalians pray as prisoners of hope.  Even those four hours of prayer come from monastic roots, from people no longer wanting to be weighed down by numbing the worries of this life away through dissipation and drunkenness. 

Continual prayer and reconnecting to the light of God.  Serving others in need and allowing others to serve us when we’re in need.  Partying with friends and enjoying life while honoring and respecting ourselves and those around us.  Love deeply.  These are the ways Jesus lived as a prisoner of hope, and how Jesus taught us to be prisoners of hope. 

Restoration is coming from God.  That is our hope.  In little ways every day, God is restoring creation in and through us.  One day, God will restore all of creation with Israel at the helm.  So do not numb out.  Do not be weighed down by dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life as prisoners of despair.  Instead, love deeply as prisoners of hope.