Wednesday, February 21, 2018

Choosing to Love...Without All the Time in the World



Brad Sullivan
Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Choosing to Love…Without All the Time in the World
                                                                                                              
I was on Facebook this morning as I am every morning, about to start Morning Prayer, which I pray on Facebook so others can join in praying together, and as I was about to start, I noticed a friend’s updated status (a priest friend of mine).  The status was a question and an answer. 
“So, do you have any plans for Valentine’s Day?”
“I’m going to go to work and remind everyone of their inevitable death.”
Happy Valentash Wednesday, everyone.  I loved that status update because…well, I love that kind of humor, and because it is so true.  Maybe a bit maudlin, I’ll grant you, but we really are here on Ash Wednesday to remind ourselves of our inevitable death, and of the hope that goes with it. 

We can only really come to that hope of life in and through and beyond death when we first face and accept death.  So many people fear death or try to deny death, and yet death is the one true, inescapable destiny of the human condition.  Death is also the great equalizer.  In the grave, as we return to the dust, there are no rich or poor, no righteous or unrighteous.  Death deals with all equally, as the psalmist says in Psalm 62, “Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.”

Even so, as humans, we’re generally not all that great fans of death.  Many of us try to stave it off as long as possible, we try to build up security for ourselves so we can die on our own terms, we fight wars and kill other people in order to prevent our own deaths, and yet without question, everyone is going to face death.  Living in fear of death or trying to deny death, we end up imprisoned by death, so much energy and life wasted in an effort to stave off or deny the inevitable.  Accepting death, however, and accepting the life that continues on through Jesus’ resurrection, we can be freed from death’s hold over us.  All of us go down to the grave, yet even at the grave, we make our song, “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!”  Death still stings, but by accepting it, we can live with death and with hope.

Accepting death, we might be able to accept more readily the miraculous nature of our bodies.  We start as dust and we end as dust.  Our bodies are comprised entirely of things that didn’t used to be our bodies.  Every cell and atom in our bodies used to be something else, some other part of creation, and then as we began to be formed in our mothers’ wombs, all of the formerly other stuff became organized for a time as our bodies.  Our bodies remain organized in this way for a time, and then they die and decay.  The stuff that was our bodies is disintegrated, and becomes something else.  From dust we are made, and to dust we shall return.

We aren’t in these bodies for all that long, as Psalm 90 says, “The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength even eighty; yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow, for they pass away quickly and we are gone.”  Ash Wednesday reminds us of this fact.  As we put ashes on our heads and remember our mortal nature, we are offered no escape from death, no denying the fleeting nature of our bodies.  In Ash Wednesday, there is also no denying the hope we have in Jesus, that whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s.  As the Lord’s, we continue on in life, even after our mortal bodies return to the dust.  Trusting in that, trusting in God’s continual care for our lives even after our bodies die, we are free to live without fear and denial of death.  Accepting the ephemeral nature of our lives, accepting that we are dust, and to dust we shall return, we can cherish our bodies and we can cherish each other even more.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return may not be the best selling Valentine’s
Day card ever written, but such a message actually is a message of profound love.  If our lives continued on forever, then choosing to share our lives and love with each other would mean far less.  If things didn’t work out in a relationship, we’d have all the time in the world to try with someone else.  As it is, we don’t have all the time in the world, and so choosing to share our lives and love with people is a tremendous gift and something to be cherished.  As transitory as this life is, I choose to live it with you, family, friends, loved ones.  I choose to cherish you while you inhabit that body, and I choose love you, trusting that through God’s eternal life, not even the heartache of death will end the love and communion we share.  I choose to cherish and share my life with you knowing that we are all dust, and to dust we shall all return.  Maybe it’s not such a bad Valentine’s Day card after all.

God Is In the Grind



Brad Sullivan
Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 11, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9

God Is In the Grind
                                                                                                              
Have you ever been outside walking around and then looked up and been startled, scared even, by a hideous, almost other worldly beast staring at you with hungry eyes, vicious teeth, and razor sharp claws, only to have your eyes refocus and realize you were in fact looking at a tree branch?  The tree branch didn’t change, only how your eyes saw the tree branch changed.  I wonder if that isn’t something like what happened to Peter and James and John with the transfiguration.  Rather than Jesus changing before their eyes, perhaps what changed was their eyes’ ability to see for a few minutes something they had not previously been able to see:  the radiance and majesty of the light of Jesus.  Perhaps even, Moses and Elijah had been there previously as well, unseen and unheard by Peter, and James, and John, until God changed something within them and allowed them to see and experience more of the world than any of us are able to see or experience with our regular senses. 

Perhaps Jesus took Peter, and James, and John up to the mountain top in order to change something of their ability to see and experience the world for a short time, so that they saw not only the majesty of Jesus, but also the majesty of God’s kingdom in which those who have died are still alive and well with God, and the world.  Perhaps then, when God turned the dimmer switch back down on Jesus and Moses and Elijah disappeared, what they had seen on the mountain didn’t cease to be, but only their ability to see it.  As beautiful and wonderful as the world is then, what they saw for a short time was that the world is far more beautiful than they or we could ever have imagined. 

Little wonder then that they wanted to make booths and stay there.  In any mountain top experience, any jaw dropping, mind blowing, beautiful experience of our lives, we tend to want to stay in that moment, rather than come back down to earth to the drudgery of daily life.  As much as we like to poke fun at Peter for seemingly always saying the wrong thing, I have a feeling we’d have all wanted to stay up on the mountain a little while longer as well. 

I wonder then how Peter, and James, and John saw the world once they came back down the mountain.  Did the world seem dull by comparison?  Maybe, but I sure hope not.  I hope instead that after Jesus’ transfiguration, the world seemed to Peter, and James, and John to be alight with possibility and alive with wonder.  I hope they realized that everything they saw up on that mountain was still there in the regular old mundane world, just simply hidden from their eyes.

I would say that’s the reason for any mountain top experience, any jaw dropping, mind blowing, beautiful realization of the majesty of God and his kingdom all around us.  We’re never meant to stay on top of the mountain.  The only reason we go up the mountain to see Jesus transfigured before us is so that we can come down the mountain and also see Jesus in the miracle of the mundane, the non-dopamine laced divinity of the daily drudge.  Every moment is a possibility for love and wonder.  Every person we see is a beautiful miracle of God’s design, made with the spark of God’s image and the dust of our common humanity out of which we are all made and to which we all go.  We go up the mountain in order to come down, realizing Jesus is just as transfigured at the bottom of the mountain as at the top, even if we can’t see it

Bishop Doyle writes similarly in his book, The Jesus Heist: (p. 67)
The only reason to come into a community [for worship] is so you can learn how to leave it and do the real work of worship - being with Christ in the world around us.  This is how we show the love of God - we go and love people, heal people, care for people, live with people, eat with people.  We go and discover where Jesus is in the world and join his work there.

Whether the mountain, or church service, or any experience we have of the divine, we’re never meant to stay, we’re meant to live, and we’re meant to realize that the rest of our lives are every bit as sacred.  As mundane as our lives may seem at times, they and we are all part of something bigger and far more beautiful than we can see or imagine. 

Something as simple as a kind gesture.  Giving a cup of cold water to a kid who is thirsty, as Jesus said…or an old person who is thirsty for that matter.  Going to work or school each day at a job that does not satisfy or an education that seems pointless, God is there just as much as on the mountain top in the miracle of the mundane. 

What in us keeps us from seeing the miracle of the mundane and the divinity of the daily drudge?  How about our wounds?  How about our desires to make the world be how we want it rather than to accept the world as it is?  What if we were to give some of those wounds and desires to God so that he might heal them and transform us so that we could see the miracle of the mundane and the divinity of the daily drudge? 

That’s kinda what Lent is all about, which we start this Wednesday.  That is why we give things up during Lent, and so my suggestion is this:  rather than give up something simple like Diet Coke or Chocolate, try giving up some of your woundedness which keeps you from seeing the miracle of the mundane.  Try giving up some of your desires for control which keep you from seeing the divinity of the daily drudge…or perhaps, do try giving up something as mundane as Diet Coke or Chocolate and see the miracle of the world in even so simple a sacrifice. 

In any case, realize that the sacrifice, like the mountain top, like the community gathering for worship is not the point, is not where we stay.  The sacrifice, like the mountain top, like the community gathering for worship is done so that we can then come back down the mountain, leave the gathering for worship and “do the real work of worship - to show the love of God by loving people, healing people, caring for people, living with people, eating with people:  going and discovering where Jesus is in the [mundane] everyday world and joining his work there,” for God is in the work, the common work of eating with people, living with people, working with people, getting angry with and reconciling with people, caring for people, healing people, loving people, and seeing people as brothers and sisters.  That is the work where God is at the bottom of the mountain.

God is in the grind of daily life.  Realizing that truth, trusting that God is in the grind just as much as on the mountain, we can spend the grind in worship and prayer, in communion with God, every moment a miracle, every step a sacred act, resting in God’s presence, even in the mundanity of daily life, for God is in the grind.