Brad Sullivan
3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B
Sunday, April 26th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Why do we believe in the Gospel? We haven’t seen Jesus raised from the dead. We haven’t seen Jesus’ apostles heal anyone. By and large, most of us haven’t seen anything supernatural. We haven’t seen great signs; been given visions by angels, nor heard testimony from eye witnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
The apostles saw Jesus after his resurrection. The first heard about his resurrection from Mary Magdalene who was told of it by the angels. They were told again about his resurrection by Cleopas and his companion who saw Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and Simon saw Jesus. The disciples even proclaimed “The Lord is risen indeed…,” and then when Jesus appeared among them, they didn’t believe. They thought he was a ghost. Then, when they saw he has flesh and bones, they still felt it was too good to be true, so Jesus ate some fish just to prove that he really was alive there among them. He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t a reanimated corpse, like a vampire or a zombie. He was and is Jesus, alive and well, just like he told them he would be.
I find interesting the fact that the disciples believed until the saw Jesus raised. They believed the testimony of their friends which matched what Jesus had told them would happen, but seeing him alive before them, just three days after he had been killed was too much for them. Rather than increasing their belief and joy, seeing Jesus initially increased their fear and disbelief, and I think that’s a pretty reasonable response.
Imagine being in their position. Imagine a good friend of yours, an actual good friend of yours, someone you admire, someone who maybe teaches you. Imagine that person foretelling his or her death and resurrection. Imagine seeing that person die. Imagine the grief you’d feel, and then imagine seeing that person walking around three days later. My guess is, each of us would also meet our resurrected friend with fear and disbelief.
The disciples’ reaction to seeing Jesus seems pretty reasonable. Having never seen a resurrected human before, I can guess they had a little bit of fear of the unknown. This person before them looked like Jesus, but was he really? Was he a disembodied spirit? Was he still the Jesus they knew and loved? These were all reasonable questions for the disciples to have. Notice Jesus was not angry with them for their unbelief. Rather, he greeted them with peace. He told them to touch him; he ate in front of them. Jesus showed them that he really was the same person who had been their friend and teacher for three years.
So, what then does Jesus’ resurrection appearance among his disciples say to us? For one thing, Jesus’ resurrection tells us tells us that resurrection in general is true, that death does not triumph over God. The end of God’s creation is not death, but life. What kind of life is the resurrection? That is another question answered, at least in part, by Jesus’ resurrection appearance to his disciples. In the resurrected life, we will be largely who we were.
In his resurrection appearance, Jesus showed his disciples that he was the same person he had been. He was obviously changed in some ways. He couldn’t die anymore. He could appear and disappear at will, but he was still Jesus. So for us too, in the resurrection, we will be changed, but we will still be ourselves. Our loved ones will be changed in the resurrection, but they will still be themselves. As John tells us in his epistle, “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him…” (1 John 3:2) If the resurrected Jesus was changed and yet the same Jesus as before, then we will also be changed and yet be the same as before.
We don’t know exactly what the resurrection life will be like, so there is still some unknown, but that unknown can hopefully leave us with excitement rather than fear. One reason Jesus became human, died, and was resurrected was to “…free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:15)
Living in fear of death, one would hold on to all that one has with a vice grip, desperately grasping for anything to keep death at bay. Living in fear of death, one might accumulate exceedingly great wealth, things, and power, just to counter the powerlessness one feels regarding death. In today’s economic world, that one might hit home. Perhaps the folks responsible for our current economic downturn were living in fear of death and therefore accumulating too many things, driving up too much debt. The super rich aren’t the only ones who lived this way, aren’t the only ones responsible. Many Americans were living beyond their means. Many of us have too much debt. Many of us have more things than we need.
Perhaps many of us have been living with some fear of death. I include myself in this. I’ve never gone out and bought something thinking, “this will keep me alive another day,” but there have been times when I’ve felt a need or a longing for something and I’ve sated that need with a purchase of some kind. I think, on the one hand, my true longing was for God, but I also think mixed in there was fear of death and a longing for security.
Now, I usually don’t consciously fear death, but when I think of the resurrection, when I think of the next life, being at one with God, then I feel peace come upon me, and my desire for things tends to diminish. I find I have less desire for things when I think of the resurrection. So, I’m guessing I still have some unknown lingering fear of death, fear of the unknown that I sometimes try to quell with things. Maybe I’m not alone in that. Perhaps living out of our faith in Jesus can help keep us from over spending. So, our faith really can make a difference in our lives, in a tangible way by freeing us who have been held in slavery by the fear of death.
As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, quoting Isaiah and Hosea, “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” (Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:8, 1 Corinthians 15:54-55) One of the beauties of Easter is that death has no sting. By believing in Jesus’ resurrection and believing that we will share in his resurrection, we can live lives of hope and love without the need of material wealth and security. Further, as followers of Jesus, we can share our hope and faith and love with others so that those who do not yet have this hope might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. (2 Corinthians 5:15) We can share our faith, our hope, and our love so that those who fear death might not fear death, so that those who are longing to know God might come to know God.
Jesus told his disciples that they were witnesses of his death and resurrection, witnesses that were to share that witness with others, and I believe we also share in that witness. We get to witness to others the hope that is in us, the faith that we have been given. We get to witness as we have been witnessed to. We are not eye witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. We’re going on the testimony of Jesus’ disciples, of the witness they gave and the witness given by so many generations after them. We get to witness so that others may believe as we believe.
I asked at the beginning of this sermon why we believe. We believe not because of what we have seen, but because of what we have heard. We believe because of what we have been told by those who did see. We believe because of God’s spirit dwelling within us, praying for us, even in times of doubt, praying for us with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)
We also believe, I think because we want to. I want to believe that death is not the end. I want to believe that there is life after death. I want to believe that the resurrection life will be a wonderful life lived with our creator. I want to believe that I have nothing to fear in death. I want to believe that I don’t need to build up security here on earth because my life is in God’s hands and this life is not the end. I want to believe that God became human in the person of Jesus, that he, lived, died, and was resurrected all out of love for us. I want to believe, and so I choose to believe.
How much do I believe? How much trust do I put in the testimony that I have heard? Well, that kind of varies. At times I trust more than others. My prayer for all of us today, the message I want to leave us with is that we would believe the testimony we have been given enough not to fear death. My prayer and message is that we would believe enough in Jesus’ resurrection to trust him and to have lives filled with hope, love, and peace. Let us pray. “May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that [we] may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) Amen.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Humility: The Freedom Not to Have to Be Perfect...
Brad Sullivan
Palm Sunday, Year B
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
John 12:12-16
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1 – 15:47
Palm Sunday, as we do every year on Palm Sunday, we get to hear the stories of Jesus’ seeming triumph as he rides into Jerusalem with throngs of people shouting his praises, and we get to hear about Jesus’ seeming defeat in his death on the cross. What I’d like to focus on today is Jesus’ humility in his life and death on the cross, and the way Jesus’ humility shows us the depth of God’s love for us.
Recently, I was having a conversation with a non-Christian about the Christian faith, and this gentleman had many questions about our faith; he was truly trying to understand what the Christian faith is. One question he raised was, why is Earth so important that God would become human to live here on Earth? With the millions of other galaxies, all of which could have millions of planets like Earth, with human beings like on earth, why would God limit himself by becoming human and living here? The whole concept seems to place more importance on us and our planet than maybe we really deserve.
The Christian faith might seem to engender some pride in ourselves, as though the God of the universe was somehow our God and that we can somehow lay claim to God because he came to live among us. So, I was wondering about this idea; do we almost believe the universe revolves around us by believing that God came to live on Earth with us? This is a valid question and a valid point, so what I’d like to address is this idea of God as God of the universe.
We don’t believe God has limits, and so while God limited himself in Jesus, living here on earth, being limited by his humanity, we don’t believe God limited himself beyond Jesus. There was no 30 year hiatus of God from the rest of the universe while God was living here on earth as Jesus.
So, while our belief does not limit our understanding of God, do we still lay a claim on God or lead us to believe that we are the only important people, the only important planet in all of the universe? Could Christian belief lead to a kind of pride, that we’re the only important ones and God is ours and no one else’s?
Think of the vastness of space, the fact that our planet, is a relatively small planet revolving around a relatively small star, in a relatively small galaxy.
Considering the whole of the universe, we could hardly be less significant. I did some research to try to find out just how small Earth is compared to the rest of the universe, and I searched around on the internet so God only knows how accurate any of these number are, but according to some of the numbers I found, the earth is somewhere around 20 quintillionths smaller than the known universe. What’s a quintillionth? Well, the numbers go: millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions. These numbers are utterly unfathomable, so I tried to find a way of conceptualizing the size of the earth compared to the universe, and I found a possible way to conceptualize these numbers. If the earth were one penny, twenty quintillion stacked up on top of each other would be several galaxies long.
I brought all of those numbers up so that we could imagine something of the scale of God’s humility in becoming human. God’s humility in becoming human is as unfathomable to me as trying to think of the tininess of earth in relation to the universe, and yet, as Paul wrote in Philippians:
…Christ Jesus…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5c-8)
The scale of God’s humility and love in becoming human is unimaginable. When I consider God who created and is in charge of the whole of the universe coming to live among us on earth, I am struck not by our significance but by our insignificance. We are tiny people on an infinitesimally small speck in the Universe, and yet God cares for us deeply enough to become human and live with us.
This helps me see us as significant because of our insignificance. The God of the universe didn’t just make us and leave us alone. He made us and then stuck with us, even with the whole of the universe to tend to as well. One the scale of the universe, we are insignificant, and yet we’re significant to God. We are loved by God. Our universal insignificance doesn’t seem to matter to God. God loves us because he created us. The Christian belief that God became human to live among us does not raise our significance and pride so much as show something of the depth of God’s love for us, that God would humble himself so much in order to draw us closer to him.
Now on the other side of this, what Paul said in his letter to the Philippians was, “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5) Let the same humility and love that God has for us, be in us for each other.
Humility is one of those difficult things that in seeking humility, we can even become prideful of just how humbler we are. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say, “I’m one of the most humble people I know.” The heart’s in the right place, but humility is almost something for which we can’t really strive. The more we want to be humble, the more we might find ourselves taking pride in our humility because we’re that much better at being humble than everyone else.
That just doesn’t work, but what we see in Jesus is not him striving for humility, but what are we told? “He emptied himself…” In seeking to follow Christ, therefore, in seeking to be humble, we find the idea of emptying ourselves to be a fairly helpful concept.
If we begin with ourselves, trying to be humble, then we will find humility something difficult to grasp, but if we empty ourselves instead and look to others with love, look to others as beloved children of God, then we might have a chance to achieve humility.
Now humility is not the same thing as self loathing. We may find ourselves thinking, “oh, I hate myself, I’m terrible, I’m awful; it’s Holy Week and so I should think badly of myself; God doesn’t like me very much…” No, no, no. Humility is not a chance or an obligation to think badly of ourselves.
Humility is a joy. The joy of humility is the ability to see and accept God’s love for us. When we can see and accept how much God loves others, when we can empty ourselves of the need that we feel we have in this world to be great, to be successful, the need we have to achieve more and more, we can see that those are demands we place on ourselves.
God doesn’t demand greatness from us. We are next to nothing in the universe, and yet God showed his love for us through his humility. God didn’t say, “first become the greatest, most perfect, most highly exalted person you can be, and then I will find you worthy of my love.” No, God loves us simply because he made us, simply because we are his, and there is a great burden lifted in that acknowledgment.
Humility is truly allowing ourselves to accept God’s love for us, not because we are great or highly exalted above anyone else. None of us has any more intrinsic value than any other one of us. God loves and values each of us because we are his children, and in emptying ourselves of thoughts of greatness, thoughts of being above or more valuable than anyone else, we can find then find acceptance of God’s love for us. We can find ourselves to be beloved of God beyond our imagination. My prayer this Holy Week is that we will seek to have the same mind as Christ, that we will seek to empty ourselves of the need for greatness or the presumption of importance, and that we will then be able to accept God’s love and see ourselves and each other as beloved of God. Amen.
Palm Sunday, Year B
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
John 12:12-16
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 14:1 – 15:47
Palm Sunday, as we do every year on Palm Sunday, we get to hear the stories of Jesus’ seeming triumph as he rides into Jerusalem with throngs of people shouting his praises, and we get to hear about Jesus’ seeming defeat in his death on the cross. What I’d like to focus on today is Jesus’ humility in his life and death on the cross, and the way Jesus’ humility shows us the depth of God’s love for us.
Recently, I was having a conversation with a non-Christian about the Christian faith, and this gentleman had many questions about our faith; he was truly trying to understand what the Christian faith is. One question he raised was, why is Earth so important that God would become human to live here on Earth? With the millions of other galaxies, all of which could have millions of planets like Earth, with human beings like on earth, why would God limit himself by becoming human and living here? The whole concept seems to place more importance on us and our planet than maybe we really deserve.
The Christian faith might seem to engender some pride in ourselves, as though the God of the universe was somehow our God and that we can somehow lay claim to God because he came to live among us. So, I was wondering about this idea; do we almost believe the universe revolves around us by believing that God came to live on Earth with us? This is a valid question and a valid point, so what I’d like to address is this idea of God as God of the universe.
We don’t believe God has limits, and so while God limited himself in Jesus, living here on earth, being limited by his humanity, we don’t believe God limited himself beyond Jesus. There was no 30 year hiatus of God from the rest of the universe while God was living here on earth as Jesus.
So, while our belief does not limit our understanding of God, do we still lay a claim on God or lead us to believe that we are the only important people, the only important planet in all of the universe? Could Christian belief lead to a kind of pride, that we’re the only important ones and God is ours and no one else’s?
Think of the vastness of space, the fact that our planet, is a relatively small planet revolving around a relatively small star, in a relatively small galaxy.
Considering the whole of the universe, we could hardly be less significant. I did some research to try to find out just how small Earth is compared to the rest of the universe, and I searched around on the internet so God only knows how accurate any of these number are, but according to some of the numbers I found, the earth is somewhere around 20 quintillionths smaller than the known universe. What’s a quintillionth? Well, the numbers go: millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions. These numbers are utterly unfathomable, so I tried to find a way of conceptualizing the size of the earth compared to the universe, and I found a possible way to conceptualize these numbers. If the earth were one penny, twenty quintillion stacked up on top of each other would be several galaxies long.
I brought all of those numbers up so that we could imagine something of the scale of God’s humility in becoming human. God’s humility in becoming human is as unfathomable to me as trying to think of the tininess of earth in relation to the universe, and yet, as Paul wrote in Philippians:
…Christ Jesus…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5c-8)
The scale of God’s humility and love in becoming human is unimaginable. When I consider God who created and is in charge of the whole of the universe coming to live among us on earth, I am struck not by our significance but by our insignificance. We are tiny people on an infinitesimally small speck in the Universe, and yet God cares for us deeply enough to become human and live with us.
This helps me see us as significant because of our insignificance. The God of the universe didn’t just make us and leave us alone. He made us and then stuck with us, even with the whole of the universe to tend to as well. One the scale of the universe, we are insignificant, and yet we’re significant to God. We are loved by God. Our universal insignificance doesn’t seem to matter to God. God loves us because he created us. The Christian belief that God became human to live among us does not raise our significance and pride so much as show something of the depth of God’s love for us, that God would humble himself so much in order to draw us closer to him.
Now on the other side of this, what Paul said in his letter to the Philippians was, “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5) Let the same humility and love that God has for us, be in us for each other.
Humility is one of those difficult things that in seeking humility, we can even become prideful of just how humbler we are. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say, “I’m one of the most humble people I know.” The heart’s in the right place, but humility is almost something for which we can’t really strive. The more we want to be humble, the more we might find ourselves taking pride in our humility because we’re that much better at being humble than everyone else.
That just doesn’t work, but what we see in Jesus is not him striving for humility, but what are we told? “He emptied himself…” In seeking to follow Christ, therefore, in seeking to be humble, we find the idea of emptying ourselves to be a fairly helpful concept.
If we begin with ourselves, trying to be humble, then we will find humility something difficult to grasp, but if we empty ourselves instead and look to others with love, look to others as beloved children of God, then we might have a chance to achieve humility.
Now humility is not the same thing as self loathing. We may find ourselves thinking, “oh, I hate myself, I’m terrible, I’m awful; it’s Holy Week and so I should think badly of myself; God doesn’t like me very much…” No, no, no. Humility is not a chance or an obligation to think badly of ourselves.
Humility is a joy. The joy of humility is the ability to see and accept God’s love for us. When we can see and accept how much God loves others, when we can empty ourselves of the need that we feel we have in this world to be great, to be successful, the need we have to achieve more and more, we can see that those are demands we place on ourselves.
God doesn’t demand greatness from us. We are next to nothing in the universe, and yet God showed his love for us through his humility. God didn’t say, “first become the greatest, most perfect, most highly exalted person you can be, and then I will find you worthy of my love.” No, God loves us simply because he made us, simply because we are his, and there is a great burden lifted in that acknowledgment.
Humility is truly allowing ourselves to accept God’s love for us, not because we are great or highly exalted above anyone else. None of us has any more intrinsic value than any other one of us. God loves and values each of us because we are his children, and in emptying ourselves of thoughts of greatness, thoughts of being above or more valuable than anyone else, we can find then find acceptance of God’s love for us. We can find ourselves to be beloved of God beyond our imagination. My prayer this Holy Week is that we will seek to have the same mind as Christ, that we will seek to empty ourselves of the need for greatness or the presumption of importance, and that we will then be able to accept God’s love and see ourselves and each other as beloved of God. Amen.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Following Jesus Takes Practice
Brad Sullivan
2nd Sunday of Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. Imagine seeing those words advertising some company or product on the market. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Use our product. I don’t think the advertising agency that came up with that one would be around for very long, and yet with Jesus, it kinda seemed to work. How in the world did the pitch, “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me,” ever attract anyone? Well, for one thing, these weren’t the first words out of Jesus’ mouth. He had done a bit of teaching and healing before the command to deny oneself and take up one’s cross. Still, the cost of discipleship, the cost of truly following Jesus may seem rather high. Deny yourself, take up your implement of torture and death, and follow Jesus. Lose your life in order to gain it. Well, there are several things to note about the language of this passage. When Jesus says whoever seeks to gain their life will lose it, and whoever seeks to lose their life for his sake will gain it, he is not necessarily talking about our physical, biological lives.
The word he uses could more accurately be seen as our soul or our inner life. So, one could say that those who seek too much the protection of their own lives, those who look out for “number one” at the expense of others, will lose this inner life. Those, on the other hand who are willing to give of themselves, to sacrifice, to put others first for the sake of Jesus and the gospel will gain this inner life. In short, by being Jesus’ followers, we’re not running around begging people to kill us for Jesus’ sake. More importantly, sacrifices we make in order to follow Jesus are worth the effort.
Have you ever followed someone or followed an idea which was difficult, but which you knew would benefit you? For one example, athletes do this all the time. Practice and exercise are difficult, but they know the reward of their endurance, of the discipline will be worth the effort. Athletes could be seen as disciples of their coaches, living and training as the coaches tell them, in order to achieve a good result in their sport.
Students of any kind follow this pattern of discipleship. Look at musicians, doctors, actors, business people. Most anything we do involves discipline of some kind. Any profession requires sacrifice in order to follow a particular path, and any profession involves some level of discipleship, learning and following a particular way in order to be successful.
Jesus too, then, has a path he wants his disciples to follow, and following on that path requires sacrifice. Further, following Jesus requires that we give our lives to following Jesus, like many other fields. Ask a musician who is at the very top of his or her field what it took to get their, to be a master of the instrument, and I think that person will tell you, he gave his life to the study and practice of the instrument, gave his life to the music. To be a master of a field, to be a true disciple in a field, takes one’s life. I’m going to run with this musician analogy for a while.
I’m a dabbler in several instruments. I sing. I play some guitar. I play the didgeridoo; I used to play the trumpet. I dabble in these things, I enjoy them, but I’m not disciplined in my practice. I’m not great at any of them, and I’m ok with that. They’re fun. I enjoy them, but I haven’t devoted my life to any of these instruments.
Jesus is asking that we devote our lives to following him. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean we dabble in discipleship the way I dabble in music. Being a follower of Jesus means we devote our lives to following Jesus, like master musicians devote their lives to their instruments. Master musicians, by the way, can also devote their lives to following Jesus. Being a master at one thing does not mean we cannot also follow Christ.
Following Jesus does mean we need to be disciplined in following him. Musicians practice every day, a lot. Following Jesus means practicing our faith, being intentional in prayer, in reading scripture, in serving others, in talking about the joy of the Gospel. If we don’t practice our faith, we aren’t going to be very good at having faith, at being faithful followers of Jesus.
Following Jesus also means that we persevere in practicing our faith even in adversity. Top musicians do this. While the definitely love music and love their instruments, even the very best musicians get tired of their instruments. They find times when practice is difficult or seems to be pointless. They have dry spells or hit brick walls they just can’t seem to get past. The very best musicians continue practicing through those times, and they seek the help and advice of others in order to do so. The very best musicians in the world still have teachers, and their teachers also have teachers.
For us too, as followers of Jesus, we persevere through the rough patches. We keep practicing during the hard times, the brick walls. We keep practicing when our faith seems pointless, and we seek the help and advice of others. Following Jesus means we’re never done. We never arrive and suddenly get to say, “I’ve made it.” “I’m a master of following Jesus and have nothing more to learn.” Practicing our faith will always continue, and we will always need each other for support, advice, and correction.
Look for a minute back at the Gospel at what transpired just before Jesus told us how to follow him. Peter had rebuked Jesus for telling the disciples that he would be imprisoned, killed, and resurrected. Jesus then tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” That’s a pretty harsh rebuke of Peter, but I would also call it support, advice, and correction.
Looking first at the harshness of Peter’s rebuke, imagine being Jesus for a second. I think Jesus might have been saying, “stop tempting me, Peter.” Satan means tempter. So, maybe there was something tempting in Peter’s rebuke of Jesus. We know from Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane that dying on the cross wasn’t really a T.G.I.F. kind of moment. So even at the point in today’s Gospel reading, perhaps Jesus had finally gotten his head around having to be crucified, finally come to terms with that fact, and then here comes Peter saying no, no, you don’t have to die by crucifixion, Jesus. That would sound really tempting. Have you ever told someone, “don’t tempt me!”? “Don’t ask me again, or I might say yes.” Jesus was likely tempted by Peter’s rebuke. How wonderful not to have to die on the cross. So, Jesus had to rebuke Peter. Get behind me Satan. Stop tempting me.
So yes, Jesus’ rebuke of Peter was harsh, but his rebuke was also support, advice, and correction. He told Peter what he was doing wrong, “setting [his] mind not on divine things but on human things.” He also gave this rebuke in private and then taught publicly the lesson about needing to lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel. Then, a week later, Jesus took Peter to the top of the mountain for the transfiguration. So, Jesus rebuked Peter, but he also continued to teach him, continued to love him, and made amends with him.
For us too then, as followers of Jesus, there will be times when we need correction, like Peter did, and there will be times when we’re the ones giving correction, like Jesus did. Sometimes our correction may need to be a little harsh, but we should always correct one anther with love and will continued relationship. “Get behind me Satan” were far from the last words Jesus spoke to Peter. Imagine if, “you’re doing it wrong” were the last words a music teacher told his or her student. That student might not keep playing. Music teachers, if they aren’t careful, can kill a love of music in their students. So too can we push people away from Jesus in our advice, and correction, if we’re not careful and supportive in how we give that correction and advice.
So, considering that we’re being called to follow Jesus, to give our lives to him as musicians do to music, I want to leave us with a few questions to think about. How’s practice going? Writing this sermon, I realized I need to get back to practice, get a better routine going. Having a son threw off my practice schedule, but it’s been over a year, and that excuse just ain’t gonna work any more. So how is your practice going? Do you need to pick up your instrument and dust it off a little bit?
Are you not quite sure how to practice? Maybe you need some lessons, some advice or correction. Talk to someone: a friend, a co-worker, clergy, someone whose walk with Jesus you notice and admire.
Maybe you’re in a dry spell and really need to push through with practice and support. Maybe your practice is going great, and you’re able to help teach others. Whatever the case, keep practicing your faith. Jesus didn’t ask us to be dabblers in following him. He asked us to give our lives to following him. I can dabble in guitar and other instruments. We can all dabble in various things, but we’ve been asked to give our lives to following Jesus. Discipleship comes with a cost, but so does anything worth doing. Like true musicians who give their lives to their music and get so much beautiful music in return for themselves and others, we’ve been asked to give our lives to Jesus, and we’ve been promised to get our lives back with so much more life for ourselves and others, so keep practicing. Amen.
2nd Sunday of Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. Imagine seeing those words advertising some company or product on the market. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Use our product. I don’t think the advertising agency that came up with that one would be around for very long, and yet with Jesus, it kinda seemed to work. How in the world did the pitch, “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me,” ever attract anyone? Well, for one thing, these weren’t the first words out of Jesus’ mouth. He had done a bit of teaching and healing before the command to deny oneself and take up one’s cross. Still, the cost of discipleship, the cost of truly following Jesus may seem rather high. Deny yourself, take up your implement of torture and death, and follow Jesus. Lose your life in order to gain it. Well, there are several things to note about the language of this passage. When Jesus says whoever seeks to gain their life will lose it, and whoever seeks to lose their life for his sake will gain it, he is not necessarily talking about our physical, biological lives.
The word he uses could more accurately be seen as our soul or our inner life. So, one could say that those who seek too much the protection of their own lives, those who look out for “number one” at the expense of others, will lose this inner life. Those, on the other hand who are willing to give of themselves, to sacrifice, to put others first for the sake of Jesus and the gospel will gain this inner life. In short, by being Jesus’ followers, we’re not running around begging people to kill us for Jesus’ sake. More importantly, sacrifices we make in order to follow Jesus are worth the effort.
Have you ever followed someone or followed an idea which was difficult, but which you knew would benefit you? For one example, athletes do this all the time. Practice and exercise are difficult, but they know the reward of their endurance, of the discipline will be worth the effort. Athletes could be seen as disciples of their coaches, living and training as the coaches tell them, in order to achieve a good result in their sport.
Students of any kind follow this pattern of discipleship. Look at musicians, doctors, actors, business people. Most anything we do involves discipline of some kind. Any profession requires sacrifice in order to follow a particular path, and any profession involves some level of discipleship, learning and following a particular way in order to be successful.
Jesus too, then, has a path he wants his disciples to follow, and following on that path requires sacrifice. Further, following Jesus requires that we give our lives to following Jesus, like many other fields. Ask a musician who is at the very top of his or her field what it took to get their, to be a master of the instrument, and I think that person will tell you, he gave his life to the study and practice of the instrument, gave his life to the music. To be a master of a field, to be a true disciple in a field, takes one’s life. I’m going to run with this musician analogy for a while.
I’m a dabbler in several instruments. I sing. I play some guitar. I play the didgeridoo; I used to play the trumpet. I dabble in these things, I enjoy them, but I’m not disciplined in my practice. I’m not great at any of them, and I’m ok with that. They’re fun. I enjoy them, but I haven’t devoted my life to any of these instruments.
Jesus is asking that we devote our lives to following him. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean we dabble in discipleship the way I dabble in music. Being a follower of Jesus means we devote our lives to following Jesus, like master musicians devote their lives to their instruments. Master musicians, by the way, can also devote their lives to following Jesus. Being a master at one thing does not mean we cannot also follow Christ.
Following Jesus does mean we need to be disciplined in following him. Musicians practice every day, a lot. Following Jesus means practicing our faith, being intentional in prayer, in reading scripture, in serving others, in talking about the joy of the Gospel. If we don’t practice our faith, we aren’t going to be very good at having faith, at being faithful followers of Jesus.
Following Jesus also means that we persevere in practicing our faith even in adversity. Top musicians do this. While the definitely love music and love their instruments, even the very best musicians get tired of their instruments. They find times when practice is difficult or seems to be pointless. They have dry spells or hit brick walls they just can’t seem to get past. The very best musicians continue practicing through those times, and they seek the help and advice of others in order to do so. The very best musicians in the world still have teachers, and their teachers also have teachers.
For us too, as followers of Jesus, we persevere through the rough patches. We keep practicing during the hard times, the brick walls. We keep practicing when our faith seems pointless, and we seek the help and advice of others. Following Jesus means we’re never done. We never arrive and suddenly get to say, “I’ve made it.” “I’m a master of following Jesus and have nothing more to learn.” Practicing our faith will always continue, and we will always need each other for support, advice, and correction.
Look for a minute back at the Gospel at what transpired just before Jesus told us how to follow him. Peter had rebuked Jesus for telling the disciples that he would be imprisoned, killed, and resurrected. Jesus then tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” That’s a pretty harsh rebuke of Peter, but I would also call it support, advice, and correction.
Looking first at the harshness of Peter’s rebuke, imagine being Jesus for a second. I think Jesus might have been saying, “stop tempting me, Peter.” Satan means tempter. So, maybe there was something tempting in Peter’s rebuke of Jesus. We know from Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane that dying on the cross wasn’t really a T.G.I.F. kind of moment. So even at the point in today’s Gospel reading, perhaps Jesus had finally gotten his head around having to be crucified, finally come to terms with that fact, and then here comes Peter saying no, no, you don’t have to die by crucifixion, Jesus. That would sound really tempting. Have you ever told someone, “don’t tempt me!”? “Don’t ask me again, or I might say yes.” Jesus was likely tempted by Peter’s rebuke. How wonderful not to have to die on the cross. So, Jesus had to rebuke Peter. Get behind me Satan. Stop tempting me.
So yes, Jesus’ rebuke of Peter was harsh, but his rebuke was also support, advice, and correction. He told Peter what he was doing wrong, “setting [his] mind not on divine things but on human things.” He also gave this rebuke in private and then taught publicly the lesson about needing to lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel. Then, a week later, Jesus took Peter to the top of the mountain for the transfiguration. So, Jesus rebuked Peter, but he also continued to teach him, continued to love him, and made amends with him.
For us too then, as followers of Jesus, there will be times when we need correction, like Peter did, and there will be times when we’re the ones giving correction, like Jesus did. Sometimes our correction may need to be a little harsh, but we should always correct one anther with love and will continued relationship. “Get behind me Satan” were far from the last words Jesus spoke to Peter. Imagine if, “you’re doing it wrong” were the last words a music teacher told his or her student. That student might not keep playing. Music teachers, if they aren’t careful, can kill a love of music in their students. So too can we push people away from Jesus in our advice, and correction, if we’re not careful and supportive in how we give that correction and advice.
So, considering that we’re being called to follow Jesus, to give our lives to him as musicians do to music, I want to leave us with a few questions to think about. How’s practice going? Writing this sermon, I realized I need to get back to practice, get a better routine going. Having a son threw off my practice schedule, but it’s been over a year, and that excuse just ain’t gonna work any more. So how is your practice going? Do you need to pick up your instrument and dust it off a little bit?
Are you not quite sure how to practice? Maybe you need some lessons, some advice or correction. Talk to someone: a friend, a co-worker, clergy, someone whose walk with Jesus you notice and admire.
Maybe you’re in a dry spell and really need to push through with practice and support. Maybe your practice is going great, and you’re able to help teach others. Whatever the case, keep practicing your faith. Jesus didn’t ask us to be dabblers in following him. He asked us to give our lives to following him. I can dabble in guitar and other instruments. We can all dabble in various things, but we’ve been asked to give our lives to following Jesus. Discipleship comes with a cost, but so does anything worth doing. Like true musicians who give their lives to their music and get so much beautiful music in return for themselves and others, we’ve been asked to give our lives to Jesus, and we’ve been promised to get our lives back with so much more life for ourselves and others, so keep practicing. Amen.
Monday, November 24, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, November 3, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)