It Isn't Just a Flesh Wound

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
June 8, 2025
Pentecost, C
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
John 14:8-17 (25-27)

 

Our bishop has said, “God has a mission, and God’s mission has a church.” Well, God’s mission is to unify humanity with God and with one another, and we are God’s church. God has formed us to live out God’s mission of unity and reconciliation. More accurately, we are part of God’s worldwide, one church, which God has formed to live out God’s mission of unity.

Anglican, Episcopal, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Mennonite, Church of Christ, and countless other church groups, we may argue amongst ourselves, and some of us may say others of us aren’t really Christian, but despite our objections, we are one church throughout the world. We are one Body of Christ, all formed to live out God’s mission of unity and reconciliation.

Of course, we believe that the unity of God and humanity happened a couple thousand years ago when God became human with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God united physically with every aspect of our lives, so that we are fully united with God, and nothing can change that. Nothing can separate us from God because God has become human in Jesus Christ.

So, since that mission unity with God is done, accomplished, and finished, what is left for the church to do? Well, as I said before, God has formed the church to live out that mission of unity. God has formed the church to live the truth that we are one with one another and with God.

When we don’t live into that truth, when we don’t live as though we are one, we are deceiving ourselves.

In the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur is on a quest to search for the Holy Grail, and in his travels, he comes across a fearsome knight who picks a fight with Arthur. It wasn’t the best idea, Arthur makes quick work of him and when the knight won’t yield, Arthur cuts off the knight’s arm. Then, when the knight claims it’s just a scratch, Arthur cuts his other arm off. Then the knight starts kicking Arthur, and Arthur says, “You’ve got no arms left.” “Yes, I have,” the knight replies. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

Eventually, Arthur cuts off both of the knight’s legs as well (because he still kept trying to fight Arthur), and the knight says, “Alright, we’ll call it a draw.”

So, the knight saying that his arms being cut off was just a flesh wound, that was nuts. Even more nuts was that he seemed to actually be trying to convince Arthur that he still had arms. He seemed to actually believe his own lie, but alas, saying that he still had arms didn’t change the fact that they had both just been cut off.

In a similar way, when we deny that we are one with one another, we are lying to ourselves. When we say this part of the church or that part of the church isn’t really the church, then like the knights, we’re cutting off our arms and legs and claiming it’s just a flesh wound. This goes beyond the church as well. When we harm or dismiss any human and claim that it doesn’t hurt us, we’re like that crazy knight. 

We can think that we can harm others without harming ourselves, but those lies we tell ourselves don’t make the harm any less true. The arm being cut off will never just be a flesh wound.

We are meant to live and acknowledge the truth that we are one. Anything else is a lie.

So, how does the church live out God’s mission? Well, we stop lying to ourselves. We stop pretending that we aren’t unified. We may not like other parts of the church, but as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 12, that’s like a human body where the mouth tells the eyeballs they don’t belong. That’s a pretty stupid thing for the mouth to say, almost as stupid as one denomination telling another they aren’t really a part of the church.

I mean, I get the mouth not liking the eyeballs. To a mouth, eyeballs are just really weird. No teeth, no tongue, strangely spherical, and to eyeballs, I’m sure the mouth is equally strange. Wet without being sad, smelly, can’t see a damn thing. It’s like the Baptists and the Catholics; the two could hardly be more different, but either one saying the other doesn’t belong, well, that’s just dumb.

And, one part of the church telling another part it doesn’t belong is a lie, denying God’s mission of unity, rather than doing the hard work of living out God’s mission of unity.

Now, why do I think God’s mission of unity is hard? Well, a cross, three nails, and a crown of thorns. God’s mission of unity ain’t easy. Easy is seeing the people we don’t like and just giving in to our disgust. Easy is letting anger turn to hate. Easy is saying, they’re weird, they’re different, they’re sinners, and they’re going to hell. The lie that we aren’t one is easy. The lie that God is angry with them but not at us is easy. The lie that we follow Jesus, each one of us for our own personal salvation, and not as a part of one another, that lie is easy, as easy as saying my arm is still here when it has clearly been cut off.

Realizing and trusting that our own personal salvation has already been accomplished and that we are now meant to live out that salvation in and through one another, that truth is harder than the lie, but that truth also gives life. Just like Jesus dying on the cross was hard, but his death gave life.

So, to help us with the hard work of living out God’s mission of unity and reconciliation, God sent the Holy Spirit to unite us, to guide us, and to strengthen us so that when we don’t have enough to live God’s mission, God’s Holy Spirit can work for us, strengthening, guiding, and uniting us as one, because that is what we are. That is the work Jesus accomplished. That is the mission of God’s church which we are invited every day to live.

Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another...Everything Else Is Commentary

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
June 1, 2025
7 Easter, C
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
John 17:20-26

“I ask…that they may all be one.” That was Jesus’ prayer for his disciples before he was killed. That was Jesus’ desire for his church. That is Jesus’ desire for the world, that people may be united to one another just as Jesus and God the Father are united to one another, that we all may be one. 

Imagine a world in which we are one. Imagine making decisions based on how they will affect ourselves and others. Imagine the world doing that, realizing that if we are one with each other, then when they hurt, we hurt. Imagine actually feeling and knowing the pain that we so often carelessly and unknowingly cause others. Imagine also knowing and feeling the joy we cause others. I daresay the world would be different if we truly acted and lived as though we were one. 

The world of not being one, well, that’s the world the in which we found Silas and Paul in our reading from Acts today. It was a world of slavery, oppression, violence, and unjust imprisonment. 

It all started with a couple of slavers who had young girl kept as their property so they could make money off of her. She wasn’t a business partner, not a person to them, certainly not one with them. She was just a useful thing to them, but when Paul and Silas freed her from the spirit that was possessing her, she was no longer of value to them, so they had Paul and Silas beaten and imprisoned. Once again, not exactly a world in which people saw themselves as one with each other.

Then there was the earthquake which opened the doors of the cells where Paul and Silas were being kept. The gaoler* who guarded Paul and Silas’ prison, thought they had escaped, and so he drew his sword and was about to kill himself...with a sword. How crazy is that? Never mind that the prison cells were only open because of a huge earthquake. Even nowadays, many insurance policies would call that an act of God, so any potential escape was very much not the gaoler’s fault, and yet, this man’s first instinct when he thought they had escaped was to kill himself.

That indicates to me that the people he worked for probably weren’t particularly kind or understanding. Knowing that he worked for Rome, we can assume their cruelty with almost certainty. Better to kill myself with a sword than face their wrath, this man thought.

The gaoler was on the outside of the prison, and yet he was bound in
chains, whereas Paul and Silas, sitting there in prison, were free. They were one with each other and with God. The gaoler was alone and fearful of the government that would kill him without a moment’s hesitation.

So then, when he saw that Paul and Silas had not left the prison, he asked them what he needed to do to be saved. “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household,” they told him, and after going to his house and telling them all about Jesus, “he and his entire family were baptized without delay.”

The gaoler and his family became even more one than they were before, and Paul and Silas, well, they went back to prison. You didn’t really think they were going to take advantage of the little mini-Gospel-jailbreak and let the gaoler be killed, did you? Of course not. That’s not what you do when you’re one with them. 

Then, the next morning, the authorities went ahead and released Paul and Silas, but the gaoler was the one who was freed. Even on the outside, he had carried his prison with him wherever he went.**  The gaoler’s chains were what: fear, isolation, working for an unjust Roman regime? We don’t know exactly what his chains were, but I think we can all recognize that he was bound in chains. 

Chains keep us separated from one another, afraid, bound, and alone. 

Jesus makes us one with one another. The gaoler was made one with Silas and Paul, one with his family, one with other believers he met. He was freed from his chains of fear and isolation.

What if the slavers had been freed of their chains and worked with the girl not as their slave, but as a business partner? What if Rome had been freed from their chains of domination and cruelty so that an earthquake opening prison doors wasn’t reason to be so afraid that death seemed the only option? That would have been a very different world. 

What about us? What are some of the chains which bind us and keep us separate from one another? Mistrust. Fear. Impatience and annoyance with others. Valuing success and achievement more than the people around us. Constant competition. 

How might we unbind those chains and become one? Well, Paul and Silas said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” Believe in Jesus, and be freed from your chains. Believe in Jesus, and be one. 

Joining with Jesus and being freed from our chains, being one with one another, is Jesus’ prayer for us. It is our choice, then, to choose to follow Jesus and to strive for that unity with Jesus’ help. Jesus makes us one as we make a decision to follow him, trust in him, and live the way of life he taught. It is an everyday, all-day decision and striving on our part.

What does living that unity then actually look like? Well, Rabbi Hillel, who lived a little before Jesus, was once asked by a Roman to tell him the whole of the Jewish law. He said, “I will convert to Judaism if you will tell me the whole law while I stand on one foot.” So, everything about how the people of Israel were to live as God’s people while he stood on one foot, and Rabbi Hillel said, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole of the law. Everything else is commentary.” 

“Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole of the law. Everything else is commentary.” Well, if we don’t do to others what is hateful to us, we’ll stand a pretty good chance of being one with one another.

“Those who love me will keep my commandments,” Jesus said, and what was Jesus’ commandment? That we love one another. When we love one another, we love Jesus, and we become one.  

Now sadly, the world in which we live is still not a world in which most of us are one with each other, and yet Jesus’ prayer continues. We continue striving to be one, praying that same prayer that Jesus prayed, every day, all day, that we would be one with each other just as Jesus and God the Father are one.

“Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole of the law. Everything else is commentary.”

*"Gaoler" is the old English spelling of jailer. I've been reading so much fantasy writing 

over the last several years, in which the authors write gaoler, that 

writing "jailer" just looked wrong. Thank you for indulging me.

** “There is more than one sort of prison, captain. I sense you carry yours wherever you go.” 

– Chirrut Imwe, Rogue One

 

Faith, not a Formula: Following the Advocate

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 9, 2025
1 Lent, C
Romans 10:8b-13
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Luke 4:1-13

In Bible study this week, we talked about following the ways of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, rather than following the ways of the Adversary, whose name is Satan. During our disagreements in Bible study over what we thought a passage meant, we’d sometimes respond by telling another person they are wrong, and our way of believing is right. Oddly enough, arguments would ensue, some back and forth variation of I’m right and you’re wrong. Now, if one of the two people was right, then then other one may well have been wrong, but when we get into those arguments, we’re working against one another, following the way of the Adversary, Satan. 

We could simply offer our own beliefs, not against the other person, not declaring them wrong, but simply offering what we believe. That’d be more of a Holy Spirit kind of way, not speaking against you, just advocating for what I believe. That way, we remain united, even in our differences, as opposed to a church that is fractured and torn apart.

A fractured church is what we see in Paul’s letter to the Romans. The church in Rome was made up of both Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile, non-Jewish, followers of Jesus, and those two different groups seem to have been at odds with each other, both telling the other that they were wrong. “You have to be Jewish if you really want to follow Jesus,” the Jewish Christians said, and the Gentile Christians responded, “We don’t do all of that law of Moses stuff that you do, because we just believe in Jesus, so our faith is better.”

Well, Paul was having none of it. “Ain’t none of you got a leg up on the other, guys.” To the Jewish followers of Jesus, Paul was pointing out that the law was fine, but why would they demand it of anyone, when they still needed Jesus in addition to the Law. Then, to the Gentile Christians, Paul was pointing out that they were no better than the Jews, if anything, maybe a little worse off, because everything to know about God was right there to be understood in creation all around them, and yet they had made idols to worship instead of God. 

So, Paul’s basic argument is, “Y’all are both doing fine, and you don’t need to follow Jesus in the exact same way.” The different ways we all follow Jesus in the church now are all pretty good because we are all so very different. With all of our differences, we all still share this idea that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. That’s what Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome to let them know that even though they were very different, what united them was Jesus. Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead.

With Paul’s writing of unity within the church, there has been a temptation whittle his writings down to a simple formula. One, “confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord,” and two, “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” Then, “you will be saved.”

I’ve heard these words talked about as the right way to believe in Jesus and that anything those words will lead you to destruction. So, we’ve got fighting within the church as people take Paul’s words and turn them into something he didn’t intend. We use Paul’s words to say to different kinds of Christians, “I’m right, and you’re wrong,” and we let the Adversary tear the church apart. 

We don’t quite go to war with different parts of the church the way we used to. Christians killing Christians over which type of Christian you were. Heck, there were even times in some parts of the church where making the sign of the cross over yourself in the wrong way could get you killed. 

Nowadays, our attacks tend to be more verbal, Facebook, shaming, and maybe that’s not as destructive as killing people, but we’re still harming one another terribly out of this feeling that “I’m right and you’re damned.” 

This all comes out of fear and a resulting need for certainty. What if they’re right? Does that mean I’m wrong, and if I’m wrong, is my salvation in question? So, we give into the temptation for certainty, rather than faith, and the opposite of faith is certainty. Doubt goes along with faith, because we don’t know with faith. We choose to believe. Certainty, on the other hand, leave no doubt, and therefore no faith. So, in our quest to alleviate fear, we choose certainty over faith. We fight with one another, because nothing helps certainty more than an out group (I must be saved because they aren’t), and we end up following the ways of the Adversary, Satan, rather than the Holy Spirit.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, we like to think that it was easy for Jesus not to be tempted, thinking about Jesus being God, but we gotta remember, Jesus was human. You bet Jesus was tempted. He’d been out there for 40 days. He was hungry, so when Satan said to turn bread into stone, you bet Jesus wanted to do it. One, he could have, just used his God-powers and poof, magic bread, but The Adversary was the one challenging him to do so. Giving into that temptation, Jesus would have been following the way of the Adversary, telling God, “I no longer trust you. You’ve kept me here, safe, for 40 days, and now, I no longer trust you.” 

Then, when Satan told Jesus he’d give him power and authority over all the kingdoms of the world, you bet that was tempting. Think of what Jesus could do with all the people of the world under his control. He could make the nations and the people do as he wanted. ‘You want to seek injustice? Too bad, you’re not allowed. You want to oppress your workers and ignore the needs of the poor among you, well, I won’t let you, because I’m in charge now.’ 

Everything Jesus preached and taught, he could make people do, except, of course, he’d have to worship the Adversary first, and then he’d have to follow the way of the Adversary. He’d be fighting against anyone and everyone who didn’t want to do as he said. What would happen when people said, “no.” Would he drive them out of town? Take all of their money? Just kill them? Yea, that wouldn’t have worked out so well, Jesus following the way of the Adversary.

So, Jesus resisted the temptations of the devil, choosing instead to trust in God, knowing that God was absolutely for him. 

That is the trust Jesus offers for us to have as well because Jesus is absolutely for us, and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, the Advocate to be for us as well. God is 100% for us, not like Satan, the Adversary, who is against us and leads us to be against one another.

God gives us the Holy Spirit to be our Advocate, that we may be each other’s advocate as well. Rather than fear leading us to the temptation of certainty, God’s love for us can lead us to the trust of faith. With that trust, trusting that God is for us, we don’t need others to be wrong for us to be right. We can let other Christian groups and denomination believe and practice their faith as they do without having to prove them wrong. 

That even goes for the weird denominations (and I think we all know which denominations we all think are weird). I know which ones I think are weird and wrong, and that’s for me not to share, but to give over to God, and say, “Here you go, Lord. I think they’re weird, but that’s my problem, not theirs, and I’m going to give that to you and ask that you grant me your Spirit, that I may be for them and not against them.”

That’s what Paul was encouraging the Christians in Rome to do. The Jewish Christians thinking the Gentile Christians were weird and the Gentile Christians thinking the Jewish Christians were utterly baffling, Paul was writing them to let them know that their unity was in Jesus, and Jesus was for them both. Weird, crazy: groovy. God is for us, and so we can be for one another. In our fears and our temptations for certainty, we can trust God’s love and be for one another, following in the ways of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. 

Divided Houses, A Particularly Human Stupidity, and God’s Antidote

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
June 9, 2024
Proper 5, Year B
Genesis 8:3-15
Psalm 130
Mark 3:20-35

When Adam and Eve were in the Garden, they heard God walking toward them in the cool of the evening breeze. That should have been a wonderful sound. Birds chirping, the rustling of leaves, God’s feet on the grass, the soft shifting of soil. Rather than a beautiful sound of the beloved in a beloved place, however, the sound of God walking toward them was an unwelcome and frightening sound, because they had just betrayed God.

They had decided that they wanted to be more like God, that they wanted God’s power. They wanted to dominate creation as it’s rulers and masters, rather than be a part of creation, accepting that it was God’s, not theirs. This was a house divided against itself, Adam and Eve divided against themselves. They were one with God. So, when they decided they wanted to take God’s place and move God, a little to the side, they were also moving parts of themselves out of the way. Their war was not just with God but with themselves, and the house divided against itself fell.

So, when the scribes said Jesus had a demon and was casting out demons by the ruler of demons, Jesus pointed out that obviously that couldn’t be true because Satan wouldn’t be stupid enough to divide his house against itself. 

No, that stupidity of working against ourselves and casting down our own houses seems to be a particularly human kind of stupidity. 

Here’s a great idea, let’s betray one another. Let’s decide we want stuff and be willing to kill one another in order to get that stuff. Let’s decide that a desire for sex is worth assaulting another human and just using their body; who cares about the person? When we’re really frustrated, angry, and scared, let’s decide that it’ll be a really good idea to get a gun and shoot some people, rather than accepting the fact that things aren’t always going to go our way. 

Let’s also decide that since we want to make sure to keep the power and money we have, it’ll be a good idea to oppress others, keep wages down, lie, cheat, and steal, and pass laws to make what we do legal. 

In order to make sure the world continues to work in ways that make us comfortable, let’s make sure that people we find objectionable don’t have the same rights as we do. 

Because our religion is so messed up that we’ve taken the truth that God has redeemed us and that nothing can separate us from God, and we’ve replaced that truth with, if you don’t believe in Jesus in just the right way, God’s gonna torture you forever; since our religion is so messed up that fear of eternal torture by the God who is love has become the foundational understanding of our faith, let’s make sure to stir up enmity and strife and subjugate others to our will to make sure the angry torture-god-thing doesn’t get too torture happy with us.

Let’s blame this group for the world’s troubles and then expect someone else to fix it, and then blame that group for things not getting better. That sounds like a good idea. 

In all of these and so many other ways, we decide over and over that turning against one another sounds like a pretty neat idea. We decide over and over again that we’re going to further divide the house against itself and then rage against others when the house falls. 

Yup, as Jesus points out, that’s a particularly human kind of stupidity. Satan ain’t near dumb enough for that. Only we are. 

So again, when the scribes, heard about Jesus casting out demons, they decided to use that as an opportunity for division. Rather than join together in joy and peace because demons were being cast out and people were being healed, uniting the house of God, they decided it would be a good idea to divide the house of God, claiming that healing and love were coming from a place of evil.

They wanted not to lose their power. They wanted not to lose their understanding of how God worked within their religion. So, when they heard God walking toward them in the cool of the evening breeze, it was a threatening sound, rather than a beloved sound of the beloved coming near.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty typical of humanity, that kind of human stupidity, but fortunately, God knows about our particularly human stupidity. Jesus knows precisely about how we divide against one another, and Jesus still thought it was a pretty neat idea to join with us in every aspect of our lives so that not even our house dividing dummy-headedness can separate us from God. 

So, what did Jesus do? Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to dwell among us and within us so that as much as we may work to divide ourselves against ourselves, the Holy Spirit is striving with us and inviting us to be united and live together as one. That’s the invitation and the way of the Church.

As the church, our invitation is to stand for each other. We strive for peace among one another, and we each do everything in our power to keep that peace. Then, realizing we don’t have enough power to keep peace among ourselves, we constantly seek God’s help to unify us and restore peace when our reactions would divide us and break peace.

So, when we’re bothered by someone, we work not to react, and we ask for God’s help. When we do react, and they react back, we let others help calm the situation, and we ask for God’s help. Rather than shouting, we quiet down and allow peace to reign. 

When we’ve broken the peace, we recognize that we may have to step back and be away from a community or be away from some people for a little while, and we ask for God’s help. We choose to be ok with stepping away for a time, letting things cool down, rather than insisting on our own way and turning the house against itself. 

As Jesus’ church, healed and seeking to make peace among one another, we also seek to soothe the sufferings of the world around us, with one another as members of the church. When we see problems in the world, it’s easy to rage against and blame others, and sometimes we’re even right. Rather than rage against the ones we blame for the problem, however, as the church we ask what we can do to help. 

When people brought folks to Jesus who were possessed by demons, Jesus didn’t start a preaching campaign against Satan for putting demons in people. He didn’t start blaming people for allowing the demon in. Jesus cast out the demons. When confronted with things as terrible as demons, Jesus didn’t stir up hatred and strife. Jesus healed people. Rather than divide the house even further, Jesus united the house. 

We are the church, called and empowered by God to be a house united. 

There are so many problems and divisions in the world, and we’re not going to fix all of them. We can’t end that particularly human stupidity of being divided against ourselves, meaning we’re not going to end all human division. As the Talmud states, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

We cannot end all human division. We can, however, seek God’s help to remain united as a church, here among each other, united in this time and in this place. We can then take that unity with us into the world, and, with God’s help, we can bring some of that unity and healing to others as we go. That is who we are as God’s church. Then, when we hear the sound of God walking towards us in the cool of the evening breeze, we can welcome it as a beloved sound of the beloved coming near.

Unity In the Midst of the Gods

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Emmanuel Episcopal Church

May 23, 2021

Pentecost, B

Acts 2:1-21

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Unity In the Midst of the Gods

About 12 or 13 years ago, I was meeting with Rabbi Annie from Temple Sinai to learn from her about Judaism and especially about first-century Judaism. While I was able to read about first-century Judaism in biblical commentaries and my Bible’s footnotes, those were all written by Christian authors, and I figured, “What do they know?”  So I called Rabbi Annie, and the two of us began to have monthly coffees to learn about each others’ faiths.  That began a great friendship which continued and strengthened when we were worshipping in Temple Sinai for over two years after Harvey flooded our previous building.  

In one of Rabbi Annie’s and my early coffees, Annie was talking about Jewish holy days, one of which was Shavuot, the holy day from which Pentecost came.  Now, Pentecost is the Greek word used for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, the harvest festival described in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16, as all of us know, being good Episcopalians who read our Bibles. The idea was that the people of Israel would bring the first of their harvest to God to give thanks and dedicate the harvest to God. I know we all know that.

So, when Rabbi Annie started talking about Shavuot, the festival of weeks, as the time when they remembered God giving the Law at Mount Sinai, I was utterly confused, saying, “Wait, no, that’s the harvest festival, the first fruits deal, right?  From Leviticus.  What does God revealing the Law have to do with it?” I was so cute showing off my biblical knowledge.

Rabbi Annie explained that after the destruction of the Temple and of the nation of Israel, the people of Israel were left without a place to bring their harvest offerings, and since much of the society was no longer agrarian, a harvest festival didn’t make an over abundance of sense anymore.  So, the rabbis discussed the idea that as the Festival of Weeks came seven weeks after the Passover feast, so did the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai come about seven weeks later.  The Festival of Weeks made sense to be the time to celebrate the giving of the Law.  

The festival of Shavuot changed from the harvest festival to a time of celebrating the revelation of God given to Moses and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.  Both harvest and revelation.  

For us in the church, the Festival of Weeks, Pentecost, changed as well.  On that first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection, Jews had come from all over, both within and beyond Israel, to Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Weeks.  Peter and the other apostles were also planning on celebrating the Festival of Weeks, the harvest festival, as they had so many years before, but then, something strange happened.  The Holy Spirit was revealed to them and to those gathered near them as tongues of fire, resting upon them, and those Jews who had come from all over heard the apostles speaking to them in their native languages, not just in the Hebrew language. God was connecting these people from disparate parts of the region into one people, through the Holy Spirit. Both harvest and revelation.  

The harvest was the church.  The revelation was that God was not just the god of one people, but that God truly was the God of the whole earth, indeed of the whole cosmos.  See, as Israel was being formed as a nation, there were near constant struggles with other nations.  Who was going to win?  As they would fight, God would win the victory over other nations' gods.  

So, the God of Israel was the supreme God over all others.   We read in Psalm 82:1, “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.”  Whether considered gods or lesser heavenly beings, they were all subservient to the God of Israel, the God of all creation.  Even so, God was often understood as a tribal god.  As with all the other tribal gods, God was seen as the God of Israel, not of all the peoples.  He was God above all, but favored that one nation.  A tribal God.  

Then, the birth of the church at Pentecost, the harvest, and the revelation that God was not the God only of one people, but the God of all peoples, as each heard in their own language the proclamation of the apostles.  Pentecost is both the harvest of the church and a revelation that God desires one people throughout the earth, unity, rather than tribalism.  

This idea had been spoken of through prophets many timed before, and Paul wrote of this idea in his letter to the Ephesians, that God is the God of all peoples and that God’s desire is for all of humanity to be united.  In Ephesians chapters 1-3, Paul writes of the mystery of God that has been revealed, namely that God would gather up all things in Jesus, all things in heaven and on earth.  Paul wrote of Jesus as sitting at the right hand of God in the heavenly places (where these other gods dwelt), and Paul wrote the church as the body of Christ, dwelling as Christ’s body with God in the heavenly places right now, so that we are both here on earth living out our mortal lives and at the same time we are in the heavenly places joined together as Jesus’ body.  

Paul went on to say that we are joined together with Jesus as part of God’s revelation, that we are in the heavenly places revealing even to the gods or heavenly beings, the the unity that God has in mind for all of humanity.  No more tribalism and no more tribal gods.  One people living in unity.  

Now, that does not mean that we are meant to convert all people to Christianity.  We’ve tried doing that for a couple millennia, sometimes even forcing conversions on others.  That’s led to lots of conflict, war, and disunity.  Forcing, coercing, and shaming conversion has not been a quest for unity, but the Church turning God into one more tribal god.  We don’t find unity through tribalism and conflict.  We find unity through love and belief that there is one God over all humanity.  Many of us call God by different names, and that’ ok.  God is big enough for all our names.  

That’s what we found when we worshipped for over two years at Temple Sinai.  While both congregations believe in the God of Israel, we believe such different things about that God, that as far as religion goes, they are very distinct.  As much as our beliefs area different, however, we also get to believe that we worship not two different tribal gods, but the same High God who is God of all the tribes, of all the nations.  Being at Temple Sinai, we found that we don't need to be right in our beliefs or for the other religion to be wrong.  We have unity and love with Temple Sinai while still worshipping with two very different faiths.   

The same is true throughout the earth.  We call God by different names, and God is big enough to answer to all of them.  God’s mission for the church is to strive for unity among the peoples of the earth.  God’s mission for the church is to live and to share God’s great love for all humanity.  God’s mission for the church is for us to be united, both here and in the heavenly places among the gods, the heavenly beings.  Our mission, our way of life, is unity with all people through love and forgiveness, and to share that unity with all of humanity both here and in the heavenly places as God gathers up all things in him, both in heaven and on earth.  

Love Is Gritty, Love Is Hard, Love Is an Empty Tomb

Brad Sullivan

7 Easter, Year A

May 28, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

John 17:1-11

Love Is Gritty, Love Is Hard, Love Is an Empty Tomb

I had a conversation with a nine year old last week about this Sunday’s gospel passage.  I read it to him and then asked him what he thought.  He said that it sounded like Jesus and the Father saying, “If we get to be in heaven for ever, why don’t the people on earth get to?”  Meaning, “why shouldn’t the people on earth get to be with us in heaven forever as well?”, and of course, we do.  That was Jesus’ life’s work and his prayer for his disciples which we heard today, that they would be one and he and the Father are one. 

The Father, and the Son, and the (not mentioned in this passage) Holy Spirit want us to be one with them and each other just as they are one.  There’s nothing better in the world, nothing better in all of the universes than the unity of Jesus and the Father and that’s the unity Jesus is praying for us to have!  That unity with each other and unity with God is being with God in heaven forever, and I don’t mean because we have unity with God, then we’ll get to be with God in heaven forever.  I mean having unity with God and each other is right now being in heaven with God forever. 

Heaven is all around us.  The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven is here, now, in the very air we breathe, for in God we live and move and have our being.  Jesus was praying for our unity with each other and God now, for eternal life now.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Knowing Jesus, following in his way, believing in him is eternal life, lived in this world, in this life, and continued on after death, in the next life, for there is nothing better in the world, nothing better in all of the universes than the unity of Jesus and the Father, and that’s the unity Jesus is praying for us to have!

At the same time that Jesus was praying for his disciples, praying for us, however, did you notice how much he was talking about himself?  Glorify me so that I may glorify you?  Much of John’s Gospel has Jesus talking about himself.  There is very little teaching about God’s kingdom, few moral lessons, no parables…almost all of Jesus’ teaching involves an explanation about who he is and why people need to believe in him.  “I am one with the Father, I am the good shepherd, I am the vine, I am so humble and yet so awesome.”  Ok, that last one was made up; in John’s Gospel, we don’t get the humble, self-effacing Jesus we see in Mathew, Mark, and Luke.  Jesus is constantly talking about himself and kinda saying how great he is.  This is a bit of a side bar, but John’s Jesus often sounds to a bit to me like the rapper Eminem in the rap song Without Me:  “This looks like a job for me, so everybody, just follow me, cause we need a little controversy, and it feels so empty without me.”

I realize in saying that, I just secured about 7 more years for myself in purgatory, comparing Jesus and Eminem, (he’s a child of God), but  often, as I read John’s Gospel, I am struck by how much Jesus sounds like a rapper rapping about himself.  Rappers that I have heard tend to rap about themselves especially early on in their careers, as if to introduce themselves:  “here’s who I am, here’s my story, here’s why I’m legitimate and worth your listening to, and here’s the story within me that is screaming to get out.”

That’s kinda what Jesus was doing in John’s Gospel.  Jesus was constantly telling people about who he was, how great he was, and how much they needed to believe in him.  Of course that’s what he was doing, because of who Jesus was and because there were so many false narratives out there about life and about God.  The narrative about Jesus was screaming to get out of him.  The narrative about what life truly is, about who God truly is was screaming to get out of Jesus, and he only had that one life, that one chance to tell the narrative of God, the narrative of love.

Jesus had one chance, and he didn’t want to blow it, so he taught people how to live, how to love, he taught about God’s kingdom, he showed them what life was like in God’s kingdom so they could live out God’s kingdom, and he taught about himself, because at the heart of God’s kingdom is Jesus.  The heart and soul of God’s kingdom is the new Eden, the new creation where we walk with God and each other, naked and unashamed, and the heart and soul of that new Eden is Jesus.

So Jesus did talk about himself because he wanted everyone to know and share in the eternal life  of the new Eden which is unity with him and the Father. Remember, there is nothing better in the world, nothing better in all of the universes than the unity of Jesus and the Father, and that’s the unity Jesus was praying for us to have!

That unity, known by another word is love, and not just sappy, hallmarky, pop song love.  Love is the cross.  That’s where Jesus was going just after the prayer he prayed for his disciples.  Love is sacrifice for the sake of the beloved.  Love is gritty; love is hard; love is not pouty or jealous, boastful or rude.  It makes a way for the beloved; it does the hard work of seeking peace and working through resentment.  Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing; love repents of wrongdoing and seeks to heal past hurts.  Love rejoices in kindness and truth, and love prefers having a good relationship to just being right.  Love bears the good times and hardships.  Love believes in the beloved.  Love makes its home in hope, and love endures all things for the sake of the beloved. 

Love goes to the cross for the sake of the beloved.  Love kneels at the foot of the cross to mourn for the beloved.  Love is tears and joy.  Love is laughter and pain.  Love is sticking by the beloved through sickness and death.  Love is caring about someone through their anxieties, doubts, and fears.  Love is not wanting more and more, not demanding what is deserved, but being content with enough so that another can also have enough. 

Love is also an empty tomb.  Love is new life, new creation.  Love is joy in each new day, each new moment.  Love is setting aside the past to be made new in the present.  Love is trusting in Jesus’ resurrection, trusting in his narrative about God, and life, and himself.  Love is eternal life, knowing God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. There is nothing greater in all the world, nothing greater in all of the universes than love, and love is the unity of Jesus and the Father, the unity and gritty kind of love that Jesus is praying for us to have, for us to be in heaven forever with him and the Father.