Slow Down. Enjoy.

Brad Sullivan
Easter Vigil, Year B
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a
Genesis 22:1-18
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21
Isaiah 55:1-11
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10  

 Whew.  We made it.  Lent, Holy Week, the Vigil, and now, here we are.  Easter.  Jesus is risen from the tomb.  The long-awaited messiah has triumphed, defeating death itself and allowing us to share in that victory over death.  In the resurrection, Jesus showed himself to be more powerful than death, and through his death and resurrection, Jesus gives us the gift of reconciliation with God. 

Being an overly analytical, always questioning and wondering kind of guy, I can’t help but almost immediately wonder, “how’s that work?”  How does Jesus’ death and resurrection reconcile us to God?  I’m not questioning if it does, just wondering how exactly.  A few of us were in Bible study this morning, looking at a previous passage in Romans in which Paul state three different ways Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection reconcile us to God.  So, we were discussing these different understandings of how Jesus reconciled us to God, and at some point, we started thinking, “do we have to have it all figured out?” 

Can’t our reconciliation to God through Jesus kinda just be a mystery and we accept it and be glad?  Sermons are often the time when things are explained, but I was thinking that maybe this Easter, we could just accept our reconciliation to God through Jesus’ victory over death and be glad and thankful. 

That idea got me thinking about how much we do as Christians.  We are called to do.  We are called to action as Christians.  Those about to be baptized are first going to be asked to accept the beliefs of the church and accept our reconciliation to God by Jesus’ victory over death, and then, the baptismal candidates will basically be asked so what are you going to do about that. 

Those are good questions.  How are you going to live as a piece of the new creation, the resurrection life that Jesus has given?  How are you going to make your faith embodied in your actions?  How are you going to live out the God love life?

These are good questions that we need to address, and I encourage all of us to listen closely to the questions asked, “are you going to live the God love life?”, and I encourage us to listen to the answers given.  “I will with God’s help.”  We share in Jesus’ resurrection and live that out by partnering with God.   

So, then, having listened to questions asked of the baptismal candidates and the answers given by the baptismal candidates, I encourage us not to think too hard about what we’re going to do or how we’re going to live, at least for tonight and tomorrow.  Ideally we’ve just spent all of Lent examining how we live our lives.  For this Easter, let’s just enjoy the resurrection.

We know that Matthew’s gospel ends with Jesus’ command to his disciples to go and do, but tonight, we don’t hear that command.  Tonight, we just get to hear about Jesus’ victory over death.  Enjoy it.  Share it.  Soak up God’s love for us in becoming human, living with us, dying for us, and defeating death for us.   As Paul writes in Romans, chapter 8, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)  Rejoice, and enjoy God’s love for us in Jesus’ resurrection.  Amen.

All Shall Be Well

Brad Sullivan
Maundy Thursday, Year B
Thursday, April 5th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35   

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

I can’t help but think that is some of what Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples during their last Passover meal together, sitting in the upper room, sharing with them the bread and the wine, his body and blood, and washing their feet, commanding them finally to love one another.  Remarkably similar to the other commandments God gave, love God and love your neighbor, Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another.

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Jesus had already told his disciples that he was going to be killed; they had to be a little anxious about that.  As much as they tried to deny it, I’m guessing they knew by this point that Jesus pretty well knew what he was talking about.  So there had to be this fear and anxiety with them.  What was going to happen to Jesus?  What was going to happen to them?  What were they supposed to do once he was gone?  So Jesus tells them.  “Love one another.”

 (Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

I was talking with some clergy colleagues this week about Holy Week and one commented on how dark this week seemed for her.  There’s been a month of Lent and penitence, and now we basically have a whole week remembering God dying for our sake.  We have this time when we seem to focus on the fact that the world was so messed up that it took God dying to fix it.  Add to that the fact that we’re in this in between time.  The cure has begun with Jesus’ death and resurrection, and yet the final restoration of creation has yet to take place.  So talking together, this clergy colleague and I, we were getting a little down, thinking about all the bad things going on in the world.

And yet we have this hope, in Jesus’ resurrection, that despite all the bad things going on in the world, there is still a lot of good and beauty and love in the world.  The fact that God bothered dying to redeem the world tells us there is hope for the world yet.  The resurrection tells us that at least in God’s eyes,

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

So, like the disciples on the night of the last supper, we’re left in an in between time.  We’re left between Jesus’ resurrection and the final restoration of creation.  On the night of the last supper, Jesus’ disciples were left between Jesus’ proclamation that he would be killed and then on the third day, rise again, and the fulfillment of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  In this in between time, Jesus didn’t tell his disciples, “cure every illness; fix every problem.”  Jesus told disciples “love one another.” 

See each other, see people as human beings, as people with needs.  Sometimes we see others as those annoying things that are interfering with my life.  Jesus said to see people with compassion.  Loving people and seeing them with compassion, serve people as you can.  We’re not going to be able to fix every problem everyone has.  Jesus didn’t command his disciples to, and he isn’t commanding us to.  Jesus’ command is that we love one another. 

In this often crazy world, in this often anxious in between time in which we live, and we wonder, “what’s going to happen” and “what are we supposed to do,” Jesus commands us to love one another.

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  Amen.

The Cure Has Begun, and We Have Relapses

Brad Sullivan

4th Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 18^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21     

Back in college, I had some friends, who wore these t-shirts which read,“John 3:16...He did it!” I didn’t know what John 3:16 was. I knew it was something Bibley and Jesusy, but I didn’t know what it said. So, my friends quoted the passage to me, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

After finding out what John 3:16 was, I thought, “really,‘he did it!’ That’s your commentary on John 3:16,” but I found out that John 3:16 is something of a quentesential Christian passage. If you know John 3:6, then you’re Jesusy enough for anyone. It’s everywhere, on billboards, sports stadiums, Tim Teebo’s cheecks. John 3:16 is a favorite passage to sum up Christianity to let everyone know about the love of God.

Why in the world, then, are we hearing about this in the middle of Lent? Perhaps because just after John 3:16 we have John 3:17-20, which deals with God’s judgment of those who love darkness more than light. That sounds more like the Lent we’re all used to. Enough of this love stuff, let’s hear about God’s judgment, but God’s love involves judgment. God’s love is expressed in judgment and mercy.

In our reading from Numbers today, we have a story in which Israel sinned against God. So, God punished them, sending serpents to attack them. Then, God gave them a way out, a simple way out. Moses made a bronze serpent, and if ever a serpent bit someone, all that person had to do was look at the bronze serpent, and that person would live. There is no physical reason why that would work. It was a matter of faith, of remembering God and trusting in God, which was what the people were having a hard time with in the first place. God showed judged and mercy.

In Ephesians, we read that they / we were dead through our trespasses. Paul did not say, “you were doing just fine with some slight chastisement through your trespasses.” No. “You were dead through [your] trespasses and sins...”,and yet “by grace you have been saved.” Judgment and mercy are mingled together.

In the Gospel reading then too, we hear also of God’s judgment and mercy.“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” John 3:16. Mercy. Then, just a couple verses later, we have, “and this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” Judgment.

My wife has been leading a study of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia”for the last several weeks, and she reminded me of one particular scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which a young boy, Eustace, is turned into a dragon. Now, Eustace had been behaving rather terribly to everyone in the book up to this point. Then, Aslan, the Lion, the Jesus figure in these books, de-Dragons Eustace, turning him back into a boy. To do this, Aslan claws away at the dragon skin, a painful process, piercing down even to Eustace’s heart. Afterwards, C.S. Lewis writes,

It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy”. To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.

This would be a fairly accurate statement for all followers of Jesus. God has forgiven our sins. We’ve been washed clean, brought from darkness to light. We have relapses. The cure has begun. We all have light and darkness in us. We’re never without the darkness, and we often, if not always sink back into the darkness, and love overcomes the darkness.

Our reading from John today puts darkness and light into fairly stark, black and white terms. There are those who love the darkness, and there are those who love the light. His stark contrast made me think of political campaigns. Candidates paint their opponents as wholly evil, all that is wrong with America. Then, they describe themselves as the perfect cure for all that ails America. In reality, of course, none of the candidates are perfect or wholly evil. All of the candidates have some good points and some bad points.

When describing opposites, we tend to think in stark, black and white terms. We have to call evil out for what it is, we should also be aware that there is some good even in evil people and that all of us have some evil within us.

Even as followers of Christ, none of us loves light completely. None of us love darkness completely. We all love varying degrees of both darkness and light. As followers of Jesus, few of us are silly enough to think there is no darkness within us, and when we’re totally honest with ourselves, we know that we even relish some of the darkness within us.

Does this mean, then, that if we have some darkness within us and that if we love some of the darkness within us, that we “love darkness rather than light because [our] deeds are evil”? No. The fact that we have some darkness within us and that we love some of the darkness within us means, “the cure has begun, and we have relapses.”

Our challenge, even with darkness within us, is to love the light, and to come to the light so that our deeds may be exposed. Our evil deeds would be exposed right along with our good deeds. Now that sounds more like Lent.

That sounds like a rather frightening proposition, having our evil deeds exposed. Like Eustace being de-dragoned in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, having our evil deeds exposed by the light of Christ is painful. It is, however, a good kind of pain, a cleansing pain, and one which should not be avoided.

Fear of God due to our evil deeds need not keep us from the light because we know that we are not wholly evil. While there is darkness in us, there is also a lot of light in us. We also need not fear coming into the light because of God’s love for us. As we have seen in today’s readings, God’s love involved judgment, but it is judgment mixed with mercy.

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:17, 16) Amen.

So, What We Do Doesn't Matter?

Brad Sullivan

2nd Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 4^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38     

            Our Gospel for today certainly has taken on a bit of a Lenten tone.  Deny yourself.  Take up your cross.  This adulterous and sinful generation.  Adultery was common way of describing Israel’s unfaithfulness to their covenant with God.  So Jesus was calling out his generation of Israel as being unfaithful in their covenant with God.  This should be no big surprise to us.  Just last week, we heard the story of Jesus going to the Jordan river to be baptized by John.  John was calling all of Israel to repentance, to cleanse themselves, and renew their covenant faithfulness to God. 

            Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, however, that “it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all [Abraham’s] descendants, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham...” (Romans 4:16)  Previously in Romans, Paul writes “that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law...” (Romans 3:28)

            Is Paul saying that Jesus was wrong, that Israel didn’t need to have covenant faithfulness to the law to be right with God?  Is Paul saying that what we do doesn’t matter, that so long as we believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for our sins, then no matter what else we do, we’re right with God? 

            There are many who would misread Paul in this way.  There are those who would say Lent is a silly time when we deny ourselves good things and follow meaningless religious rules in order to justify ourselves before God.  Some would say we’re relying on our own actions, our own works rather than relying on faith in God.  They misunderstand what we’re doing and what Paul wrote.

            Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, not only to believe in him.  Jesus told his Jewish disciples that he expected them to keep covenant faithfulness to God by upholding the law of Moses.  People’s actions, what they did, was tied to their faith and tied to their being put right with God.

            Paul was not saying that what we do doesn’t matter.  Paul was telling gentile Christians that they didn’t have to keep the laws of Moses because they were gentiles.  Their faith in God was what mattered for them, not the laws of Moses.  Paul was also telling the Jewish Christians that keeping the law of Moses was given live through their faith in God. 

            In our context, without faith in God, giving up desert for Lent simply means you go without yummy desert for a month.  With faith in God, giving up desert for Lent is a way to refocus, to help us realize our desire for God and to help us take a good hard look at ourselves.  

            Are we an adulterous and sinful generation, like Jesus described his generation?  We’ve likely head arguments on both sides.  Some think we are, some think we aren’t.  Maybe we are, maybe not.  In either case, we have to deal honestly with our sin and take our sin seriously.

            God takes are sin seriously.  God is wrathful against our sin.  That’s why God chose to die, as a consequence for our sin.  God took his wrath against sin on himself, rather than on us.  So God’s wrath against sin is greatly to be feared.  God’s love for us, shown in his kindness by taking his own wrath upon himself, God’s love for us, is then to be remembered. 

            Does not God’s very love for us, the kindness that he showed, prove that what we do doesn’t matter?  By no means!  “God’s kindness,” Paul writes in Romans 2:4, “is meant to lead [us] to repentance”, not allow and excuse our behavior.  Paul even says that those who live as though what they do doesn’t matter are storing up wrath for themselves, that God repays everyone according to their deeds.

            Now I can hear questions already forming.  Did God die on the cross for our sins, or does God repay people according to their deeds?  Did God take his own wrath against sin, or is there still wrath building against sin since Jesus died on the cross?   Those are good questions, except they’re asked largely out of fear of punishment.

            Fear of punishment worries about the correct formula for sin and redemption in order to avoid punishment.  Fear is a motivator.  Fear of God’s wrath can bring us to repentance, but love is a better motivator.  Love brings us to repentance not out of fear of punishment, but out of love for God.

            Love doesn’t worry so much with the formula for sin and redemption.  Rather, love looks with gratitude at God’s kindness, taking his own wrath against our sin upon himself, and love looks seriously at one’s own sin and shortcomings, acknowledges them, and repents of them, not out of fear of punishment, but out of a desire to do less harm, more good, and to love more completely. 

            That’s why we have Lent, to take a good honest look at ourselves, to look with eyes of love, and to see how we might love God, love others, and love ourselves more completely.  It takes effort and soul searching.  It can be painful as we take seriously our own sin.  It can be a difficult process, and it is well worth the effort as we seek to do less harm, do more good, and love more completely.  We are all well worth the effort too. 

            Behind, in, and through Lent and any honest appraisal we make of our lives, is God’s great love for us.  In Jesus, God lived out the covenant faithfulness that Israel had not been able to do, that none of us could do, and so Jesus showed God’s love for us.  In Jesus, God took his own wrath against our sin upon himself, and showed God’s love for us.  In Jesus, God created the world anew, giving us a taste of the life to come in the resurrection, and by doing so, Jesus showed God’s love for us.

            And so with this backdrop of God’s great love for us, we hear Jesus’ words.  “Deny yourself.”  “Take up your cross.”  We even hear Jesus say, “this adulterous and sinful generation.”  In these words, we hear God, who loves us enough to die for us, calling us to repentance.  We hear Jesus calling us to leave behind those parts of our lives which lead us to harming others and ourselves.  We hear Jesus calling us to put to death those parts of our lives which lead us to harm others and ourselves.  We hear Jesus calling us to love more completely, with the full assurance of God’s complete love for us, that God can cover our shortcomings and our failings. 

            “Deny yourself.”  “I love you.”  “Take up your cross.”  “I love you.”  “This adulterous and sinful generation.”  “I love you.”  Amen.

Brad Sullivan
4th Lent, Year B
Sunday, March 18^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Numbers 21:4-9
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
Ephesians 2:1-10
John 3:14-21     

            Back in college, I had some friends, who wore these t-shirts which read, “John 3:16...He did it!”  I didn’t know what John 3:16 was.  I knew it was something Bibley and Jesusy, but I didn’t know what it said.  So, my friends quoted the passage to me, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

            After finding out what John 3:16 was, I thought, “really, ‘he did it!’  That’s your commentary on John 3:16,” but I found out that John 3:16 is something of a quentesential Christian passage.  If you know John 3:6, then you’re Jesusy enough for anyone.  It’s everywhere, on billboards, sports stadiums, Tim Teebo’s cheecks.  John 3:16 is a favorite passage to sum up Christianity to let everyone know about the love of God.
            Why in the world, then, are we hearing about this in the middle of Lent?  Perhaps because just after John 3:16 we have John 3:17-20, which deals with God’s judgment of those who love darkness more than light.  That sounds more like the Lent we’re all used to.  Enough of this love stuff, let’s hear about God’s judgment, but God’s love involves judgment.  God’s love is expressed in judgment and mercy. 
            In our reading from Numbers today, we have a story in which Israel sinned against God.  So, God punished them, sending serpents to attack them.  Then, God gave them a way out, a simple way out.  Moses made a bronze serpent, and if ever a serpent bit someone, all that person had to do was look at the bronze serpent, and that person would live.  There is no physical reason why that would work.  It was a matter of faith, of remembering God and trusting in God, which was what the people were having a hard time with in the first place.  God showed judged and mercy. 
            In Ephesians, we read that they / we were dead through our trespasses.  Paul did not say, “you were doing just fine with some slight chastisement through your trespasses.”  No.  “You were dead through [your] trespasses and sins...”, and yet “by grace you have been saved.”  Judgment and mercy are mingled together.   
            In the Gospel reading then too, we hear also of God’s judgment and mercy.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  John 3:16.  Mercy.  Then, just a couple verses later, we have, “and this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.”  Judgment.
            My wife has been leading a study of C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” for the last several weeks, and she reminded me of one particular scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which a young boy, Eustace, is turned into a dragon.  Now, Eustace had been behaving rather terribly to everyone in the book up to this point.  Then, Aslan, the Lion, the Jesus figure in these books, de-Dragons Eustace, turning him back into a boy.  To do this, Aslan claws away at the dragon skin, a painful process, piercing down even to Eustace’s heart.  Afterwards, C.S. Lewis writes,

It would be nice, and fairly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy”.  To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy.  He had relapses.  There were still many days when he could be very tiresome.  But most of those I shall not notice.  The cure had begun.

            This would be a fairly accurate statement for all followers of Jesus.  God has forgiven our sins.  We’ve been washed clean, brought from darkness to light.  We have relapses.  The cure has begun.  We all have light and darkness in us.  We’re never without the darkness, and we often, if not always sink back into the darkness, and love overcomes the darkness.
            Our reading from John today puts darkness and light into fairly stark, black and white terms.  There are those who love the darkness, and there are those who love the light.  His stark contrast made me think of political campaigns.  Candidates paint their opponents as wholly evil, all that is wrong with America.  Then, they describe themselves as the perfect cure for all that ails America.  In reality, of course, none of the candidates are perfect or wholly evil.  All of the candidates have some good points and some bad points. 
            When describing opposites, we tend to think in stark, black and white terms.  We have to call evil out for what it is, we should also be aware that there is some good even in evil people and that all of us have some evil within us. 
            Even as followers of Christ, none of us loves light completely.  None of us love darkness completely.  We all love varying degrees of both darkness and light.  As followers of Jesus, few of us are silly enough to think there is no darkness within us, and when we’re totally honest with ourselves, we know that we even relish some of the darkness within us. 
            Does this mean, then, that if we have some darkness within us and that if we love some of the darkness within us, that we “love darkness rather than light because [our] deeds are evil”?  No.  The fact that we have some darkness within us and that we love some of the darkness within us means, “the cure has begun, and we have relapses.”
            Our challenge, even with darkness within us, is to love the light, and to come to the light so that our deeds may be exposed.  Our evil deeds would be exposed right along with our good deeds.  Now that sounds more like Lent.
            That sounds like a rather frightening proposition, having our evil deeds exposed.  Like Eustace being de-dragoned in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, having our evil deeds exposed by the light of Christ is painful.  It is, however, a good kind of pain, a cleansing pain, and one which should not be avoided. 
             Fear of God due to our evil deeds need not keep us from the light because we know that we are not wholly evil.  While there is darkness in us, there is also a lot of light in us.  We also need not fear coming into the light because of God’s love for us.  As we have seen in today’s readings, God’s love involved judgment, but it is judgment mixed with mercy. 

God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:17, 16)

Amen.

All to All - Loving God

Kelsey Harmon

5th After the Epiphany, Year B

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Emmanuel, Houston

Isaiah 40:21-31

Psalm 147:1-12, 21c

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Mark 1:29-39

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

    I have never given a sermon before, so bear with me, and I hope you all enjoy it. I am basing my sermon after a reading from first Corinthians, in which Paul is writing a letter to the church he created in Corinth.

Paul was told by God to go out and spread the gospel, and Paul had no problem in doing so. I believe he felt honored to do as God told him. Paul is now an apostle, who is writing a letter to his church to instruct them on how he was successful in creating the church there, partly because they’re having concerns of whether he is an apostle or not.      Paul doesn’t ask for a reward after preaching the gospel. Which, to me at first didn’t sound so surprising, I mean why would he? but that’s what  made people question Paul’s actually being an apostle. Preaching and not to getting a reward, people thought that was suspicious. But he was an apostle, because God came to him and sent him to share and spread the gospel. I think rather than a physical, monetary reward, Paul felt incredible inside with self-assurance.  He had a good feeling inside for doing as God told him.

God will not love us any more than anyone else if we proclaim the gospel, but he will not neglect us either.  Being a Christian, a follower of God, It’s not a pyramid where we’re trying to get to the top and then become God’s favorite.  There’s no game of favorites with God. Following God consists of what we think of ourselves and how we feel inside. Sucking up to a teacher may get a student a good grade, but God is not that teacher.  He is a teacher, but not that teacher. The reward Paul receives is knowing he did the right thing by obeying God. 

We do things our family or friends ask of us because we love our family.  I care what they think of me, I don’t want to disappoint them, for their sake.  God cares for us. So I think of how Paul responds to God’s request as how we relate to our families, it’s similar, we and Paul do as God would do asks us to do because it is the right thing. 

The other thing Paul said in his letter is that he became all things to all people.  I like to think of it as not just being a part of one clique at school, but all cliques, thus, making the barriers not in existence. Numerous people are friendly towards everyone. Therefore, they are liked by most, similar to Paul. Paul didn’t become like a Jew to make fun of the Jewish culture, not to be hypocritical, but rather to embrace other people and show his respect to them. He wasn’t disguising himself by surrounding himself with so many different kinds of people.

If my friends like country music, I’ll listen to it and like it if I wish to do so. I won’t pretend to like it.  A high school student who is all to all (traverses cliques) might do so to have more friends, to be on friendly terms with more people, to have more unity among the people of the school.

Paul too, changed how he was with different people. Paul was gifted with the fact that he was open-minded enough to approach so many different kinds of people.  Paul shared the Gospel’s blessings.  He thought he’d be closer to the people of God by sharing the Gospel.  He’d be a happier person and so share more in the blessings of the Gospel.  He’s not doing it for the money or for the attention. He’s doing it for God and the Gospel. 

Paul asked for no reward because he didn’t feel like it’d be the right thing to do. Paul lived be two rules…LOVE God and LOVE your neighbor. and that’s why he went out to share the gospel with all his neighbors. I am not saying we must all go out and force God’s word onto everyone we encounter with bullhorns in our hands, but just to love God and our neighbors. 

Knowing God, the Gospel, God’s love and redemption of the world, and coming into relationship with God through the gospel was salvation for Paul.  That was Paul’s reward.  That’s all he wanted. That’s why he was all to all, to help bring the gospel to people in order to bring them to God.  Amen.

Sabbath - Drawing Near to God

Brad Sullivan
5th After the Epiphany, Year B
Sunday, February 5^th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39     

    Did you notice how little healing Jesus did on the sabbath?  I realize there was a bit of controversy through Jesus’ ministry about his healing on the sabbath, but at least on this particular sabbath, he only healed two people.  There was the man in the synagogue we heard about last week who had the unclean spirit, and Jesus healed him.  Then, today, there was Simon’s mother-in-law.  Jesus didn’t heal anyone else until after sundown, until after the sabbath was over. 

            What was he doing the rest of the sabbath?  We know from last week that he taught in the synagogue, and from today, we know he went home with Simon and Andrew.  Presumably, he spent the rest of the time resting, keeping God’s law and observing the Sabbath. 
            The point I’m making is, Jesus would break the Sabbath if there was a need right there in front of him.  He’d heal on the Sabbath, but he didn’t go out looking to do so.  His Sabbath goal was Sabbath rest to honor God.  Drawing near to God was primary for Jesus, in his own life and in his teaching.
            Teaching this message of drawing near to God was Jesus’ primary ministry.  The morning after Jesus healed many in Capernaum, hid disciples wanted him to heal others, but Jesus said, “"Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."  Jesus came out to proclaim the message, "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news," which we heard earlier in Mark’s gospel. (Mark 1:15)
            In last week’s lesson, the people were astounded at Jesus’ teaching...even casting out the demon they called a new teaching, with authority.  Jesus’ message, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news,” was Jesus’ main focus.  He healed as well, out of love, but he didn’t let that get him side tracked, away from proclaiming the message.  He didn’t let the fame and adoration of the people stop him from proclaiming his message.  “Draw near to God,” Jesus said.  Not, “love me,” in an egocentric, cult of personality kind of way. 
            Draw near to God was also how Jesus lived.  First thing in the morning, after teaching and doing all these healings in Capernaum, Jesus went off by himself to have some time alone with God.  More important than being healed, more important than fame or glory, at least in Jesus’ mind, is drawing near to God. 
            As we heard in Isaiah, fame and power and glory are nothing.  “[God] brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.  Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.”  In other words, the great and powerful are still just people, and they will grow old weary and die, just like everyone else.  “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8)
            “Even youths will faint and be weary...” Sorry to bring that up on youth service Sunday, but, as Isaiah points out, “Even youths will faint and be weary and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength.” 
            I was at a church conference some years back and heard tell of a pastor who never took a day off.  He worked 7 days a week, every week.  When asked about this, he said, “Satan doesn’t take a day off, so neither will I.”  Really, so you want Satan to be the model for you life?  Jesus took a day off.  Heck, even God took a day off. 
            So, following God’s command, God’s way of life, Jesus knew he needed time to reconnect to God.  Jesus knew he needed Sabbath rest.  Jesus knew that being with God was the deepest desire of his heart.  Jesus longed for God.  He hungered and thirsted for God.  This was not just because Jesus was God.  Jesus longed for God because he was human.
            “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.” (Psalm 25:4)  “For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly my hope is in him.” (Psalm 62:6)  Jesus knew and lived and taught the truth of these words.  The truth of these words took primacy even to his healings and miracles.  The healings and miracles showed his power and love, and they may wow us, but his message was primary. 
            Repent and draw near to God, for the kingdom of God has come near.  How near?  The kingdom of God is among us and within us.  All we must do is turn around, over and over again, and draw near to God.  Slow down.  Stop.  Take Sabbath time and draw near to God.  First thing in the morning.  Last thing in the evening.  Throughout the day.  Pray.  Rest.  Renew your strength.  That’s Jesus’ primary message.  Find your true self as you reconnect to God, and then live out the life you have found.  Amen.