“In returning and rest we shall be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be our strength.”

 The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church
May 14, 2023
6 Easter, Year A
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
Psalm 66:7-18

“In returning and rest we shall be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be our strength.”

Has anyone else ever found themselves worshipping an idol, or is it just me? Interesting Sunday when the priest tells you he’s been worshipping idols, but I figure I should be honest about that when the sermon topic includes idol worship. Now, in our reading from Acts, Paul was talking about what we often think of as idols, little statues of gold or wood, and no, I’ve not bowed down and prayed to a little statue made of gold or wood. 

It was bronze…kidding. 

When Paul saw all of the things the Athenians had for their various religions, he saw idols, little statues, and he saw an altar to “an unknown God.” Paul let them know that God was not actually unknown, and pointed out that God is not anything like a little statue. God is not something that we make. 

God is, in fact, beyond all of creation. As vast as the universe is, all of the universe is contained within God. Anything that we could make or do is contained within God, for as Paul said, “In God we live and move and have our being.” Rather, than something we make, God made us and all of creation so that we would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God.

Union with God is the deepest desire of our souls, and God is always united to us. The trick of the devil is not to separate us from God; that’s impossible. The trick of the devil is to have us think that we’re separated from God and then to think that something else will fill that void. 

In the Garden of Eden in the second story of creation, we find desire for knowledge as the first idol. Remember, God told the humans not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but the serpent told them that they actually should eat it, told them that God had lied to them. The serpent tricked them into thinking that their union with God was broken and gone. Then the serpent let them think that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, would somehow replace their union with God, would satisfy their longing for union with God. Their union with God wasn’t actually broken, but the serpent convinced them it was and then lied to them about how they could fix their longing. 

Classic marketing strategy on the serpent’s part. Here’s a problem you didn’t know you had; now you can fix it by purchasing this.

Our souls want union with God. We actually have union with God, but our hurts and fears, our anxieties and traumas often keep us from realizing the unity we have. We feel a deep longing for peace. We feel great disquiet within ourselves, and we long comfort, for soothing, for some way to know that we are ok or to stop caring that we are not. In our hurts and fears, our anxieties and traumas, we seek all sorts of things which we think will fix us or fill us. 

Some seek money and power, never having enough, even when they’ve got more than they could need in multiple lifetimes. Others simply have enough, and yet they still fret constantly, worried about the future and if there will be enough. In either case, money can become an idol when it becomes our focus in soothing all our fears and anxieties. That’s one of the kinds of idols I was talking about earlier. If only I had enough not to worry about money, well then, I’d be ok. 

We have countless idols, not statues of gold and wood, things that we think will help soothe our souls. Being right and making sure we can prove others wrong can be an idol. Hanging on to anger and resentment can be an idol. Finding fault in others to make ourselves feel better can be an idol. The what ifs of the past or the if onlys of the future can be idols. Numbing and escaping reality can be an idol. 

So, now when I ask, “has anyone else ever found themselves worshipping an idol,” maybe you get my meaning a bit more? The kinds of idols I’m talking about: money, more, being right, resentment, anger, escape, what if, if only, numbing out…these kinds of things are idols I’m guessing all of us find ourselves turning to. 

My point is not, “Oh, we’re terrible idolaters, how awful of us.” My point is that we are hurting, and we tend to seek help in ways that don’t actually help us all that much. We unwittingly believe the serpent’s lie that our union with God is broken and any number of these other things will fix it. 

The truth is, “In God we live and move and have our being.” God is with us, among us, around us, in us, and through us all the time. So, when we set our minds on other things to fix us, we ignore the life all around us. When we turn to the idols of money and more; the idols of being right, resentment, anger; the idols of escape, what if, if only, and numbing out, when we turn to those idols, we block out God in whom we live and move and have our being. When we turn to these idols, we block out the peace we can have by turning to God in whom we live and move and have our being. 

I was talking with a gentleman a while back, seeking some peace, and we talked about prayer and meditation as ways to be with God, rather than disassociate from our fears and anxieties. 

We talked about having a rhythm of prayer. Rhythm has been found to help heal trauma. Our bodies are wired for rhythm. Our breath, our heartbeats, the steps we take, all in rhythm. There are the rhythms of the sun and the moon, night and day, the rhythms of the seasons. We’ve separated ourselves from a lot of these natural rhythms in modern society, and I believe that adds to our stress. So, adding in some rhythm of prayer can help heal our bodies, spending time with God in whom we live and move and have our being. 

In the Episcopal Church, we have a rhythm of prayer. Eucharist every Sunday. We also have daily prayer: morning, noon, evening, and night. Following this rhythm of prayer helps bring rhythm back into our lives and helps bring us into constant awareness of God’s presence with, and around, and within us. 

Another way to spend time in awareness of God meditation, specifically a meditation prayer called Centering Prayer. In Centering Prayer, you spend time in silence, focusing on your breathing, simply being in the present moment, aware of God’s presence around and within you. 

The way it works is you sit in silence for a few minutes, or up to twenty minutes, and you simply breathe. Before you begin, you choose a “sacred word,” generally something related to faith: God, Jesus, Love. Mine is Peace. The sacred word is used to draw us back to the center and back to the breath. As we sit in silence, thoughts will come, as thoughts tend to do, and when thoughts come, we say our sacred word in our minds to let go of the thoughts and draw us back to the present, to the breath.  

Centering Prayer is a way of letting go of our thoughts, simply experiencing the quiet (or the noise) of the present. Simply experiencing the quiet of breathing, of life around us. Simply experiencing God in whom we live and move and have our being.

The result is peace. 

Dwelling not in the past or the future, but simply dwelling in the present, focusing on the breath, breathing God in and out, we find peace. 

Rather than disassociate because of hurt and trauma, rather than use various idols, we can seek rhythm of prayer and meditation. We can seek to know and live unity with God, for it is God in whom we live and move and have our being. Union with God is the deepest desire of our souls, and despite the devil’s lie, we are still united with God. We always have been. When we let go our idols, when we turn to rhythm of prayer and meditation, we help our bodies realize the union with God that is always there. The union with God that is always with us. The union of God that brings us peace.

“F%&k You Jobu, I’ll Do It Myself.”

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
October 10, 2021
Proper 23, B

Mark 10:17-31

“F%&k You Jobu, I’ll Do It Myself.”

In the 1989 movie, Major League, star slugger, Pedro Cerano, could hit the ball clear out of the park as often and with a swing almost as beautiful as Yordan Alvarez’. Unfortunately, in the movie Major League, Pedro Cerano, superstar slugger, could not hit a curve ball, nor could he presumably lay off of them? So, he routinely stuck out as other teams realized that the curve ball was his Kryptonite. 

The best solution might have been to work with a hitting coach, but alas, Pedro’s solution came in the form of a tiny, crazy-haired statue of a wild-eyed man he called Jobu. Pedro offered Jobu rum and cigars, and once even a whole chicken (KFC) in order to help him hit the curve ball. Jobu was a straight up idol which Pedro was using to try to make his life easier. When it kept not working, Pedro finally said, “[To heck with] you, Jobu, I’ll do it myself,” at which point he of course hit a curve ball out of the park.

I bring this up, one because I’m a little excited about the Astros and the postseason, and two, because Pedro’s use of Jobu is a pretty good example of an idol being used to try to make life easier. Ancient idols, carved or sculpted, set in homes and prayed to were meant to keep bad things away, to make life easier. Idols were thought to grant your requests if you prayed to them just right, if you gave them rum and cigars and whole chickens.

Now, many of us don’t have small statue idols like Jobu that we use to try to make life easier, but idols can come in many forms. For the man who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, his idol was his wealth. His wealth, his riches, his stuff made life easier, and he seems to have believed that he could’t be happy unless life was easy, that he couldn’t be happy unless life wasn’t hard. See, unlike Jobu, the rich man’s idol seems to have been working for him in making his life less hard. So, when Jesus told him to set aside his money, the idol that made life easier, he thought that he couldn’t be ok without it. He believed that he couldn’t be ok if life was hard, so he walled himself off from life in God’s kingdom.

Here’s a secret, life is always going to be hard, at least hard at times, and no amount of rum offered to Jobu is going to change that. 

“How hard it will be,” Jesus said, “for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven.” How hard it will be to enter the kingdom of heaven for those who fear life being hard and aren’t willing to risk life being hard. That was the challenge for the rich man whose idol was his money. Well, here’s another secret, you don’t gotta be rich to have idols get in the way of risking for the kingdom of God.

Will I be ok? Will I have enough? Will I be enough? Do I have enough money, time, experience, expertise? How will I possibly be ok if I give up much of anything that I have? These are fears that I dare say all of us face, and I dare say most of us have some kind of Jobu to which we offer rum. Sometimes that idol is simply walling ourselves off from risk. 

Into all of that fear and unknowing, Jesus is teaching us to trust God in the unknowing, accepting the fact that yes, things may fall apart, and to trust that we are enough (and there are others with us). Jesus is teaching that we can never offer Jobu enough rum to safeguard against life being hard, so be ok with taking risks and giving things up for the sake of God’s kingdom.

“We gave stuff up!” Peter said in his very very Peter way. “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and you are going to receive much more, people around you to support you so that you will be ok even without as much money, time, or rum and cigars to offer to Jobu.” 

Jesus’ disciples gave up the protection of life as they knew it in order to live life in God’s kingdom with new people, new situations. Often we protect ourselves by walling ourselves off from new situations. We keep ourselves from entering new relationships and new situations for which we feel we are not enough. Our walls feel like they make life easier, but remember what God did to make life easier in Genesis 2? God made a human companion. Humans were made to be helpers and supports for each other. We find wholeness in new relationships and risk because we were meant to be there for each other. That’s life in God’s kingdom.

So, for a way that we can be there for each other and for others, to risk new relationships, I’m going to turn things over to Kathryn Johnson, Counselor at Rhodes Elementary school. We have begun a partnership with Rhodes Elementary to serve and minister there, and Mrs. Johnson is going to talk with us about the school and how we can serve and minister there.

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Jesus is calling us in this time and in this place, in our new home, to risk for the sake of relationship, connection, and service in God’s kingdom. Serving and ministering at Rhodes is one of the ways Jesus is calling us, and the usual questions probably arise. Will I have enough time? Do I have enough expertise? What do I know about serving with kids? I’m too old to relate, or I’m too inexperienced to know what I’m doing.

With our questions, doubts and uncertainties, realize there will never be enough protection, there will never be enough rum for Jobu to make us ready or enough. Like the man with great wealth, Jesus is calling us to life in his kingdom, even though it may be hard. He’s also assuring us that what we’ll find in serving others is the peace that we’re looking for. What we find in giving up our various Jobus, in risking new relationships in new situations, is that we actually are enough; we actually can hit that curve ball. We actually don’t need all of our protection to make life less hard. We have each other, and we have a wonderful new opportunity to serve and live the life of God’s kingdom.