Ok, Maybe I’ll Hire An Electrician This Time

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

September 2, 2022

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Philemon 1-21

Luke 14:25-33

Ok, Maybe I’ll Hire An Electrician This Time

Some of y’all know I write songs, and several years ago, thinking of how my kids would sometimes be rather challenging, I wrote a song called “Don’t Breed,” as in don’t have kids. It’s tongue in cheek, though considering Jesus’ teaching today on hate your family if you want to be my disciple, maybe I secretly wrote “Don’t Breed” to please Jesus.  

“None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions,” after having decided to hate your whole family, Jesus taught. So, we’re supposed to give up everything we own, live with nothing on the street, having first told our entire families that we hate them and want nothing to do with them. Not exactly the feel-good film of the fall. What if we doctor this up a bit with, maybe you don’t have to give up everything, because after all, your stuff shows how blessed you are by God, but make sure you hate…well maybe not your family, but all the right people whom you’re supposed to hate. If you’re not sure who those are, your pastor will tell you whom to hate. 

That doesn’t seem quite right either, does it? In order to be Jesus’ disciples, we’re supposed to bring hurt and discord into the world, dishonoring our families, hating others, and then possibly leaving ourselves with nothing and no one? That’s obviously not what Jesus meant.

We are to give up anything that binds us and weighs us down, preventing us from following in the ways of Jesus, ways which, by the way, were given for our benefit. That’s what Jesus meant. 

Jesus talked about the cost of being his disciple, like the cost of building a building. Make sure you have enough to finish, Jesus said. You decide to build a building, and you start running short of cash, so even though you don’t know a whole lot about electricity, you decide to wire the building yourself. Hey, it may work out, but being that you don’t know what you’re doing, you might just set the building on fire. 

Ignoring Jesus’ ways, holding on to the things which bind us and weigh us down, is like choosing to wire that building yourself. You might just want to pay the electrician instead. There’s a cost to it, but the benefit is a building that has lights and air conditioning and doesn’t have electrical fires and burn down. 

That’s very similar to when “Moses said to all Israel the words which the Lord commanded him, ‘See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.’” Moses went on to tell Israel that if they obeyed God and walked in God’s ways, they would be blessed and have life, but if they turned away from God’s ways, they would perish. See, when God set before the people “life and death, blessings and curses,” God was not promising to reward or punish the people of Israel based on their obedience. God was telling the people of Israel truths of creation. Heaven and earth, God said, were witnesses against Israel. The blessings and curses God announced were simply the ways of Heaven and earth, the ways of creation. The blessings and curses are simply the way things are. 

If you wire your building incorrectly, you might just set the building on fire. Life and death, blessings and curses, not because you disobeyed and got punished, but because that’s simply the way electricity works. God wasn’t threatening the people, “be good or else.” God was saying, “for your sake and benefit, I hope you wire your houses correctly.”

I think of our economy where we want, and in this country get, a lot of inexpensive things. Companies here get to hire cheap labor over there, and we get a lot of inexpensive stuff. We also get a world where which used to have subsistence living and farming now have extreme poverty for most as farming gave way to factories and those at the top have plenty while those at the bottom no longer have enough. That causes a whole new level of suffering in the world, of poverty, strife, and discord. These curses of poverty, strife, and discord are not punishments meted out by God. They are simply the natural way the world works. 

Desire for more and more inexpensive stuff is faulty wiring. Give up your possessions, Jesus said, and let me rewire your building.

Jesus knows that all of our lives have some faulty wiring, and Jesus knows that sometimes the wiring is so bad, some folks just need a new home. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” 

Imagine a family who treats certain other people terribly: maybe it’s because of racism, maybe it’s classism, maybe it’s just general irritated misanthropic grumpism. Whatever the issue, imagine a younger member of the family doesn’t feel the way his family does and wants not to treat others terribly, but he feels trapped. What if his family turns on him for choosing to treat these people well? “You’ve gotta choose, us or them. You fall in with them, you choose to associate with them, then you’re no longer one of us.” The young man chooses not to treat the others like dirt, and his family rejects him for it. That’s the cost of discipleship. He wasn’t hating his parents, but he was choosing to let them hate him if that’s what it cost to do the right thing. He was choosing to unbind and unburden himself. He didn’t give up his family. He gave up acquiescing to their hatred and terrible behavior. 

That can be the cost of discipleship, but what do you get for that cost? You get a building that’s wired so that it doesn’t burn down. Rather than a life of hatred and anger, raging against all that you find objectionable in the world, you get to stop drinking the poison of your own anger, thinking that it’s going to hurt someone else. 

See, God’s ways, the ways of blessing and life, are given for our benefit, and by extension for the benefit of all around us. It can be hard to pay the cost of God’s ways. We tend to stay in our ruts where it feels safe. We’re afraid of letting go, afraid of offending, of being without, of not being enough. Can I really trust God to rewire my building. I’ve done it myself already, and sure there are electrical fires, but that’s really other people’s fault. I’m set in my ways, and I’ve got a lot of stuff which provides me with a sense of security. My wiring is doing just fine, thank you very much. Maybe I’ll take a suggestion of Jesus here or there, but I’m certainly not going to let him rewire the whole building. 

Trusting in Jesus is hard. When we feel the pull or the nudge of Jesus to change our ways, to give up some way that isn’t bringing life, it’s hard to trust that we’ll be ok. When we feel the pull or nudge of Jesus to let go of some of our stuff, believing that we really are being held down by it, it’s hard to trust that we’ll be ok. When we feel the pull or nudge of Jesus to stop going along with ways which bring hurt and discord into the world, even if that risks our loved ones rejecting us or risks us having inexpensive stuff, it’s hard to trust that we’ll be ok. 

When we do trust Jesus, however, we find that we have fewer electrical fires in our buildings. We find greater freedom and happiness, having been unbound from things which have weighed us down. We find peace and an honest desire to be of benefit to others. We find ourselves freed from the morass of fear and self-pity. Trusting in Jesus’ ways, we find that the blessings and curses which God promised Israel really aren’t supernatural reward or punishment, but are the natural way the world works. 

Trusting in the ways of Jesus, we find ourselves walking in the flow of God’s blessings, of creation’s blessings. Like a building properly wired, there’s a cost, but there’s also a benefit: life, love, peace. Amidst a world that still doesn’t always go as we wish, Jesus calls us to let go of whatever is keeping us from following in his ways, and we let go and turn things over to Jesus over and over. Bit by bit, trusting Jesus with the wiring more and more, and finding ever more blessing as we do. 

The Good Old Days

My latest song release, "The Good Old Days." I wrote it back in 2013 and was able to get it recorded in 2021. Looking back to all the days gone by...maybe these are good old days too.

Becoming a People Healed

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

August 21, 2022

Isaiah 58:9b-14

Hebrews 12:18-29

Luke 13:10-17

Becoming a People Healed

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” That’s what the leader of the synagogue taught the crowd who was gathered there.  “Don’t bother us with that crippled woman, we gotta keep God happy with us,” is basically what the leader of the synagogue was saying after Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath. When this woman came to synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus actually paid attention to her and paid enough attention to realize that she was not only crippled, but that she had been crippled for 18 years. 

Now, he was able to heal her, but what was he to do? It was the Sabbath, after all, and no work was to be done on the Sabbath. Never mind that people made all kinds of exceptions to the “no work” rule because they had to. You weren’t going to let your animals starve or go without water, so you had to do some kind of work to feed and water them.

Healing a woman, though, well, that was a bridge too far. “To Hell with all these needy people. This is the Sabbath, damnit. We’re here to get right with God.” Jesus was hardly the first to question such an idea that God was more concerned with proper religion than with how people treat one another.

“Why do we fast…but you do not notice?” The people cried out in Isaiah 58. “Well,” God said, “because you serve your own interests with your fasts and oppress your workers.” ‘You have a fine way of seeking to please me through your religion, through your belief,’ God was saying, ‘but what will really please me is if you will recognize me in all of the people around you and then act towards them as you would towards me.’

As Jesus said in Matthew 25, whatever you have done to each other, you have done to me. In other words, the way we treat people is the way we treat God. All of creation is one with God. All of creation is within God. Nothing is separate from God. So, when we don’t care about another person, we don’t care about God. When we treat others poorly, we treat God poorly. 

I’m thankful for these reminders, by the way. When I’m bothered by this jerk or that jerk who’s been doing this or that jerky thing, I’m actually bothered and annoyed with God in that other person, and that other person probably has their challenges they’re dealing with, maybe I could be more compassionate.

When we treat others poorly, we treat God poorly. So, when the leader of the Synagogue in Jesus’ day said that the woman shouldn’t have come to be healed on the Sabbath, he was saying that God shouldn’t have bothered them to be healed on the Sabbath.

The leader of the synagogue wanted to be right with God and wanted to lead the people to be right with God. He lost sight of God’s teaching, however, that the way they treated other people was the way they treated God. When Jesus healed this woman on the Sabbath, he was teaching the people that caring about others, seeking justice and healing for others, striving for relationship with others was how they were going to be right with God.

Nowadays in our country, there is also a longing by many to be right with God, or to get back to being right with God. If we would be a country that trusts in God, then God would smile upon this nation, and we would all be better off. 

I just read about public schools having to display “In God we trust” signs in prominent places, if those signs are donated to the schools. This is a new law in Texas, and I think I understand the sentiment behind the law. If we get people to be more religious minded, to believe in and have some fear and reverence of God, then surely many of the ills of society will be reduced. If we can get people back into church (or synagogue, mosque, what have you), then society will go back to honoring one another, treating one another well, and living as though God is concerned with each of our actions. 

Perhaps if we convinced more people to go to church, then God would see and be pleased. Of course, going to church is not a formula, nor is simply believing in God. There are many who believe and trust in God who are then violent toward others because those others don’t believe in the same way. 

The idea of trusting in God more, going to church more, is really about us being healed more. Healed in our bodies. Healed in our minds. Healed in our spirits. Healed in our relationships and in community. Being part of a church is about being part of a community, knowing and loving other people. Being part of a church is about recognizing God in all the people around us, realizing that treating God with honor in the people around us is the religion and the community God seeks for us. Treating God with respect and dignity in the people around us is the religion and community God seeks for us. 

If we look at the “In God We Trust” signs through the lenses of Isaiah 58 and Jesus’ healing of the woman on the Sabbath, we might say, “In Caring About and Loving People We Trust.”

“In being a just society where people have high enough wages such that they needn’t work two and three jobs not to be in poverty, we trust.” 

“In believing that people deserve high wages more than they deserve charity, we trust.”

“In wanting to give schools adequate funding, rather than ‘In God We Trust’ signs so that teachers are paid enough not to have to have second jobs and don’t have to buy classroom supplies, we trust.”

“In reducing cycles of poverty because we see and act towards all people in our society as though we were seeing and acting toward God, we trust.”

“In striving for a medical and insurance system in which one medical bill no longer bankrupts many of the working poor, we trust.”

“In tenants no longer being thrown out on the street because landlords didn’t pay for water and electricity included in rent, we trust.”

Perhaps if we trusted in God by approaching our business and personal finances, our actions and daily choices in such a way that we saw people as being as vitally important as God, then God would see and be pleased. Our “light would rise in the darkness”, God would guide us, and we would be called “repairers of the breach.”

We don’t please God by being religious enough. We please God by becoming a people healed. Caring about and loving people leads to a people healed. Seeing each person as God leads to a people healed. That’s our way, the way we strive for at Emmanuel. 

Building relationships with teachers and families at Rhoads is about becoming a people healed, a larger community healed. Building relationships and serving folks at The Gathering Place is about becoming a people healed, a larger community healed. Building relationships here, seeing someone you don’t know well and introducing yourself, our newcomers’ lunch, calling each other and supporting one another is about becoming a people healed, a larger community healed.

All of the ways that we are working to see others, to see God as we see others, are helping to ensure that we are all seen. We’re striving with God to build relationships and connections, with one another and with others beyond here, to become a people healed. 

Jesus healed a woman on the Sabbath because Jesus knew that becoming a people healed was what the Sabbath was for in the first place. “In God we trust,” because we know God wants us to be a people healed. Knowing that God’s desire for us is to be healed, we trust that we don’t need to be good, righteous, or religious enough for God to be pleased with us, and we don’t need to try to force anyone else to be either. “In God we trust,” because God desires healing for us, and “in God we trust,” because honoring one another is how we honor God.