Shepherding Each Other

Brad Sullivan
Proper 29 (Christ the King Sunday), Year A
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

Yesterday, in a wonderful, and apparently rather lengthy celebration, Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schiorri, along with our bishops and many others, ordained Andy Doyle as bishop to be the next Bishop of the Diocese of Texas after Don Wimberly retires. I’m sorry to say I couldn’t be there, I was at home with a sick son, who’s doing much better. As many times as I’ve gotten to do things and Kristin hasn’t, taking care of Noah, I figured it was high time she got to go and be at the celebration of Andy’s ordination to the Episcopate (that’s the fancy word for Bishop), but I digress.

I bring up Andy’s ordination because partly because it’s a big event in our life together, ordaining a new leader for our Diocese, and I also bring up his ordination because I think who Andy is and the kind of bishop he wants to be sheds some light on who Jesus is as our King. You may have noticed today is Christ the King Sunday. We’ve got a new frontal on our altar portraying Christ the King, and in our Gospel reading today, Jesus was the king pronouncing judgment on the people of all the nations.

Now, by saying that new Bishop, Andy Doyle, sheds some light on who Christ is as King, I don’t mean to say Andy will be pronouncing judgment on those of us in the Diocese of Texas, separating us into sheep and goats. To understand what I mean, we need first to take a look at the passage from Ezekiel which is some of the foundation for our Gospel story.

You might have noticed how similar the Matthew reading was to the Ezekiel reading. Both of them described the people as sheep and the sheep as being judged largely by how they treated one another. Both described the judge as a shepherd. In Ezekiel, we heard portions of the 34th chapter of Ezekiel, and we really need to look at those other parts to get the full meaning.

Our passage began: “For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.” (Ezekiel 34:11) We heard this very comforting image of God seeking the lost sheep who had been scattered, and judging between the strong and the week sheep, giving them justice. This sounds very much like the passage from Matthew, but if we were to read the first ten verses of Ezekiel 34, we would find that this whole chapter is in part an indicitment against the leaders of the people of Israel. Ezekiel 34 begins:

The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. (Ezekiel 34:1-5)

Ezekiel was prophesying in a time when the nation of Israel has been destroyed by the Babylonians, and the people of Israel had been scattered, many taken into captivity in Babylon. In this situation, then, God is indicting the shepherds of Israel, their religious and spiritual leaders for their abysmal leadership of the people. The leaders of Israel had sought their own well being at the expense of the people and ultimately to the destruction of the nation of Israel.

As we heard, therefore, God himself would be Israel’s shepherd, and he would be their judge. God would judge between the faithless shepherds of Israel, the fat sheep, and the people of Israel, the lean sheep. This prophecy was partly a historical prophecy which would be fulfilled in human history, as parts of the prophecy have been, and this prophecy was partly an eschatological prophecy, a prophecy concerning the end of time when everything will be put right.

We saw part of Ezekiel’s prophecy fulfilled in the life of Jesus. Jesus came for the lost sheep of Israel. He preached the good news of God’s kingdom to them. He bound up the injured and strengthened the weak. Jesus was the shepherd described in Ezekiel’s prophecy. We see the kind of king Jesus is, one who lives among his people. Rather than lording his throne over the people, he serves and guides his people, caring for the poor and injured, protecting them from harm. Jesus is a servant king, a king who cares so deeply for his people that he gave his life for them.

In Jesus’ life, therefore, we saw a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy, and we also saw an expansion of his prophecy. While Jesus’ initial ministry was only to the lost sheep of Israel, his ministry was expanded to include the gentiles, and so we saw Jesus as king of all the nations and as shepherd of all the nations.

Then, in Matthew, we saw Jesus as judge of all the nations as well. In our passage from Matthew’s Gospel, we see the eschatological vision of Ezekiel’s prophecy fulfilled as Jesus judges between the sheep and the goats (or as Ezekiel wrote, the fat sheep and the lean sheep). The judgment, like Jesus’ ministry, was expanded to include not only the people of Israel, but all the nations. Jesus is the judge of all people, and he is also the king and shepherd of all people, who gave his life for all people.

There is comfort, therefore, when we consider the judgment at the end of time, in the fact that our judge is the one who gave his life for us. Out judge is the one who knows us intimately and continually calls us to be with him. Our judge loves us.

We can see Jesus’ love for us in the way he judges us. In our judgment, what concern does Jesus have? He is concerned with how well we served him. Like all kings, Jesus expects his subjects to serve him. Unlike most kings however, Christ wants us to serve him by serving each other, and especially by serving those who are most in need. As our King, Jesus wants us to be servants and shepherds of each other.

So finally we return to the beginning of this sermon, because a desire to serve one another and shepherd one another is the way in which our new Bishop in some ways embodies who Jesus is as our king. When Bishop Doyle preached at clergy conference, he spoke about the idea of a bishop as a shepherd. Preaching from the end of John’s Gospel, when Jesus tells Peter, “feed my sheep,” Bishop Doyle concluded his sermon by telling us that he would work to be our shepherd, and by asking us in turn to be shepherds for him.

Serving and shepherding one another is how we also get to embody Christ’s kingship. As clergy, Janie and Gill and I seek to shepherd you, and we hope to be shepherded by you. As laity, you all seek to shepherd folks beyond the church and hope to be shepherded by them, just as Christ our King shepherds us and desires to be shepherded by us.

That, my friends, is love. Christ our king desires us to serve him through love and through kind and good treatment of each other. Such is his love for us that Christ our King judges us based on how we love each other and treat each other. Christ our King loves us so much that he also shepherds us. Christ our king seeks us out, and if we will follow, leads us to green pastures where, like Ezekiel prophesied, we may lie down and rest in him. So, I’d like to conclude with a verse from Psalm 33, slightly paraphrased. As the psalmist writes, Christ our King loves righteousness and justice, and his loving-kindness fills the whole earth. (Psalm 33:5 (paraphrase)) Amen.

God's blessing, stewardship, & the Saints

Brad Sullivan
All Saints’ Sunday, Year A
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

For the past several weeks, we’ve been talking and preaching about stewardship, how we are to live as caretakers of God’s kingdom here on earth. Today, we are also remembering all of the saints, whose lives and teachings we look to for inspiration and for examples of how we too can live lives seeking God’s kingdom and following Jesus Christ. So, I’m going to follow these two ideas of stewardship and the examples of the saints in looking at the passage from Matthew.

First, we’re going to look at today’s Gospel reading, the sermon on the mount, in the context of the prophet Isaiah. Now, the sermon on the mount was Jesus’ first big teaching moment. Just before this, he was healing, doing some teaching, he called his disciples before that, he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness before that, and just before his temptation, he was baptized by John. Remember what John said before beginning his ministry of baptism, “For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” (Matthew 3:3) That’s a passage from Isaiah 40:3. Jesus was fulfilling that passage, and really, the whole beginning of Isaiah chapter 40 frames very well Jesus’ ministry and the sermon on the mount. So, we’re going to take a look at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 40. It begins:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. (Revised Standard Version)

Like this passage from Isaiah, the beginning of the sermon on the mount, the beatitudes, sound to me like words of comfort. “Blessed are you…” Jesus says. There was gathered before Jesus not only his disciples, but a whole crowd of Israelites to whom Jesus was speaking these words of comfort. He was also speaking words of instruction, especially later I the sermon, but he was definitely comforting the people with the promise of blessing.

Going back to Isaiah, we then hear the verse which John quoted:
A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." (RSV)

In Jesus, the glory of the Lord was revealed. We’re still waiting for the final time when God’s glory will be revealed, the end of all time when God’s glory will fully be revealed to us, but God’s glory was revealed and began to be revealed in Jesus. In Jesus’ teaching and in his life, we saw who God really was lived out in a human life. God’s glory was revealed in all that Jesus said and did, and what did Jesus say in the beatitudes this morning?

Looking again at Isaiah, the prophet continues:
A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever. (RSV)

“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” In other words, our lives are fleeting, but God is with us forever. Our joys and our pains are fleeting; they will not last forever, but the word of the Lord will stand forever. That, to me, is a comforting thought, and very much what Jesus is saying in the beatitudes. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Mourning will not last forever, but God’s word, the comfort he promises will stand forever.

The promises God gives, that the merciful will obtain mercy, that the pure in heart will see God, that the peacemakers will be called sons of God, etc. these promises will stand long after our lives or any afflictions in our lives are past. “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”

So, what then does this have to do with stewardship and the saints? Looking at the first and eighth blessings, those who are poor in spirit and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, we see the same promise given. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All of the other promises are given some time in the future. They will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, but for those who are poor in spirit and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus also said at another time that the kingdom of heaven belongs to children. What do these all have in common? They all share a dependence on God and others.

The poor, at least in Jesus’ time, I think today as well, depended on the charity, the love, of others. The poor in spirit, then, may not lack daily bread, but recognize their dependence on God. The poor in spirit know that even if they have a job and can provide for their families, all that they have is from God, and without God, they have nothing, they are nothing. The poor in spirit have the kingdom of God as stewards, as caretakers, of God’s kingdom, and living as a faithful caretaker of God’s kingdom is the life of a saint.

The saints’ recognized the fact that they were utterly dependent on God, and they rejoiced in that fact. Like children, utterly dependent on their parents, the saints realize that while they no longer have their earthly parents to take care of them, they still get to depend on God as though they were children. The saints were poor in spirit.

The saints were often also persecuted as so often happens when people stand up for what they believe in, when they say unpopular things or live a different way of life than those around them. We too if we’re open about our faith, if we don’t do certain things because of our faith, or if we miss certain activities because we’re gonna be at prayer, or in church, or serving the poor, we too might be persecuted, or at least shunned or left out, but if we are shunned, or persecuted, or left out, we’ll be comforted and satisfied, and see God, and be called children of God.

When we look to the example of Jesus and the examples of the saints, when we become poor in spirit, even with persecution, ours is the kingdom of heaven, and we are stewards of that kingdom. So, finally, how do we live as stewards of God’s kingdom?

Well first, we become poor in spirit, recognizing our dependence on God and our interdependence on each other. Then, we begin caring for God’s kingdom with love.
We comfort those who mourn. We raise up the meek. We support those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and pick each other up when we fall. We show mercy. We purify our hearts. We make peace as not only the absence of conflict, but the presence of love, and if we get shunned or persecuted, we rejoice for ours is the kingdom of God, and great is our reward from God.

Looking then, more concretely, what can we do in our communal life as members of Christ’s body here at Emmanuel? We can support the ministries of Emmanuel, and we can become ministers of Emmanuel.

We’ve talked quite a lot over the past several weeks about supporting Emmanuel’s ministries through your time, talent, and treasure, and through these gifts, you truly can help support the ministry that is going on here. There are several ladies whom I visit once a month to bring communion. They are largely homebound, so getting out to go fix houses in Galveston, or make hospital visits, or lead a Bible study here aren’t exactly things they can do, but each time I go there, they have checks ready for me, made out to Emmanuel. They are supporting the ministries here, even though they can’t be ministers here. They minister to each other as well, but they also do what they can to support the ministries of their church community here.

I know times are tough right now, and may be getting tougher. You may not be able to give a huge amount to support the ministries here. Give what you can to support the ministries.

Then, in addition to supporting the ministries of Emmanuel, you can become a minister of Emmanuel. You can be a minister in the service here on Sunday mornings as a greeter, an usher, or a minister in the service. You can take a trip to Galveston to help rebuild or help in other outreach efforts. You can join Special Projects or Social Life. You can help lead a Bible study or other small group. You can teach classes for our children and youth or help with the youth group.

In these and other ways, you can be ministers as well as support others in their ministries. You can be stewards of God’s kingdom, living out the blessings Jesus promised in the Beatitudes, and if you run into some persecution or are shunned in some way, remember that any trials we face are temporary. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God [the blessings of our God] will stand forever.” Amen.

Responding to Ike

Brad Sullivan
Proper 20, Year A
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Exodus 16:2-15
Psalm 105: 37-45
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16

Good morning y’all. I’m glad to see you here, and hope you all faired well during the storm. We were very fortunate and had little damage to our home. I know a lot of folks are still without power, damage isn’t getting fixed as fast as we’d like, and nerves might be wearing a little thin, but I was encouraged this week watching so many people offer help to those who needed it. On my street, our neighbors offered help to each other and began working together to clean up our street. Several of us met for the first time, sharing storm stories, glad to have come through the storm ok, and again, offering help to one another. From the standpoint of people caring for each other, this has been a pretty good week.

A frightening thought occurred to me last Saturday night, however, as I began thinking about life returning to normal in the coming weeks and months. The frightening thought was that life would return to normal. What I mean by that is I was frightened by the thought that we would or that I would be seemingly unchanged by hurricane Ike.

The areas affected by the hurricane will be able to rebuild. Some have very little damage and rebuilding will be very easy, and life will be able to go on largely as if the hurricane never happened. I was frightened by the thought of, weeks from now or months from now or even years from now, going on with life as if the hurricane had never happened. I thought of some of our neighbors and me going back to our usual routine of not interacting all that much, not taking the time to see how each other is doing, to simply say ‘hi’ and chat for a minute. Maybe I just really liked meeting my neighbors, but I was caught by the idea of our ability to keep events in life from changing us for the better.

Maybe I’m just searching for meaning to a very damaging storm, I discovered that I would rather let that storm change me for the better than merely be a painful hiccup in life as usual. I don’t know what’s going to change. Maybe I won’t take certain things for granted; maybe I’ll be a little less selfish; maybe I’ll have a little more patience. I don’t really care what the change is so long as I allow myself in some way to be changed for the better. Even through something as destructive as this hurricane, I want to allow myself to be changed by God’s grace.

I realize for some, God’s grace will be hard to find. For some it will be very hard to find, but I believe God’s grace is present for all, and for all who were affected by this storm, and God’s grace can change our lives for the better if we allow it to do so.

Look at our Gospel lesson for the day. The laborers were all paid the same, regardless of how long they had worked. That just doesn’t work according to our understanding of justice and fairness. God, however, doesn’t follow our rules of justice and fairness. As one might suspect of God, he follows his own rules of justice and fairness, and God’s justice and fairness may not make a whole lot of sense to us. Some laborers worked less and got the same amount of money as those who worked more. That certainly doesn’t fit our economic system. God’s wages just aren’t right; they’re unfair to those who worked longer.

I can imagine the laborers who worked all day complaining later. “I’m not going to work a full day if I can get paid the same for working a quarter of a day.” Suddenly now we’ve got a problem in the labor force. No one is willing to work more than a quarter of a day. It’s only fair.

Again, according to our system of fairness, God’s economics don’t work. According to God’s grace, however, his economics work great. Imagine if the laborers, rather than setting their minds on our rules of fairness (which largely focus on “me”), imagine if the laborers had focused on God’s grace. “Wow,” they might say, “he’s really generous. I’m glad those other workers were able to feed their families’ today too. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll all get to work together.”

Focusing on God’s grace, and being changed by God’s grace, we find ourselves less focused on ourselves, and more focused on the good of the people around us, the good of the community. Being changed by God’s grace, our problems and complaints diminish; love of the other increases, and trust and even joy in God’s goodness and love increases.

Looking back at our lives then, not only as hurricane survivors, but as Christians, do we at times not allow our lives to be changed by God’s grace? We have all been given God’s grace. In his love for us, in the forgiveness of our sins, in the assurance of everlasting life, we have all been given God’s grace, but there are times when we don’t really receive God’s grace. There are times when we don’t allow God’s grace to change who we are for the better. There are times when we don’t allow God’s grace to make us more grateful, more giving, more cheerful, more loving people. I raise this point not to be condemning of us (pot calling the kettle black on this one), but I raise the point that we often don’t allow ourselves to be changed by God’s grace to point out what we might be missing by not receiving God’s grace, by then acting towards others out of that grace.

Look again at the laborers. They chose to stew in their anger over complaints about fairness; they chose to stay miserable, when they could have rejoiced with their fellow laborers, and given thanks for a generous, graceful landowner. We miss out on a lot of joy when we don’t receive God’s grace.

Now, as I said before, I realize that God’s grace is sometimes hard to find. The gift of God’s love, his forgiveness of our sins, the assurance of everlasting life, these gifts sometimes seem a little too ethereal, not really helping in the concrete struggles of daily life, and we sometimes wonder, where is God’s grace in this life? I know there are many who lost a great deal from the hurricane, maybe some of you, and you might be wondering where is God’s grace in all of this.

It’s ok to ask that question. It’s ok to wonder where God is and to wonder why he isn’t helping out now. I’d like you to open your prayer books to page 638 which is Psalm 39. The psalm reads:

1 I said, “I will keep watch upon my ways, * so that I do not offend with my tongue.
2 I will put a muzzle on my mouth * while the wicked are in my presence.”
3 So I held my tongue and said nothing; * I refrained from rash words; but my pain became unbearable.
4 My heart was hot within me; while I pondered, the fire burst into flame; * I spoke out with my tongue:
5 LORD, let me know my end and the number of my days, * so that I may know how short my life is.
6 You have given me a mere handful of days, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight; * truly, even those who stand erect are but a puff of wind.
7 We walk about like a shadow, and in vain we are in turmoil; * we heap up riches and cannot tell who will gather them.
8 And now, what is my hope? * O Lord, my hope is in you.
9 Deliver me from all my transgressions * and do not make me the taunt of the fool.
10 I fell silent and did not open my mouth, * for surely it was you that did it.
11 Take your affliction from me; * I am worn down by the blows of your hand.
12 With rebukes for sin you punish us; like a moth you eat away all that is dear to us; * truly, everyone is but a puff of wind.
13 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; * hold not your peace at my tears.
14 For I am but a sojourner with you, * a wayfarer, as all my forebears were.
15 Turn your gaze from me, that I may be glad again, * before I go my way and am no more.

There’s not a happy verse in that Psalm. Verse 8 says, “O Lord, my hope is in you,” but the hope basically seems to be that God will leave the person alone. “Take your affliction from me,” verse 11, and “turn your gaze from me, that I may be glad again,” verse 15. The psalmist sounds angry in an unrelenting lament towards God.
Now, turn the page to Psalm 40:

1 I waited patiently upon the LORD; * he stooped to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; * he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; * many shall see, and stand in awe, and put their trust in the LORD.
4 Happy are they who trust in the LORD! * they do not resort to evil spirits or turn to false gods.
5 Great things are they that you have done, O LORD my God! how great your wonders and your plans for us! * there is none who can be compared with you.
6 Oh, that I could make them known and tell them! * but they are more than I can count.
7 In sacrifice and offering you take no pleasure * (you have given me ears to hear you);
8 Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required, * and so I said, “Behold, I come.
9 In the roll of the book it is written concerning me: * ‘I love to do your will, O my God; your law is deep in my heart.’”
10 I proclaimed righteousness in the great congregation; * behold, I did not restrain my lips; and that, O LORD, you know.
11 Your righteousness have I not hidden in my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your deliverance; * I have not concealed your love and faithfulness from the great congregation.
12 You are the LORD; do not withhold your compassion from me; * let your love and your faithfulness keep me safe for ever,
13 For innumerable troubles have crowded upon me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see; * they are more in number than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me.
14 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; * O LORD, make haste to help me.
15 Let them be ashamed and altogether dismayed who seek after my life to destroy it; * let them draw back and be disgraced who take pleasure in my misfortune.
16 Let those who say “Aha!” and gloat over me be confounded, * because they are ashamed.
17 Let all who seek you rejoice in you and be glad; * let those who love your salvation continually say, “Great is the LORD!”
18 Though I am poor and afflicted, * the Lord will have regard for me.
19 You are my helper and my deliverer; * do not tarry, O my God.

What a change from Psalm 39, from ‘get away from me, Lord, that my affliction may end,’ to Psalm 40, ‘I love you, Lord; you are wonderful, please draw near to me, Lord, as quickly as possible.

Don’t deny being in Psalm 39 if you’re at a time in your life when you’re in Psalm 39, when you feel as though God isn’t there or maybe you wish he weren’t there. When you’re in those Psalm 39 times of your life, though, remember to turn the page.

Having sat for a while in Psalm 39, move on to Psalm 40. Allow God’s grace to change you. If you can’t find concrete, here and now examples of his grace, then let his love change you make you more loving. Let his forgiveness of your sins make you able to forgive others. Let the assurance of everlasting life take away your fears and give you confidence in this life. Then, look for the concrete, here and now examples of God’s grace in your life. Even in the midst of hardship or tragedy, wait patiently for the Lord, let his grace change you for the better, and sing a new song of praise when you discover his grace in your life. Amen.

Everyday People

Brad Sullivan
Proper 16, Year A
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

I’m going to talk today about Paul’s letter to the Romans, specifically when he says “not to think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment…” Now, this is not going to be a sermon in which I remind us all that we’re sinners and we’re not good enough so we should think badly of ourselves in order to feel guilty enough to be better people. If you’d like to hear that, I’m sorry, but I hope to take a little more positive spin on Paul’s words.

I don’t know if any of you have ever struggled with feeling like the world isn’t going the way it should be or maybe the church isn’t going the way it should be. You might have further felt that you know how things should go, if only more people thought the way you did. If only you could convince people you were right things would be better. That’s something I’ve struggled with at various points in my life…something of a hero mentality. Such a mentality is somewhat narcissistic, but I think when people feel this hero mentality, they are also deeply concerned with the problems in the world and want to fix those problems, a worthy goal, but it’s not realistic.

Each of us can and should help soothe some of the problems in the world, but none of us are going to fix the world. None of us can. None of us really should. Taken to its furthest degree, any one person trying to fix the world would end up changing the world into his or her image. Hitler tried that, among others. No one of us can or should change or fix the world. The world doesn’t belong to anyone person; it belongs to God. We each play our part. We each have a place within the Body of Christ. We can help and be agents of change around us and in various ways, but we ought not to think too highly of ourselves, but with sober judgment.

Another nice thing about not having to play the hero is that we don’t have to play the hero. Having to be the hero is a very pressure filled existence, one which it’s awful hard to live up to. Paul reminds us we don’t have to be the hero. We don’t have to win the gold in order to have worth. Yes, I actually am using an Olympics analogy here. The Olympics provide a great example of our some people’s need to be the hero and also an example of the way in which we sometimes thrust people into the role of hero. The Olympics are an example of our exaltation of greatness, or to be more accurate, the way the media and some athletes talk about the Olympics is an example of our exaltation of greatness.

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, did you hear some of the athletes dejectedly say, “well, I was hoping for gold, but I had to settle for silver?” Had to settle for silver? You won silver! Most of the athletes I saw were thrilled with any medal, some were happy just to be there, but some of the athletes seemed truly to believe “second place is the first loser,” or “if you’re not first, you’re last.” Some athletes seemed actually to believe they had failed if they hadn’t won the gold. That’s an awful lot of pressure…gold or failure?

I realize people are there to win gold, but “I settled for silver?” Most of life has got to be really disappointing if one’s approach is gold medal or failure. Some of that pressure probably comes from within, some from coaches, some from entire countries, but you could sometimes see the pressure of athletes who felt they had to be the very best. That’s too much pressure on one person, and it tells all non-gold winners, that they are failures. Look at how highly the media exalted Michael Phelps, nothing against Michael Phelps, poor guy, poor other swimmers.

I saw an interview with another U.S. swimmer, Ryan Lochte, who won gold in the 200m backstroke, and in this interview, the interviewer said, “having won the gold in the backstroke, how did you then, only 40 minutes later, face the daunting challenge of swimming against Michael Phelps in your next race,” almost as if the interviewer was saying, “it’s great that you won the gold, but you do realize you’re still a lesser human than Michael.”

Sometimes the media ended up raising this one athlete up so high, that all others were treated as failures even when they had won the gold. At one point listening to a radio show, the people on the broadcast were jokingly saying what Michael Phelps would do after the Olympics, jokingly exalting him to even greater heights, and I thought, “I think after the Olympics, Michael should climb to the top of Mount Olympus and take his rightful place as our new god.” I say that jokingly to point out how we sometimes tend to overdo our praise of greatness so much so that anything but the absolute pinnacle of achievement is failure, again, “settling for silver.”
It’s great to have heroes. It’s great to be proud of accomplishments, but on the flip side of heroes is that we may sometimes feel there are the titanic, great, larger than life kind of people, and then the losers who really didn’t live up to their potential. The rest of us are just kind of average, pretty disappointing.

Again, think of yourself with sober judgment. No one has to be the very best in order to have worth, at least not in God’s eyes.

We have two examples of people in our other readings today that point to this fact: we don’t have to be the very best or the highest ranked person in order to have worth. I’m talking about the examples of Moses and Peter. Now Moses was a little baby in today’s story; he actually won’t know his place for some time, but we know he ends up leading the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Think of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. He was their big leader, but there were a whole bunch of other Israelites doing exactly what God wanted them to be doing…ok, there was idolatry mixed in, but there were people taking care of their families. There were average, everyday Israelites being average everyday Israelites, which is exactly what God wanted them to be.

Then in the Gospel today, Jesus calls Peter “the rock” on which he will build his church. Ok, so Peter was the rock, but do you think he was the only disciple of whom Jesus was proud. Jesus really loved Peter and the rest were kind of disappointing? I don’t think so. The other disciples had their God given place too. They weren’t less important disciples or failures because they weren’t the rock that Peter was. They were every bit as valuable to Jesus and loved by Jesus as Peter was.

Heroes are great…so are average, everyday folks. We don’t have to be “great” by Olympic gold standards for God. God loves us as we are. God loves us for who we are.
One final point on this idea of looking at ourselves with sober judgment, we don’t have to be perfect to be loved by God. I know that sounds like what I just talked about, but what I mean this time is we don’t have to be sinless. Have you ever felt that, as a Christian, you have to be sinless to be good enough or you have to be sinless not to be a hypocrite? You don’t have to be sinless. You can’t be sinless.

As Christians we strive, we do our best not to sin. We’ve been given ways of life by God which are which are the best ways of life we can live. We’ve been taught to love God. We’ve been taught to love one another. We follow Jesus, the perfect human as our Lord, our example. It may seem then, that when we do sin, we’re no longer following Jesus as our Lord, and when we sin we’re disobeying God so we’re being terrible Christians, we’re being hypocrites. Well, when we sin, we are disobeying God, and when we sin, we aren’t in that instance following Jesus as our Lord, but God doesn’t expect us to lead sinless lives. If he did, and if we actually could be sinless, then Jesus would never have had to come. God knows we’re still going to sin even though we follow Jesus as our Lord.

None of us are going to be sinless as Christians. If any of us were sinless, that person wouldn’t be a Christian, he or she’d be Christ. Oops, that was blasphemy, but so is the thought that we can be sinless. Being a Christian doesn’t mean one never sins. Being a Christian means one has accepted God’s forgiveness of sin. So again, if you feel you have to be sinless to be a Christian, think of yourself with sober judgment.

God does not expect any of us to be perfect. God does not expect any of us to be sinless. God does not expect any of us to be the hero, or the savior of the world. God already is all of those things for us. None of us should think of ourselves too highly, nor do we have to. God’s got that exalted place. Amen.

From a distance?

Brad Sullivan
Proper 13, Year A
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 17:1-7, 16
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21


“God is watching us from a distance.” Do you remember that song, “From a Distance”? The song said that from a distance, the earth looks peaceful, and we all look like we’re living in harmony. From a distance, it looks like there really aren’t any problems on earth. I think the idea of the song is that since “God is watching us from a distance”, he sees us as loving, beautiful people who are really wonderful to each other and so he loves us and isn’t upset with us for being rather terrible to each other because he’s watching from a distance. We look beautiful to God...from a distance....what a miserable song.
Looking at the passage from Genesis today, God doesn’t seem to be watching from a distance at all. In fact, God was right here, on earth, wrestling with Jacob. They were having a knock down, drag out fight. Jacob talked with him, held on to him, received a blessing from him, and had his hip dislocated, and none of that happened from a distance. So, we’re going to look at a couple of things from this Genesis story: one, the fact that God does not look on from a distance, and two, the idea of wresting with God like Jacob did, and how we can, do, and maybe have wrestled with God as well. In looking at these ideas, I’m going to mix my thoughts with a book I’ve been reading called Jacob’s Hip in which the author, Kerry Walters, addresses wrestling with God and with our anxiety and dealing with our own vulnerability.

So first, we’ll look at this idea of God watching us from a distance. Well if, like the song says, God really is watching from a distance then no wonder some people think God is dead. If God is watching from a distance and all he sees is harmony, then God’s a pretty darn ignorant guy. The song inadvertently turns God into something of a moron who, if he ever showed up, would be terribly shocked to find that everything in the world isn’t peace and harmony.

Thankfully, God isn’t watching from a distance. Y’all remember the incarnation, Jesus coming and living among us (we celebrate it at Christmas). Well God living among us as the person of Jesus gives us a pretty good indication that God is not far off, but is rather right here with us. The fact that God wrestled with Jacob, again, shows us that God is right here with us, and if God is truly right here with us, then his experience of us is also right here with us. That is to say, God is not detached from us. God dwells with us and feels with us; he pokes and prods us sometimes trying to nudge us in the right direction. God is not above the fray. As described in the book, Jacob’s Hip, being here with us, God is vulnerable with us. Love requires vulnerability. God is love. God is vulnerable in his love for us.

Some would say, “That’s great. God is with us. God is vulnerable. Yippeetah. Why do bad things happen, then, if God is right here with us?” God is with us, but God does not force our hand or control all of our actions. Remember the last time you did something hurtful to someone else? Did God stop you? I assume not, or you wouldn’t be able to remember a time when you did something hurtful to someone. God allows us to act contrary to his will for us. God loves us enough to give us the freedom not to love him or anyone else for that matter. We are able to be hurtful to one another because God is vulnerable in his love for us.

God could bind our wills so that we could choose to harm one another (nor then could we choose to love one another), and then God easily could watch us from a distance. If we had no choice or freedom in our lives, then there would be very little reason for God to be here with us. We obviously can, however, choose to be hurtful to one anther and loving to one another, and God chooses to live and experience those choices with us.

We live in a messy world, and God gets messy right along side us, sometimes because of us. God will wrestle with us, just like with Jacob. Taking a look at Jacob, and his wrestling match with God, Jacob was wrestling God during a time of great anxiety in his life. Jacob was fleeing from his uncle Laban having less-than-scrupulously manipulated Laban out of his best livestock, and Jacob was fleeing toward his brother Esau, who wanted to kill Jacob. Esau even had a whole army set up to do the job. So, we can imagine Jacob was fairly anxious, fearful for his life, and the well being of his family and livestock.

Jacob had really been pretty anxious his entire life. Professor Walters points out the fact that Jacob was constantly trying to build up security around him. He stole his brother’s birthright, his brother’s blessing. He swindled his uncle out of the best livestock. Jacob had a nasty habit of harming other in order to protect himself from his own vulnerability. Professor Walters calls this “safety spirituality”, seeking to build up our defenses against the world. He argues that we often seek security against our own vulnerability through material things as well as through God, trying to pray enough or in the right way, or to be righteous enough for God to protect us, and he sees Jacob as a master of this “safety spirituality”.

The problem with such safety spiritualities is that we end up seeking to control others in order to protect ourselves. Jacob sought to control his brother, his father, and his uncle to the end that he had to flee for his life twice and ended up with less security than he had to begin with. Jacob treated others as play things in his quest for security rather than as human beings to be loved and honored.

We may find in our own quests for security, a tendency to try to control others and even to control God. Again, if we can pray just right, then we can manipulate God to obey our will and protect us as we want. God is not ours, however, to manipulate and control. Other people are not ours to manipulate and control. We may gain some false senses of security, like Jacob did, through our efforts to control God and others, but such security is an illusion. By controlling others, we only end up dehumanizing them, hurting them and us. By seeking our own security by controlling others we only add suffering to the world.

By looking at God as our huge safety net from all of the dangers of the world, we forget the promises God made to us. Did Jesus say nothing bad would ever happen to us? No, he said he would always be with us. God does not prevent every bad thing from ever happening to us. Again, out of God’s love for us, he gives us the freedom to harm each other, and he gives us the freedom to harm him. God is with us in our frailty, in our vulnerability, and in our insecurity about the future.

So, in our times of great anxiety, rather than seeking false security through controlling God and others, take a note from Jacob, and wrestle with God. Maybe you won’t have a physical , WWF Smackdown kind of wrestling match with God, but wrestling with God can take many forms. In times of anxiety, talk to God. When you’re at a crossroads in your life, pour out your heart and admit your vulnerability to a God who is vulnerable with you. You don’t need high and lofty words or eloquent speeches. Like a good wrestling match, pouring out one’s heart to God is an unscripted, messy affair. We simply are with God, giving to God everything that is on our hearts and minds.

Another way in which we can wrestle with God is by taking absolutely seriously the instructions, the commandments, and teachings that God has given us. Looking again at Jacob again, he made his life vastly more difficult than it had to be by treating others so badly, by worrying so much about the future that he built up security by harming others. Now, the 10 Commandments hadn’t been given yet, Jesus hadn’t spent years teaching yet, so maybe Jacob just didn’t know any better than to treat people badly, but we do. God has taught us.

We’ve been given a wonderful gift by God in that he has taught us how to live. He’s taught us that we don’t need to be anxious about tomorrow, not because bad things will never happen to us, they still might, but we don’t need to be anxious about tomorrow because God is with us and will be with us no matter what happens to us.
We have the freedom, therefore to follow God’s commandments, to live according to God’s teaching without the need to place ourselves first for fear of the future. Now, following God’s teachings isn’t easy. Living the way God wants us to live can be like a wrestling match with God, and looking again at Jacob’s wrestling match, we might get a little bit hurt. Jacob had his hip dislocated, and that never really healed. Jacob also received a blessing from God and was forever changed from Jacob, the trickster, to Israel, the one who strove with God and man and prevailed.

If we follow God’s commandments and teachings, then we too might get hurt in some way. Change in our lives often hurts, and I’m guessing there are ways in which all of us aren’t quite following the way God has given us to live. Changing our lives in order to more completely live into God’s teachings and commandments will likely hurt a little bit, but think of how much easier our lives could be if we would simply follow God’s instructions.

In Vacation Bible School this week, we looked at five ways of life God has given us. Be kind. Be obedient. Be bold. Be forgiving. Believe. Think how much easier our lives could be if we would simply live out those five rules. Be kind to one another, even to those who aren’t kind to you. Be obedient to God; follow in his ways. Be bold in approaching God. Be forgiving; let the past be the past; let go of past wrongs. Believe in God; believe in Christ, and live out that belief.
If we live according to these rules, according to the way of life God has given us, wrestling with God in this way, we’re still gonna be hurt. Jacob’s hip got dislocated, but I have a feeling he much preferred walking with a limp to running in fear for his life. If we too wrestle with God, we might be hurt, and we’ll definitely be changed, but if we wrestle with God and don’t let go, then we will also receive God’s blessing, the blessing of a God who is here with us, loving us, and getting messy in this life with us.

God could have stayed away and seen us from a distance, but God chose to be vulnerable, to love us right here where we are. Take advantage of that vulnerable love God has for us. Wrestle with God, and be blessed. Amen.

Family Feuds

Brad Sullivan
Proper 10, Year A
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

I’m going to talk today about family feuds. We’ve got a great one brewing between Jacob and Esau. Poor Esau, you sold your birthright for a bowl of soup? That’s just dumb. Were you really so hungry that you were about to die, or are you just really melodramatic? Did you actually work in the fields until you were minutes away from death by starvation? Go get some food a little sooner next time.

Jacob, give your brother some soup. We know your name means “trickster”, but you don’t have to be a jerk about it. Your brother’s hungry, give him some soup. Esau, again, you sold your birthright for a bowl of soup. Your brother was a jerk, but you sold it, you’ve got to live with that.

Of course, they eventually reconciled, but not before their feud got much worse. Jacob pretended to be Esau, stole his father’s blessing away from Esau. Esau got so mad he was going to kill Jacob and so Jacob ended up fleeing for his life. As we read on in Genesis, God began fulfilling his promise to Abraham and Isaac through Jacob as he fled and found some wives and had a bunch of kids, but did God need for that feud to happen between Jacob and Esau in order to fulfill his promise? I don’t think he did.

God was faithful to Jacob, he kept his promise of blessing even thought Jacob and Esau had this feud, but I don’t know that God needed that feud to occur. As a side note, I also like to think that God had a few lessons to teach Jacob about tricking people and being a jerk. We know Jacob’s father in law ended up tricking Jacob into marrying the wrong daughter. The trickster got tricked, and so Jacob ended up with two wives and two handmaidens, basically four wives. Good Lord! I love being married, I love my wife, but I wouldn’t want four of ‘em. God might have played a little trick on Jacob there.

God ended up fulfilling his promise of blessing despite this feud between Jacob and Esau, but for years, their family was torn apart. It took Jacob and Esau decades to be reunited, and they were reunited, and it was beautiful, but did they need decades of heartache and strife in the meantime.

These family feuds, have really stuck with us over the millennia. Some of y’all might be surprised to hear, but we even have family feuds in the church. We have fought one anther in the church for darn near 2000 years. Even in the very beginning, there was fighting over just how Jewish people needed to be in order to follow Jesus. Peter and Paul had fights over this. We’ve had fighting in the church, even murder within the church over doctrine. Is Jesus God, is he not, just how divine is Jesus, and over centuries, we’ve had the Body of Christ, Jesus’ brothers and sisters, God’s children, fighting and killing one another because we disagree. Christians have fought and killed each other over how we cross ourselves and what vestments to wear. We’ve got these family feuds that just won’t die. That’s not to say that some of our arguments aren’t important, but we’ve all been forgiven by God, can’t we do with a little forgiving of each other?

I’m conscious of the Lambeth conference starting this week. Bishops from all over the Anglican Communion will be gathering to discuss our Communion. We know there have been some pretty big family feuds going on within the Anglican Communion. As Archbishop Williams says, “Our Communion is living through very difficult times and we are bound to be aware of the divisions and conflicts that have hurt us all in recent years. But, as the Lord says (John 16:35), it is in union with him that we shall find peace.” (‘Welcome Message’ from Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, July 2008) It is also in communion with one another that we will find peace. So, be praying for the bishops of the Anglican Communion, pray for peace, pray for forgiveness, and pray that we can stop some of the feuding in the worldwide church.

Now, getting a little more local, there’s not a whole lot we can individually do to fix the global church. If a bishop or a diocese wants to split or leave the church most of us have very little influence over that. We can influence, however what happens in our own church. We have family feuds over all kinds of things. Here at Emmanuel, and in local churches everywhere, folks fight over different things. One person takes another person’s birthright. There are fights over how ministry should be done to various groups of people. Two people or groups of people will be ministering to others but doing so in different ways and then butt heads over who is right. There are fights over space and building use: “Our group should be here!” “No, our group should be here!” “This is my space!” There fights over music, what instruments we use and what songs we sing. There are fights over flowers, over ornaments, and pretty things here in our worship space.

Now, it only makes sense that we’re gonna disagree about some of these things, but when we let these things end up becoming family feuds, we end up torn apart over these things. Even individuals get torn apart or torn away because of these little feuds we have in the church. Don’t do it. Don’t let an argument over something become so volatile, so important that we tear the family apart. Jacob and Esau tore their family apart, and yes, they were reconciled years later, but think of the heartache, the decades of heartache that could have been avoided. Think of the heartache, the decades, the centuries of heartache in the worldwide church, and the years of heartache that could be avoided here if we would just be kind to one another and forgive one another. Think of the healing that could occur in people’s lives if they just wouldn’t leave when things didn’t go their way.

I realize sometimes people need to leave. Not everyone’s gonna be spiritually fed in the same community. Sometimes people need to leave to find what they really need, and to them I say, “Go, but go with the community’s blessing.” We’ve had folks leave Emmanuel and lie about it, and I don’t think we’re alone in this. Sometimes folks have just moved and found a church closer to their new home. Sometimes they’ve found that the worship and the life of this community wasn’t quite right for them and so they’ve gone to find a place that was, but there have been a couple times when folks have said they weren’t leaving when they were or lied about why they were leaving. It seemed as though they were afraid of getting in trouble, or having a priest upset at them or something (who really cares?), or like we think churches are in competition with one another? We’re not. How great if instead of people lying or just slipping out without saying a word folks told the truth, then we could say, “I’m glad you’re finding what you need; God bless you on your journey, and tell the Christians in (whatever church you’re going to) greetings from Emmanuel.” That sounds a lot like Paul in the end of many of his letters, “send my greetings to the Christians in (whichever) church.”

I’m thinking especially this week about folks who left the church, any church, over various gripes, and then come back year later. Thank God they come back, but there has been so much missed blessing in the mean time. God probably still blessed their lives; God doesn’t just withhold blessing because folks stop coming to church, but if it’s been years since someone’s been to church, then they haven’t been blessed by the church, and the church hasn’t been blessed by them. There’s often so much heartache after an absence like that. Something didn’t work out, or things weren’t going how they should have been going, or maybe things were even deeply flawed, but guess what, that’s the church; that’s our family. We are deeply flawed.

So, here’s my priestly and pastoral advice. Don’t leave the Body of Christ. Don’t leave the church. If someday you need to find a different worshipping community to be spiritually fed, then do so, but go with the blessing of the church where you are; don’t leave because you’re upset about something in the church. Don’t leave a place of blessing and turn a disagreement into a family feud.

Now, I have no illusions that as of 12:30 today after all our services here have heard this sermon, that everything in the church is going to be ok. I don’t think that there’s suddenly going to be perfect harmony no one will ever be upset again. I wish preaching was that powerful. “Yeah, as of 30 years ago my life got really better, and I’ve never had a problem since.” “What happened?” “Oh, I heard a really good sermon,” or a really bad sermon, I don’t know. I have no illusions that that actually happens, but we can still try to stop fighting. So what if we won’t succeed? Jesus knew we’d still be messed up when he died for us, and he still died for us.

Can you imagine if he had given up because he knew we’d still be flawed? There’s Jesus in Gethsemane. “Dad, look, I mean, if I do this thing, if I die for all these people, even if I take their sins upon myself when I die for all these people, they’re still not gonna get it. They’re still gonna fight and bicker. I mean humans haven’t gotten much better since Jacob and Esau or even Cain and Abel. They’re still gonna be flawed, Dad, I just, I don’t think this is gonna work.” And then God says, “Well...you’re right, Jesus, it won’t really work. I’m sorry, Son, I’m sorry I put you through this, they’re not really worth the effort.” Boy would we be in trouble.

But, God didn’t give up on us. Jesus didn’t give up on us. God knew we’d still be bickering over bowls of soup and birthrights, but he still saved us. He didn’t leave us, and he’s got a bigger gripe with us than any of us have amongst ourselves, or does anyone’s complaint measure up against God’s complaint? “Yeah, I know I offended against you, Lord, but this guy really upset me.” God’s forgiven us, so don’t leave. Don’t leave because you get upset, or because the church is imperfect, or even because the church is deeply flawed. Don’t turn a conflict into a feud. Stay, and receive the blessings of the church along with the flaws.

Lot’s of folks don’t want to stay. They’ll come back for Christmas and Easter, they’ll come back for baptisms and confirmation, weddings, or when they’re sick. Lot’s of folks want to receive the blessings of the church, but aren’t willing to accept the flaws, or just don’t want to put forth the effort, and I don’t mean this to vilify anyone. Hell, I left the church for four years during college, and I returned for Christmas and Easter. I didn’t really have a gripe, I just didn’t really feel like going. Well that was selfish and shortsighted. There were years of blessing that I could have given and could have received, but I didn’t. I was lazy. I didn’t want to go. As I said earlier of Esau, that was just dumb.

Having said that, though, let’s not start a feud or continue a feud with folks who have left and then suddenly come back. Even if someone’s sitting in “your seat” at Christmas who hasn’t been here since Easter, bless that person. It hurts when people leave, but we all hurt one another, sometimes thoughtlessly, sometimes unintentionally. When folks leave, when folks hurt the community, don’t start a feud with them or hold a grudge when they return. Offer them a blessing.

Think about feuds you’ve had in the past. Give some of those folks a call. If there’s a feud going on with someone at Emmanuel, call ‘em up, and be reconciled. Bring this family closer together. You’ve been forgiven, so forgive. Say someone you know has left the church Give ‘em a call. See how they’re doin’. Maybe they’ve found a new church, and if so, bless ‘em for it, share in their joy. Maybe they haven’t found a new church. Invite ‘em back. Offer them a blessing.

Is there someone sitting here now or maybe at one of the other services with whom you’ve got some struggle? Forgive that person. Some of y’all might be thinking, “well, I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget.” Well, you’re blessed for having a good memory, but what a bunch of hooey. “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget?” Yeah, what we mean is, I won’t really forgive.

It’s time for us to forgive one another. It’s time for us to quit fighting. We’ve got wars going on in the world. It’s been 2000 years since Jesus died for us. It’s time for us to quit fighting. Worldwide, here, it is time for us to quit fighting, to quit these silly feuds and start living together as a family.

We’ve been fighting in the church for centuries, since Jacob and Esau and before, and God’s blessed us. We can continue to fight in the church, and God will continue to bless us, but we don’t have to keep fighting to keep getting God’s blessing. We can live in peace and still receive God’s blessing. All these feuds, all this fighting, it’s all happened before. It doesn’t have to happen again. Amen.

The Peace of Total Surrender to God

Brad Sullivan
Proper 8, Year A
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42


The sacrifice of Isaac a kinda disturbing story when you really think about it: murder, human sacrifice, a father trying to kill his son. At seminary, I heard a lot of folks talk about their problems with the sacrifice of Isaac. Some folks just couldn’t even talk about the story, “It’s too terrible, it’s too terrible, I just can’t get past it, the murder...it’s just awful.”
Along those same lines, several months ago, I was watching an episode of the TV show, “Family Guy”, which referenced Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. For those of y’all who don’t know the show, “Family Guy”, well, you’re probably better off...but the show is a wonderfully irreverent cartoon, Sunday evenings on Fox, and in this particular episode, the dad in the show said, “Oh my God, I’m a worse father than Abraham.” Then, it cuts to a scene of Abraham and Isaac walking back down the mountain and Isaac saying, “Ok, what the hell was that all about?”
Obviously, the sacrifice of Isaac is a rather disturbing story: murder, human sacrifice, but when we take those aspects of the story out of the equation (we can address that during coffee hour) the sacrifice of Isaac is a story about total surrender to God. The one thing Abraham loved more than anything else, the one thing he couldn’t possibly give up, was his son, Isaac. God asked him to give up that one thing. Now, God didn’t want Abraham actually to kill Isaac, and Abraham got his one thing back, but he had to be willing to give it up. The assumption couldn’t be that he would get Isaac back; otherwise, he wouldn’t be surrendering to God. Abraham had to assume he was actually going to kill Isaac and never see him again.
What was going through Abraham’s mind? Did he think God had reneged on his previous promise to make him father to a multitude? Did he assume God would give him another son in order to fulfill his promise? We don’t know. All we know is Abraham totally surrendered himself to God.
Abraham trusted God in action. Not knowing how God could possibly fulfill his promise with Isaac dead, Abraham still trusted that he should do what God asked him to do.
Then, of course, we know how the story ends. In trusting God, Isaac was restored to Abraham. When we read this story, then, we learn a few things about God. For one thing, we learn that God doesn’t actually want us to kill our children so yea for that, we learn that God is worthy of our trust, and we also learn that if we truly want obtain the blessing God has in store for us, we have to be willing to surrender ourselves to God.
There’s a problem, though. Knowing that Abraham gets Isaac back, we might think, “Ok, God, I’ll surrender this to you knowing that you’re going to give it back.” We don’t know that God’s going to give back what we surrender. Maybe he would if he asked us to kill our child, but I think that was kind of a one time deal with Abraham. The thing or things which we need to surrender to God may not be something God is going to restore to us.
Say, for example, someone with a drug addiction is being asked by God to give up that drug addiction. God is not likely to say, “Thank you very much for being willing to give up your addiction to drugs. Now I know you trust me so please, keep on using drugs.” There are some things which God is asking us to give up which he won’t restore to us. Now, a drug addiction is obviously a good thing to surrender to God, but what about surrendering things which are not so obviously things which we need to surrender?
What about when God asks us to surrender our plans for the future? What if God asks us to surrender various hopes or dreams? What if God asks us to surrender a certain way of life or if God asks us to surrender a certain conviction we have? What if God asks us to surrender the one thing in our lives we cannot live without? Would we be willing to surrender that thing to God with the knowledge that we would not get it back?
That’s a difficult choice to make. “I can’t live without this God, but I’m going to surrender it to you?” God wouldn’t ask us to give something up just to be mean. If God’s asking us to give something up, he’s got something else in mind, something better in mind, Him. If we surrender to God, God fills us back up with himself.
Have you ever felt like you’re pushing against something for a long time, something that you want, and you keep trying, and you keep tying, and you keep trying, and it just isn’t working, or has there been something you want in your life or maybe something you want to accomplish and you’re miserable without it. Have you ever tried just giving it up, surrendering it to God and saying, “Ok, God, I give up, your turn. What blessing do you have in store for me?”
I saw a video on the internet, on YouTube last week called “Cardboard Testimonies.” The video was of a presentation at a church of people who had been transformed by Jesus. They held up cardboard signs stating who they were on one side, and who they became with Jesus’ help on the other side of the sign.
The cynic and pessimist in me wanted to say “come on…is your life really that great now? Are you just walking around with blinders on to the problems you’ve still got? What a bunch of bull.”
The Christ follower in me, however, said, “I want what they’ve got. How did they get to the point that they could identify exactly what Jesus had done to transform their lives?” Then, after reading over the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, I realized the people with these cardboard testimonies must have surrendered to Jesus.
There was a woman who was addicted to Meth, there were couples whose marriages were failing, there was a woman who had lived for eight years in fear that her cancer would return. She was cancer free, but she couldn’t let go of living in constant fear.
The Meth addict must have said, “Jesus, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t imagine my life without this drug, I can’t imagine how I’ll get by, but I’m miserable with it. I need to surrender this addiction to you, and trust you with the outcome.”
The couples whose marriages were failing must have said, “Jesus, our marriage isn’t good. Neither of us is willing to budge, we’re miserable together, this isn’t working so we’re surrendering it to you. Make our marriage what you want it to be. It may not be what we want, but we’re surrendering that to you. Make our marriage what you want.”
The lady who was afraid of cancer must have said, “Lord Jesus, I can’t live without this fear. It’s the only thing I’ve got. The only way my world makes sense, the only way I have the strength to keep going is through fear, but I also can’t keep living with this fear so I’m surrendering it to you. I don’t know how I’ll survive without this fear, but I’m surrendering that to you. I’ll trust you to guide me.”
This woman living with fear hits home with me particularly right now as I’m going through a similar period of surrender right now. Living with fear, with anxiety, depression, anger, all of that is something with which I’ve been struggling since I can remember. God knows where it came from. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a lot of fear, and I’ve known for a while that I take comfort in the fear and the assumption that things are gonna go wrong, but a couple of days ago, I was heading out, and we’d been talking at the youth conference I was attending about various kinds of death in our lives…not only physical death of friends and loved ones, but death of periods in our lives, or death of how we thought our lives should be, and the kids spent some time talking about how God helps bring resurrection from these various deaths.
So, as I was heading out one morning that week, I had a really dark outlook on things when I thought, “this is stupid, just assume everything’s gonna be great.” Well, I did assume everything was going to be great, and the instant I did so, I felt anxiety welling up inside, and I realized just how much I depended on fear and pessimism as a security blanket, kinda like Linus carrying around his little blue blanket. If I assumed things were going to go well, then I might be disappointed so it was safer to assume things would go badly. I wasn’t happy, but there was security in the fear.
I realized then I had to give that pessimism and fear to God. That anxiety and fear that I held on to for security, I had to give up to God, otherwise I could never find security in him. What I finally had to say was, “Ok, God, I give up. I can’t imagine living without the anger, and fear, and pessimism that I’ve held on to for so long, but rumor has it life’s gonna be better without it, the Bible seems to say life’d be better without it so I’m going to surrender it to you. Please help me to do so.”
The beauty of surrender to God is when we do surrender something to God, we find peace. For a couple days, I had this initial peace overflowing within me which was wonderful. Now, that initial peace didn’t last forever, but it was like a glimpse into the future, as if God was saying, “here’s what’s in store for you once you totally give this over to me and allow me to fill you up and you put your security in me.” So I got a glimpse into what life of total surrender to God can be like, and with his help I’m gonna keep chasing after it, because it’s like nothing else. As one of the youth described surrender at the conference where I was this week, she said life was serene.
So, my question for you this week is, is there something you need to surrender to God? Is there something you don’t have and are just miserable without it, or is there something you’ve got but that you know isn’t the right thing? Is there something in your life you just cannot live without, but you know having it is going against how God’s asking you to live or who God’s asking you to be? Try surrendering it to God. Give it up. God’s got something better in store for you. If God wants you to get rid of something, then it’s a good bet you can live without it, and it’s also a good bet you’ll be happier without it. So try it. Try experiencing the peace of surrender to God, and see what kind of life God has in store for you. Amen.

God as Trinity: Speaker, Word, and Breath

Brad Sullivan
Trinity Sunday, Year A
Sunday, May 18th, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Canticle 13
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

In the story of creation which we heard this morning, we obviously heard an account of how God created the world and everything that is, but we also we heard a good deal about who God is. We heard about God speaking the world into existence. God speaks, his Word acts, and his Spirit moves over creation. We see, then, even in the first chapter of Genesis, an understanding of God as Trinity, three persons and yet one God. Now, the first chapter in Genesis was in no way trying to describe God as Trinity, that understanding of God did not yet exist, but through God speaking, we can still see the idea of God being three and yet one.
If we consider human speech, by way of analogy, there are three parts: the speaker, the word spoken, and the breath which carries the word. In speaking creation into existence, we can also see God as Speaker, Word spoken, and Breath or Spirit which carries the word. I wish I could say describing the Trinity in this way was my idea, but I actually read about it from Gregory of Nyssa, an early Father of the church and bishop in the late 300s, and I’m going to spend a few minutes describing God as Trinity using Gregory’s analogy to human speech.
So, first we have God as the speaker. Like humans, God can speak. God’s speech, however, is better than ours, elevated above ours. For other examples, as humans, we have power, and life, and wisdom. God too has power, and life, and wisdom, but perfect power, perfect life, perfect wisdom. God’s life doesn’t end; his wisdom and power are not limited and can’t be corrupted.
God’s speech then, is also unending and incorruptible. We speak, and our words are heard, but then they are no more; they cease to exist. God’s speech, however, is eternal and substantial. God’s Word has life in and of itself, or would God’s Word be lifeless? Would God create the world with a lifeless word? No. God’s Word is living and active with wisdom, power, and a will to act. “This Word, however, is different from Him whose it is.” (Nyssa, An Address on Religious Instruction, 1:6)
If there is a word spoken, there must also be a speaker. So, while seeing a difference between the speaker and the word, Gregory does not draw a distinction between the two. Our words come from our minds and as such our words are not totally different from us nor are they totally identical to us. We think the words, they come from us, and so our words are a part of us, and yet our words are distinct from us as we speak them. For God too, then, God’s Word is not something other than or alien to God, and yet we see a distinction between God as word and God as speaker. The Word both is the speaker and is different from the speaker.
Looking now at the Holy Spirit, we see from our own speech that breath or a spirit accompanies our speech. We draw breath into ourselves before we speak, and that breath accompanies our speech. God’s word, too, is accompanied by God’s spirit, or would we say God’s speech lacks a spirit, when our speech has one. Is our speech better than God’s? Of course it isn’t, so God has a spirit which accompanies his speech. This is not to say, however that God draws in breath in order to speak. Unlike with human speech, God’s spirit is not something external to God. God doesn’t use something other than himself in order to speak. Rather, God’s spirit “is not able to be separated from God in whom it exists, or from God’s Word which it accompanies.” (Nyssa, An Address on Religious Instruction, 2:3)
So, God’s Spirit, while distinct from the speaker, is not separate from God. Like the Word, God’s spirit is not totally different nor totally identical to God as speaker. Like God’s Word, God’s Spirit is living and active with wisdom, power, and a will to act.
Further, God’s Spirit works in unity and harmony with God’s Word and with God as speaker. The three are not in competition nor do they divide up tasks among each other. They always work as one. God is one, the three persons of the Trinity always in perfect unity. Whatever the Speaker did, the Word and Spirit did also. God didn’t say “Let there be light”, and there was water. The Spirit didn’t go off and make water while the Speaker and the Word were making light. They worked together. Speaker, Word, and Spirit are one, in perfect unity.
So, from the creation story, we see several things about who God is. God is a communion of persons working together in perfect unity. The persons of the trinity listen to and are at peace with one another so much so that they are one. Further, from the story of creation, we see that God is creative, bringing order out of chaos. What did we hear in first verse of Genesis? “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…” (Genesis 1:1) The earth was a formless void, chaos, and out of the chaos, God made the earth an ordered planet full of light and life. God created the earth and created order out of chaos.
So we see God is a communion of persons who work together in perfect unity, listening to one another and at peace with one another. We see God is creative, making order out of chaos. We also see that God is fruitful. God’s efforts and work are not in vain. When God speaks, his words happen. As we hear from Isaiah:
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth,making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
God does not fail, his Word does not return to him empty, but it accomplishes his purpose. God has a plan and an order for his creation, and God’s plan will succeed. God’s purpose will bear fruit. So again, we see God is a communion of persons who work together in perfect unity, listening to one another and at peace with one another. We see that God is creative, making order out of chaos, and we see that God is fruitful, accomplishing his purpose. We further see that we were made in the image of God.
God said, “‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’…So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26a, 27) We were all made in God’s image to be people in communion with one another. We were made to live together in unity, listening to and at peace with one another. We were not made to be alone, but to find our true humanity in our relationships with one another, God living in our relationships, giving us life as we live into his image as a communion of persons. We were also made to be creative and fruitful as God is. We were made with a purpose.
We are not here merely to exist, but to live lives of relationship and communion, bearing fruit in our lives according to God’s purpose for us. We often have to search to find our purpose, but we were all made with a purpose. We are not here accidentally, but are made according to God’s Word which accomplishes God’s purpose. God meant for each one of us to be made, to live in unity and harmony with one another, to be fruitful and creative according to God’s purpose for us.
Thinking then of the image of God in which we were made, listen again to Paul’s final appeal to the Corinthians. “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2 Corinthians 13:11) What is Paul saying? Live in the image of God in which you were created, and Paul reminds us that God will be with us always. The God who made each of us in his image, the God who made each of us out of love with always be with us.
Finally, then, look at Jesus’ appeal to his disciples. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
Go, Jesus says. Let people know about God in whose image they were made. Whether you call that God Speaker, Word, and Breath, or Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let people know about a God who is a communion of persons, a God who is loving, creative, fruitful, and purposeful. Let people know about a God who made each of us to be in communion and harmony with one another, a God who made us to be creative and fruitful, and purposeful. Let people know about a God who has a plan and a purpose for all of creation. Let people know about a God who will succeed in that plan, Jesus says, and let people know about a God who will be with us always. Amen.

Share the Light: What is the hope that is in you?

Brad Sullivan
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Sunday, 27th, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21


“To an unknown god,” was the inscription on an altar which Paul found in Athens, and that inscription goes a long way to describing the human condition. As human beings, we seem to have a need to connect with God. Whether God is believed to be known or unknown, near or far, loving or angry, people seem to have an innate need to search for and connect to God. Religion, having some kind of religion is shared in almost every culture and society, worldwide. There are atheists out there, folks who don’t believe in a god for one reason or another, but by and large, humanity seems hardwired to quest after knowledge of God. Paul even said as much in his address to the Athenians:
From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
Paul understood that God gave us all a desire for him. Paul understood that God gave us all a purpose, that we would search for him and perhaps grope for him and find him. Paul further understood something of who God is. Paul understood that God, whom the Athenians worshipped as unknown, is not an unknown, faraway deity, but God is near to each of us. We are in fact God’s offspring. We are known and loved by God who desires for us to know and love him.
This is one of the great joys of Christianity. God is not unknown. We do not follow blindly an unknown god, but we follow the light of Christ to God who has made himself known to us through Christ. What many proclaim as unknown, we can proclaim as known.
Peter invites us to proclaim God as known in his letter when he writes, “always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15) We have been charged with proclaiming as known the God and Father of Jesus Christ who knows and loves each of us.
I would add a word of caution, however, as to the manner in which we make such proclamations. By proclaiming knowledge of God, we can rather easily sound presumptuous or even become presumptuous. “I have knowledge of God which I am now going to impart to you, little one.” I’ve experienced this kind of well-intentioned yet off-putting sharing of the light several times.
Once in college, several guys from one of the campus ministries at U.T. saw me walking to my dorm and asked if they could talk to me about the Bible sometime. I said, “sure,” figuring we’d have some Bible study, and I looked forward to talking with some other Christians about our faith. When they arrived at my dorm a few days later, however, we spoke together only briefly before they began telling me that they would teach me the truth about the faith. My 18 years as a Christian meant nothing. We had nothing to share. They were going to teach me the knowledge of God that I had been somehow missing. I didn’t continue meeting with them.
My senior year in college I went on a mission trip to help build a school and a home for the teacher of the school. Midway through the trip was our day for evangelism. I was nervous, but kind of excited as well, until we began. We went door to door in a small impoverished neighborhood to talk to people about Jesus, but we weren’t actually evangelizing. We weren’t sharing any good news.
I became fed up at one house when we met a woman was searching for God in many ways including voodoo. She had heard of Jesus and figured if he could help her out, then great, but she didn’t believe in him or in the Gospel (don’t know if she’d ever heard it). So, one of our group asked her, if she were to die today, would she have any reason for God to let her into his heaven. She didn’t know, we prayed for her to accept Jesus and we left.
At no point in that visit, did we actually share the Gospel with this woman. At no point did help make known to her the unknown god for whom she was groping. Threats of hell and telling people they are wrong for their beliefs and we Christians are right don’t generally share the light of the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. I remember talking to a Hindu classmate of mine in high school about religion and basically telling her she was wrong for worshipping multiple gods and that there was only one true God. Boy did I mess up. I think she wanted to have an actual conversation about our two faiths, and all I probably did was let her know, Brad is a jerk and so might other Christians be.
Peter tells us, on the other hand, to share the light, to make an accounting for the hope that is in us, but to do so “with gentleness and reverence.” An example of sharing the light with gentleness and reverence comes from Vincent Donovan, a Roman Catholic priest who, back in the 60s and 70s, was a missionary to the Masai tribes in East Africa. The Masai believed in tribal gods, and Fr. Donovan was telling them about the the God of the Gospel, the “High God,” who loves all the tribes. At one point he was asked, “Has your tribe found the High God? Have you known him?”
He “was about to give a glib answer” when he thought of all the fighting among Christians, the wars we fought and still fight in God’s name. He said,
No, we have not found the High God. My tribe has not known him. For us too, he is the unknown God. But we are searching for him. I have come a long, long distance to invite you to search for him with us. Let us search for him together. Maybe, together, we will find him. (Christianity Rediscovered, p. 46)
The tribe was converted to Christianity.
Fr. Donovan’s answer may seem problematic because he said God is unknown. Paul said God is known. Well, Fr. Donovan was not saying we have no knowledge of God. Rather, he was admitting to what Paul himself says about our knowledge of God. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) Fr. Donovan was not claiming absolute knowledge of God which he would impart to the poor little Masai. Rather, he was journeying with them in their search for God as he told them about the Gospel. He shared the light with them rather than forcing open their eyes and blinding them with the light. He shared with them the good news of God who has made himself known to us through Jesus Christ so that in groping for God, we may find him. He shared with them the good news of God who loves all people and who is not far from each one of us. He shared the light.
Sharing the light is what we’ve been asked to do as well. We’ve been asked individually to share the light. Pastor Janie has also been using that term, “share the light” in reference to getting the word out about Emmanuel to people in the area around us. We’ve been hoping to get a “Share the Light” team together to work on publications which can be given to people, to homes, and to the many apartments around us. For lack of a better term, we’ve been trying to get some marketing done for Emmanuel, but so far, we don’t have people with marketing expertise to help in this area, or I should say, no one has stepped forward who has such expertise. So, if any of you have this ability and are willing to devote some of your talent to Emmanuel, please let us know. Talk to Pastor Janie, a vestry member, or me so we can begin letting the people around us know who we are, so we can share the light.
The other way we’ve been asked to share the light, again, is by being able “to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15) So, to this end, please take out the blue insert in your bulletins. What I’d like each of you to do this week, or even today, is to take this with you and write down what is the hope that is in you.
Maybe the answer seems obvious, maybe it doesn’t, but take some time to think about what your hope truly is. Why do you come to church? Why do you have faith? You might say church just feels right, or it just feels good. I’m sorry to say, so does a cup of coffee in the morning. While church may just feel right or just feel good for a lot of us, but we need to be able to articulate what our hope is a little bit better than that. So sit with the question for a while. What is the hope that is in you? Wrestle with the question, pray about it, and write down and be able to articulate what your hope truly is. How is the Gospel good news in your life?
Then when someone asks, or it comes up in conversation, you’ll be able to tell people why you believe and what you believe with gentleness and reverence, and maybe even joy. If you are able to articulate what is the hope that is in you, then you will be able to share the light with others. Further, once you truly find out what is the hope that is in you, you might find a desire to share it with others. So, take the time to examine your faith and your hope, because folks all around us are groping for God. Many of them are groping for an unknown God, and although we can now only see in a mirror, dimly, we can still share the light of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Can we be shepherds with Jesus as the gate?

Brad Sullivan
Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
Emmanuel, Houston
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10


There are two main points from our Gospel story which I’d like to discuss today. One is the idea of Jesus as the gate for the sheepfold, and the second is the idea of us as shepherds. Now, I might be preaching a little bit of heresy here, I’m not quite sure, but have a listen, and see what you think.
Jesus said he is the gate and only the one who enters the pasture by the gate is shepherd. I think he was referring to himself as the shepherd. Indeed, if we went on one verse farther than today’s reading, we would have read Jesus calling himself the good shepherd, but listening to the second half of the passage today, Jesus didn’t call himself the shepherd. Rather, Jesus called himself the gate.
Now, Jesus can be and is both the good shepherd and the gate, but looking only at Jesus as gate, he said “whoever enters by [him] will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture,” (John10:9) and earlier, he said the shepherd enters through the gate. Perhaps those who enter by the gate of Jesus are not only sheep, but also shepherds.
This is where the potential heresy comes in. I’m not sure about this idea of people who follow Jesus being not only sheep, but shepherds, but I want to work with the idea a little bit today. Can sheep act as shepherds? Well, in the reading we heard from Acts, the apostles were certainly acting as shepherds. Listen again to the passage:
The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)
By that last sentence, we hear of Jesus as the main shepherd, “adding to their number those who were being saved.” Jesus was in charge of the whole flock, but we also heard of the people devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship. The apostles were sheep of the Jesus, the good shepherd, and the apostles also served as shepherds, little shepherds, say, for the believers. The apostles led the believers in the abundant life that Jesus gave. “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they sold their possessions and gave to all as any had need. They spent time together in the temple and broke bread and ate with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” That’s abundant life. Would that we had that life. That was the life Jesus had taught the apostles, and the life, therefore, the apostles continued to teach as shepherds leading fellow sheep through the gate of Jesus.
Looking then, at Jesus as the gate, and the apostles as little shepherds going in and out through the gate of Jesus, I have three points I’d like to make as this passage relates to our lives.
First, we can all be shepherds at various points in our lives. As we live and continue following Jesus as our shepherd, we will continually change from sheep to shepherd, and from shepherd to sheep. We can each act as a little shepherd to each other as God’s Spirit moves in us and as need arises among us, and every little shepherd will need to be led as a sheep by others. Even the greatest shepherd within Jesus’ flock is still a sheep of Jesus.
This brings up the second point. While we can all act as shepherds to one another, we are all Jesus’ sheep. None of us possess the flock. While we are to devote ourselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, while we are to work for the needs of the poor and the oppressed, and while we are to devote ourselves to proclaiming by word and example the good news of God in Christ, we must remember that we will not add to our number those who are being saved. The Lord will add to our number those who are being saved.
Our responsibility is to be the best sheep we can be, hearing Jesus’ voice and following him. Our responsibility is to live as Jesus taught us to live, to live as the believers did in Acts 2. Our responsibility is to act as little shepherds to one another when the Spirit calls and the need arises. Our responsibility is not, however, for the ultimate salvation of the world. We do have responsibility to Jesus’ flock as shepherds and as sheep, but the flock is not ours to do with as we will.
The flock is not ours to control, nor will the flock live or die by any one of us. As written in 1 Corinthians, “[Paul] planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:7) None of us grows the flock. None of us controls the flock. If, as shepherds, we hold on too tightly and try to control the flock ourselves, then we begin losing our faith in Jesus, begin believing he is not actually in control of his own flock. Further, seeking to control the actions of the flock rather than guide the actions of the flock is not leading as Jesus led.
This brings me to the third point. If you are going to act as a shepherd, make sure you’ve entered through the gate of Jesus. By this, I don’t only mean Baptism. Rather, when I say make sure you’ve entered through the gate of Jesus, make sure each time you begin shepherding others that you are doing so in the same manner that Jesus did. When we lead others, we need to lead them to the same place Jesus led, teaching the same lessons, and we must also lead others as Jesus led.
Continuing the previous example, Jesus did not lead by compulsion. He did not force anyone to follow him or to listen to his teachings. Jesus allowed people to reject him. As shepherds, then, we too are to teach as Jesus taught, to offer correction to one another, to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom, but we are not to do so through coercion or compulsion, or by vilifying those who don’t accept the story.
In other words, we are not to place ourselves above anyone else. Whenever we act as shepherds, we are to remember that we are also lowly sheep. Jesus, after all, “did not did not [even] count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:6-7) We, then, when acting as shepherds must humble ourselves, not becoming holier than thou or lording our perceived righteousness over others. Rather, we are to offer correction to fellow sheep with meekness and humility out of love for our fellow sheep.
One might say, “but what about when I know I’m right, can I then place myself above others to force them to be right?” No, even when we know with absolute certainty that we are right, we are still not to force others to be right. We are Jesus’ sheep, and he doesn’t force us to be right. Additionally, being right does lead to a life of abundance. Entering life through the gate of Jesus leads to a life of abundance.
Jesus is the gate through which we pass from a normal existence to a life of abundance. Jesus is the gate through which we pass as sheep, following him to this life of abundance, and Jesus is the gate through which we pass when serving as little shepherds to fellow sheep. Jesus is the gate through which the apostles passed when shepherding the early church. They passed through the gate of Jesus and served as shepherds like Jesus. Think again of the life described in Acts 2, a life of abundance, of harmony, and of trust in God. We too can live that life when we pass through the gate of Jesus. Amen.