What Gospel do I live?

Brad Sullivan

Proper 26, Year C
Sunday, October 31st, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Isaiah 1:10-18
Psalm 32:1-8
Romans 16
Luke 19:1-10

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

I love this passage from Isaiah, and the many similar passages throughout scripture. “Y’all are being really, really religious,” God says, “but you’re also being pretty rotten to one another; if you really my blessing in your life, then you need to go out and bless others.” Isaiah’s message sounds both harsh and full of hope and promise. God was angry with the people’s missdeeds, and he deeply wanted them to turn around and was more than ready to bless them once they did. Through Isaiah, God was seeking to save the lost.

That sounds a lot like what Jesus said about Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was basically the passage of Isaiah lived out in story form in one person’s life. To be fair, there’s a lot we don’t know about Zacchaeus. We don’t know if he did follow any of the religious practices of Israel, but we do know he was cheating people out of their money. As a chief tax collector, of a corrupt tax system, he was collecting more than he was supposed to and pocketing the extra. He was doing evil, was unjust, taking from the oppressed, the orphan, and the widow, and everyone else. Then, somehow he heard about Jesus. We don’t know how, but he went into the crowd that day and climbed the tree in order to see who Jesus was, so he had apparently heard something about him.

So then he meets Jesus, and here again, we don’t really know what happened. It’s not entirely clear if they went on to Zacchaeus’ house and had a little chat about the words of Isaiah or if this encounter took place right there before Jesus said much of anything. What is clear, however, is that Zacchaeus met Jesus and was transformed by him.

Zacchaeus had previously defrauded people…perhaps he was caught up in “me, me”, thinking that the way to be secure and well in life was to get lots of money, building up security for himself at the expense of others. When he encountered Jesus, however, he found that his money was not what he really wanted. He gave over half of it away immediately. He had found something far greater in which to put his trust, his security, and his faith, than himself and his money.

Is God's love enough?

Brad Sullivan

Proper 22, Year C
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-10
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

“Increase our faith,” the apostles say. That seems like a pretty good thing to say. They kinda commanded rather than asked for it, but we’re supposed to be people of faith, so “increase our faith,” sounds pretty good to me, and then Jesus replies “You don’t need more faith. You can do plenty with what you’ve got.” I think that’s basically the message Jesus was giving the apostles when he told them about faith size of a mustard seed. That seems rather a rather odd exchange. “Lord, we want more faith.” “No, you’re not going to get it.”

Well, just before the disciples asked for more faith, Jesus was telling them to be on guard. He was reminding them that it is very easy to stumble in our walk with God, and that it is easy to cause others to stumble. He taught them that they should forgive others, and in response, the disciples asked for more faith. It’s as if they were saying, “Um, we don’t think we can pull this off with what you’ve given us Lord. We need some more.”

So Jesus tells them, “No. You’re not getting more faith. You’ve got plenty. Go out there and use it. Don’t be afraid. Remain faithful with the faith you’ve got, and you’ll move mountains.” Paul said as much in his letter to Timothy. “…God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.” (2 Timothy 1:14) Jesus didn’t say, “go off by yourself, I’m leaving you, and I won’t be with you.” Jesus said, “go, I will be with you, and be not afraid, for the faith you have is sufficient.”

But what about when we do remain faithful with the faith we’ve got? Might we get a little prideful and feel deserving of reward because we remain faithful? Jesus certainly seems to think we will. What does Jesus tell his disciples as soon as he tells them they already have all the faith they need? He tells them, “don’t remain faithful for the sake of some reward.” He tells the story of a slave or a servant coming in from work and expecting to be waited on hand and foot by the master of the house. That certainly sounds nice. That even sounds like the kingdom of God in which the master becomes the servant. Jesus taught as much when he washed the disciples’ feet, but that’s not the lesson he’s teaching here.

Using the social structure and norms present at the time, Jesus was warning the apostles against expecting or even demanding some great reward for having remained faithful to God. Think of the story of the Prodigal Son. The prodigal son returns, they throw a party, and the brother is bothered, feeling like he was entitled to a party as well. What does the father say? “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” What is he saying but, “you have been with me and loved me and I have loved you all these years. Isn’t that enough.” The father is telling the son, “I thought you were remaining here with me because you love me, not because you wanted a party. You’ve been the recipient of my love all these years, and that is the greatest gift I can give you.”

The apostles were being asked to remain faithful to God and to let God’s love be enough for them. That doesn’t fit too well in our economy of exchange that we have here in the world. We provide goods and services for some kind of reward…money, food shelter. I do this for you, and you do this for me. That makes sense. That’s fair.

God’s economy doesn’t seem to be an economy of exchange, and economy of commerce. God’s economy seems more to be one of household. In households, by and large, we do things for one another out of love, not in order to manipulate a situation and get something for myself. In economies of exchange, we may remain faithful to the same company for 30-40 years partly because we like the company, but we’re also probably expecting some kind of pension at the end of it. Maybe not anymore, but there was a time when that happened.

In households, we remain faithful to one another simply out of love for one another. Can you imagine a 40 or 50 year old saying, “Well, Mom, Dad, I’ve been a part of this family for 50 years now, and I’m ready to call it quits, retire from the family so I’ve put together a little portfolio here, a little retirement from the family package; let’s see what we can work out.”

Looking at this on the other end of the age range, I think of children being given gifts for good behavior or for good grades. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with parents giving their children gifts, but we run into a problem when parents give their children gifts because they deserve them. “My kid made good grades, and so he deserves some great gift,” or “my kid is respectful of me and other adults, and so he deserves some great gift.” Making good grades, being respectful of adults, these are not things that are deserving of gifts. They are simply what we’re supposed to be doing.

Loving God with everything we've got.

Brad Sullivan

Proper 20, Year C
Sunday, September 5th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Amos 8:4-7
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

“Hear O, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your Soul, and with all your might.” That’s Deuteronomy 6:4-5, and that’s really what our Gospel passage is about today. Love God with everything you’ve got. There’s nothing greater than that on earth, no higher purpose to which we are called or made. Love God with everything you’ve got. Everything else in life joyfully comes from that love of God.

When we really love God, can see our love of God expressed in concrete actions. We all know that. The more we love God, the more we want to do good to other people and love others as well. John tells us we can’t love God and hate our brother and sister. If we do so, we’re liars, and the love of God isn’t really in us. James tells us that faith without works is dead.

If we say we love God, but that love has no expression in our lives, then we’re likely just kidding ourselves that we actually love God all that much. When we love people, that love is shown in the time we spend together, the way we talk about those we love and the way we honor the ones we love. Jesus was telling his disciples in the story he told today that if we really love God, we’re going to live that love out. We’re going to put aside whatever we love more than God, and we’re going to show our love for God in the way we live.

Taking a look at the story Jesus told, there was the dishonest manager. He had no love of God. He had no love of other people. He loved money above most other things, and that’s why he was dishonest, so he could get more and more money. Then this accounting problem came up, and the rich man realized that his manager was dishonest, at which point, the manager realized he did love one thing more than money: self preservation, and he did a great job at it.

Knowing that once he was unemployed, he’d need some friends and get some folks to help support him, he showed incredible mercy to all of these people, cancelling their debts, reducing their debts. From their perspective, he was a great guy. He was a loving, generous, wonderful man who had taken their burdens and reduced them. He showed them compassion and mercy. He did exactly the kinds of things that God continually called his followers to do. Except that he did so out of selfishness rather than out of love for anyone but himself, but I bet he got a pretty good following from it. What I then wonder is, having given these seeming gifts of grace to the people, what kind of Gospel did he give them afterwards? Probably not much of one, and certainly not one in which loving God was everything. Then again, from their perspective, who cares about loving God, this dishonest manager took care of them.

That’s part of why Jesus warned against loving money more than loving God. Even those who are dishonest can gain a following and influence by acts of mercy, even selfish ones. When Christians, then, proclaim love of God and yet appear to love money or anything else more than God, why would anyone follow after Christ?

Maybe y’all are aware that to those outside of the church, we’ve got something of an image problem? We, Christians, are often called hypocritical or condemning, or just about anything but loving. Ozzy Ozborne on his most recent album has a song in which he’s wondering about God and asking the questions so many of us ask of why all this terrible stuff keeps on happening. Why don’t you do something, God? He’s got a great line in that song: “The rich, getting richer, paint you into the picture, give the poor immaculate deception.” – Ozzy Ozborne, Diggin’ Me Down

Now, from everything I’ve found, I think Ozzy is a Christian, but those lyrics are a pretty powerful statement about the perception of Christians. “The rich, getting richer, paint you into the picture, give the poor immaculate deception.” If Christians are seen as loving money more than God, then it is likely because we’ve ended up living that out in some ways in our lives. Maybe some of us, personally, have done so, maybe other Christians have, but we’ve got some work to do to restore the image of Christianity and the reality of Christianity, and our love of God lived out in the world.

What Jesus was telling his disciples was, ‘even selfish, dishonest people know how to live in God’s kingdom and to give mercy to others when it suits their needs. Can’t you, my disciples, do so out of your love for God?’ So, we’ve got some questions to ask ourselves as Jesus’ disciples. These are questions that we should continually ask ourselves to check in and see how we’re doing.

Do we love God or are there things in our lives that we end up putting in the way and loving more than God? If we love God, is that love expressed in our love for others? If our love of God is expressed in our love for others, do people also know that we love God?

By and large, I know the answers to these questions are all yes…and. Yes we love God and there things that we all maybe love a little more than God. What I’m talking about are those continual things that we know God doesn’t want us to do but it’s hard to get rid of ‘em so we keep on doing them.

Don't hate your family, despite what you may have heard...

Brad Sullivan

Proper 18, Year C
Sunday, September 5th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

Some time last week, I was getting ready to go to work, about to head out the door, and my two and a half year old son, Noah, looked up at a little figure of Jesus in the manger and said, “I like that Jesus guy. He’s really cool.” Kristin and I agreed. We laughed and said, “yeah, he is really cool, Noah,” thinking “that’s great, good for him,” and yet today, that story seems to stand in stark contrast to what Jesus says in the Gospel.

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” What do I tell my son in relation to this passage? Sorry son, I know you think Jesus is really cool, but you don’t hate mommy and me, so you can’t be his disciple, you can’t really like him.

We’re told in Leviticus, everyone’s favorite book of the Bible, we’re told in Leviticus 19:17, “don’t hate your kin, your family.” We’re told in 1 John 4:20 “Those who say, ‘I love God, ‘and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have see, cannot love God whom they have seen.” We’re told by Jesus, in Luke 6:27 “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…”

So, in light of all of this “don’t hate people” teaching, and in light of Jesus’ vast teachings about love, what are we to do with a passage in which Jesus tells us to hate our families. Well, as is often the case, we take a look at language. Jesus said, hate your family, but rather than the contemptuous detestation which we generally understand as “hate”, the word Jesus uses sometimes means that, and it sometimes means “turn away from,” “disregard,” or “be indifferent to.”

So now we hear Jesus saying “turn away from” your family, “disregard” your family, “be indifferent to” your family, if you’re going to be my disciple. That may still not be the best thing we’ve ever heard in our lives, but it certainly is a lot better than what we understand as hate.

Still, the question that lingers for me is “why?” Why do I have to disregard my family in order to follow you, Jesus? Am I now supposed to tell my son, “Sorry, Noah. I love you, I think you’re great, and I know you think that Jesus guy is really cool, but I want to be Jesus’ disciple, so I just need to be a bad father to you and ignore you, just please go away.” I tell Kristin and Rhys the same thing, and then say to Jesus, “Ok Lord, I’m a terrible father and husband, I’ve blown them all off. I’m ready.”

That doesn’t seem quite right either. Looking at the rest of what Jesus said in today’s Gospel passage, he talked about counting the cost, making sure people are willing to make the sacrifices necessary in order to be Jesus’ disciple. We make sacrifices all the time in order to do various things or be with certain people in our lives.

Those who have had kids know kids demand a lot of time and that there are some relationships you might not be able to keep as closely because of the time needed to be with kids. Those in marriages or committed one-on-one relationships know that such relationships require some level of sacrifice in other relationships. Before I was married, I had great friends. Now that I am married, I still have those great friends, but I don’t spend as much time with them as I did before I was married. I’ve had to disregard them, somewhat, in order to have time enough to give time and love to my wife and family.

The same goes for any good friendships we have, or jobs and activities we pursue with passion, going to school, learning a trade. Focusing our energy and attention on any one thing requires that we divert some energy and attention from other things in order to delve deeply into that one thing. I think of great musicians, the best of the best, who spend hours, and hours, and hours each day devoted to their instrument and their music. That doesn’t mean musicians don’t have friends, but they put in the work necessary in order to be devoted to their music. They’ve counted the cost.

The same goes for following Jesus. I knew folks in seminary who had wanted to be in the ministry for years, and initially, got some resistance from family and friends. You’re not going to make enough money. You’re not going to have weekends free. Initially some of these folks listened to the objections of family and friends, and then eventually, they had to disregard some of their family and friends, be indifferent to some of their family and friends, not regarding them as people, but they disregarded or were indifferent to the objections of their family and friends. They had counted the cost.

I’ve been reading a book called, “The Hole in Our Gospel” which is about the Gospel imperative to serve others, especially where there is poverty and injustice. The author is Richard Stearns, President of World Vision which is a Christian humanitarian organization which works worldwide with children, and families, and communities to help solve problems of poverty and injustice. Richard Stearns has been president of World Vision for 12 years now, and when the opportunity to become president of World Vision came up, he really, really, really didn’t want it.

He writes of himself as one who had committed himself during his 20s to following Christ, no matter what, and yet he was one who hadn’t entirely counted the cost. He wrote, “I was a poster boy for the successful Christian life – church every Sunday, great marriage, give attractive (and above-average) kids, a corporate CEO with a Bible on his desk, a faithful supporter of Christian causes – the whole Christian enchilada”, and yet when asked to take this new job, he found himself running for the hills. “Quitting my job, selling my house, and moving my family to serve at World Vision”, he wrote, was not in any way what he wanted to do, and yet he had said that he wanted to follow Jesus no matter what. He felt Jesus calling him to this job at World Vision, his family was supportive, and yet, he found himself initially unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to follow Jesus’ call.

Obviously, he eventually did answer Jesus’ call and was blessed by doing so. It doesn’t sound like he ever really regretted giving up quite a lot of material things in order to follow Jesus. He wrote of his blessings in this way,

Does God bless those of us who commit our lives to following him? Of course he does. Sometimes He does bless us in material ways, with money, success, good health, and happy families, but those things are not guaranteed. Yet we are always blessed by God’s love for us and the meaning He brings to our lives, whether in hardship or prosperity. God also blesses us through our sacrifices for Him as we feel the privilege of being a tool in His hand.

Others who have heard his story over the years have asked him about serving God more directly and committing themselves ministry in some way, and he’s responded by asking questions about their preconditions. He wrote that usually the list of conditions sounds something like this:

“Well, we’re very committed to staying in the Atlanta area. All of our friends are here, and we have spent years getting our house just right. Our kids are in a very special private school, and we don’t want to move them. We waited six years to join the country club, and now we’re members. We couldn’t take too big of a pay cut and still maintain our lifestyle…But other than that, we’re wide open to serve.”

The preconditions that he mentioned, they sound pretty normal. School’s important, friends are important, and yet, as the author continues (and this is the last quote I’m going to give), “When we say we want to be [Jesus’] disciple, yet attach a list of conditions, Jesus refuses to accept our terms. His terms involve unconditional surrender.”

In order to be Jesus’ disciple, we’re asked at times to give up some of the life we have planned out for ourselves in order to live a life that he has in mind for us. For Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, giving up some of the life he had involved a different job, a different city, a different house, a different car. He still has his family, everything that was really important to him, and he didn’t make these sacrifices on a whim simply because he felt guilty and self loathing about having too much. He made the sacrifices necessary in order to follow Jesus when Jesus called.

So, counting the cost and following Jesus doesn’t mean that tomorrow we’re all supposed to go quite our jobs and say goodbye to our family and friends and move somewhere else, just for the sake of sacrificing stuff, in order to be Jesus’ disciple. That would be like a single person who spends a lot of time with his really good friends telling them all that he can’t hang out with them any more because one day he might be married with kids and would then have to sacrifice some time that he spends with his friends, and he has to get ready. That just seems kinda silly. On the other hand, so does saying to someone, “I want a deep and fulfilling relationship with you, but I’m not going to make any sacrifices in order to have a deep and fulfilling relationship with you.” Or, “I’m going to do really well in school and make straight ‘A’s, but I’m not going to study.” “I’m going to do really well at this job and advance and move up the ladder, but I’m going to come in at noon, leave at three, and whatever I don’t get done is your problem.”

Following Jesus, counting the cost, of course these things require sacrifice on our parts. We all know that. Sometimes, after careful consideration, we even need to disregard some of the objections of our family and friends in order to be a disciple of Jesus. We get to live lives in which we work for and promote the kingdom of God, a kingdom of love and compassion. Being Jesus’ disciples requires surrender, but we’re surrendering to one who has our best interests at heart. Or, as the prophet Noah says about the one to whom we’re surrendering, “I like that Jesus guy. He’s really cool.” Amen.

Did Jesus come to tear families apart?

Brad Sullivan

Proper 15, Year C
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Jeremiah 23:23-29
Psalm 82
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

So, Jesus came to tear families apart. That’s kinda what it sounds like on an initial reading of today’s Gospel. Father will be against son, mother against daughter, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, ok that last one might not be because of Jesus, but we can’t really ignore that Jesus said he came to bring division. I thought a house divided against itself couldn’t stand, and yet here’s Jesus today bringing division and fire on the earth. I thought he was supposed to be the prince of peace.

Jesus did bring a lot of peace, after all. When he healed folks, he often told them to go in peace. When his disciples went out to minister, he told them to offer their peace to those with whom they stayed. Jesus was definitely not averse to peace. Therefore, by saying today that he came to bring division, I don’t believe Jesus was saying that he came to add rancor and strife to world simply to make the world a less pleasant place to live. Jesus healed. He taught about blessedness. He told people they were beloved of God.

He also told people when they were living destructive lives, counter to how God had taught them to live. Jesus may have been the prince of peace, but that doesn’t mean he came to remain silent when he encountered problems or that he came simply to play nice.

Looking back a little way in Luke’s gospel, Jesus had been preaching against the Scribes and the Pharisees. “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees,” Jesus said, “that is, their hypocrisy.” He then went on to teach about the blessedness of every human being. Do not fear because God cares about you was the basic message. Then we get to the story we heard a couple of weeks ago. A man interrupts Jesus and asks him to help him out with his family inheritance. I can see Jesus being a little annoyed at this point.

“Seriously dude, your inheritance? I was preaching to you about blessedness, and God’s love for you and how you don’t need to fear, and you want to ask me about money?” Boy that guy got more than he bargained for. Jesus went on to talk about money and the dangers of putting our faith in our money and our possessions rather than in God. “All your possessions, all your stuff, it’s gonna be gone one day. You’re gonna be gone one day, and what good is all that stuff going to do you then?”

I can see the guy who first asked the question about inheritance at this point trying quietly to extricate himself from the crowd, and his friends holding him there saying, “Way to go Steve, he was being nice being nice before you spoke up.”

To be fair, having a question about an inheritance is fine; it happens. Sometimes we have disputes and we need help settling them. Jesus seemed to notice something more in the man’s question, however, than a purely innocent request for help in settling a legal matter. I’m further guessing that the man who asked about his inheritance was simply one among many in the crowd who wasn’t so much interested in God’s kingdom as in getting what he wanted and having Jesus help him get what he wanted. “That’s nice, Jesus. God’ loves us. We should care for one another, blah blah blah, now here’s what I need.” The yeast of the Scribes and the Pharisees seems to have been taking hold in the crowd.

So, Jesus speaks today about wanting to throw fire down on the earth and bring division. Well, throwing fire down on the earth was an act of cleansing perhaps to burn away the yeast of the Scribes and the Pharisees. The fire Jesus was to throw down on the earth was like a fire of burnt offering to cleanse people, to take away their misdeeds (as they offered them up), and to remind them of who God is and to get them back to walking in God’s ways once again.

We might also note that there was no actual rain of fire that Jesus sent down (the Holy Spirit came down in tongues of fire), but I think we can safely say Jesus’ fire was kindled. His fire continues to this day, sometimes burning where there is injustice and greed, cleansing people from walking in ways that God knows are not helpful ways for us to walk. I believe I’ve been cleansed at various times by Jesus’ fire (metaphorical fire we’re talking about here). Perhaps some of y’all have experienced that as well, and if you have, then you know that being cleansed is not always the most pleasant thing in the world.

Turning back towards God, seeking his help and forgiveness, changing one’s life, stopping unhealthy practices and starting healthy ones is cleansing by Jesus’ fire and it is not necessarily a pleasant experience. The result, however, is great and well worth any discomfort along the way. Jesus came to bring fire on the earth, and thank God that he did. We need his fire to cleanse us and then to remain in us to be light to the world and to cast darkness out of the world, and if we do that. If we allow Jesus’ fire to cleanse us, and if we allow his fire to remain in us, and if we take that fire with us to help cast darkness out of the world, then we are going to cause some division.

Demons, Oil, & Atonement

Brad Sullivan

Proper 7, Year C
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
1 Kings 19:1-15a
Psalm 43
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39

In both the old testament reading and the Gospel reading today, we have stories of spiritual warfare. In the reading from Kings, Elijah had just won a major victory for God against Jezebel and the prophets of Baal. Baal was a Canaanite deity, and Jezebel, wife of Ahab, king of Israel, Jezebel was uncompromising in her devotion to Baal. The fire and zeal she had for Baal dwarfed the devotion that the people of Israel at the time had for God.

Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord, and finally, Elijah had a contest with the prophets of Ball to see whose God would win. Elijah called the people of Israel to watch the contest between God and Baal, represented by Elijah for God and 450 prophets of Baal. Baal’s prophets called repeatedly for him to come down and consume an offering by fire to absolutely no effect.

Then, Elijah called on God who immediately consumed with fire the offering, the wood, the stones and all of the water Elijah had pored on it. The people turned back to God and had the prophets of Baal killed. As a result, we get the story we heard today. Jezebel was going to have Elijah killed so Elijah fled and met God on the mountain.

The contest between God and Baal was spiritual warfare lived out physically through Elijah and the prophets of Baal. The spiritual and the physical were united in the conflict.

In the Gospel too, we have today a story of spiritual warfare. Jesus casts demons out of a man of Gerasa. This was not the first healing done by Jesus nor was it the first time he had cast out demons, but in today’s story, Jesus cast out not one demon, but many, and those many demons were called ‘Legion’. Well, a legion was a Roman military unit of several thousand soldiers. This military unit of demons had possessed a poor man from Gerasa. As far as he knew, when Jesus cast out the demons, he’d been healed. Hearing the story as told by Luke, however, we know there was more going on than a man being healed. Jesus was engaged in spiritual warfare with these demons, and like Elijah called on God in his battle with the prophets of Baal, there was no contest. The demons, even a legion of demons, had no power against Jesus.

Spiritual warfare was lived out in a very concrete and physical way in the contest between God and Baal and in the contest between Jesus and the legion of demons, and that spiritual warfare is still being lived out today. We talk about people fighting their inner demons, and we tend to mean people simply have struggles within themselves, and the stories of our faith tell us there truly are forces of darkness that assault us. An example of where I see the assaults of demons attacking humans is in the reaction of so many people to the oil leak in the Gulf.

I realize this is a touchy subject, and the fact that people are very upset is perfectly understandable. Folks are worried about jobs, worried about plant and animal life, worried about the economy. These are all justifiable concerns and worries. People’s anger and fear is totally understandable, and yet amidst all these worries and fears, there have been calls for murder. Folks have said that people from BP should kill themselves or that various politicians should kills themselves. Anger and frustration is one thing, but calls for murder and suicide, that’s something else entirely, perhaps even the influence of demons.

Demons have at times been personified as the darker aspects of humanity. That we become angry when tragedy strikes is understandable. That our anger can become so all consuming that we are blinded by it is perhaps us suffering from the attacks of demons. Perhaps at times we too, like the man from Gerasa whom Jesus healed, are assaulted by demons.

That’s part of why Jesus is our savior to drive away “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God.” You may have noticed I was quoting from one of the renunciations in the baptismal covenant. The other two things we renounce are “the evil powers of this world” and “all sinful desires.” I would include vengeance, hatred, self-righteousness as sinful desires and evil powers.

Healing, Death, and Trust in God

Brad Sullivan

Proper 5, Year C
Sunday, June 6th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
1 Kings 17:8-16
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17

What happens when we die? Why did Jesus heal the boy in this story? Was he showing compassion to a widow? Was he showing us his divine nature? Why don’t we still see healings like this in our world today? These are all questions that were raised for me in reading our Gospel story today. Looking first at the question about Jesus’ divine nature, then we look at the story, and if we believe Jesus was God, then his raising the boy to life in the story we heard today was in some ways no big deal. Jesus was God, of course he could raise this kid from the dead. At the time, of course, people didn’t believe Jesus was God. When he raised the boy, the people didn’t say, “look, there’s God.” They said, a “a mighty prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!”.


I’ve often heard folks comment on the people’s lack of understanding as to who Jesus was. “How could they not know Jesus was God? Look at what he did; he raised this boy from the dead.” Jesus’ miracles were the power of God being shown forth, but they were not obvious statements of Jesus’ divinity. The people’s belief that Jesus was a prophet, and not God was not because they were dim witted or unfaithful. Even after seeing him raise the widow’s son from the dead, the people had no reason to believe Jesus was God. Both Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead. They were both mighty prophets, and they both showed God’s favor to his people. So, the people’s response to Jesus raising the widow’s son from the dead was totally appropriate.

I find rather interesting the paradox, that the people, seeing Jesus raise the boy from the dead, were amazed and yet didn’t think Jesus was God. We, on the other hand because of our belief that Jesus was God, might find ourselves no longer amazed. This thought led me to one of my other questions, “why not now?” Why don’t we still see Jesus’ power to raise folks from the dead and to heal disease demonstrated in the world today, in the church? Didn’t Jesus give that power to the apostles? Shouldn’t it still be among us? Shouldn’t we be able to go to the healers whenever we’re sick and be healed just as readily and as surely as the boy in the story today?

If we look at the history of the prophets, and Jesus was a prophet, we find that God would show up occasionally with great power through a prophet. This was often done with the purpose of delivering his people from oppression or in order to call the people back to God. Why did the power of God manifest in the prophet not continue? Why did the miracles of Jesus not continue in an obvious way for all of his followers? Why do we still die and get sick? Why are we left feeling so powerless for so much of the time? Perhaps the power of God is a power too great for us to wield.

Imagine 12 people who were given God’s power to heal and to raise the dead. Those 12 would pass the power on, and pass it on, and pass it on. So there was always, throughout history, this group of people who had the power of God to perform miracles, to heal and raise the dead. Suppose people came to them to be healed and to raise the dead. If they said yes to everyone, then all they would do would be to heal and raise. People would clamor continuously for the miracles.

People might come to expect the miracles or demand them as a right. What if one of the healers ever refused? I can see that one being killed for the refusal. I can also see these healers being elevated as gods over the rest of us. Perhaps they would never be corrupted by this power, but we’ve seen far too many with far less power become corrupted far too often to believe that 12 people perpetually given the power of God would remain uncorrupted forever.

Further, when would the healing and life giving end? When people reached 120 years? 200? 900? Would people ever accept death as the natural end of life? Would we ever let go of life and trust in God?

Would these healers become those who determine when people live and when people die? You I’ll heal; you I won’t. You’ve lived long enough; you can keep going for a while. Might we end up hating the healers and God along with them because they didn’t bow to our every wish?

Perhaps, again, the power of God is too great a power for any human to wield for more than a very short time. We tend to want what we can’t have, dislike those who won’t give it to us, and all of this, largely due to our fear death and loss. Having healers like Jesus with us continually would not allay our fear of death and loss. It would simply put those fears off and possibly increase them over time.

Why, then, did Jesus exhibit his power over disease and death? I believe he did so, as did the prophets before him, to call the people back to God and to show the people who God is. Consider the words of today’s psalm: