I want vengeance...and peace.

Brad Sullivan
3 Advent, Year C
Sunday, December 16, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Canticle 9
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

“How long, O Lord?  How long? Will you forget me for ever?  How long will you hide your face from me?"  "How long, O Lord, will you look on?" (Psalms 13:1 and 35:17)   Before Friday, I was looking ahead with joy at the thought of God’s kingdom coming fully.  I was excited about God’s final restoration of creation, and realizing I’ll likely have to wait for it, I was ok with waiting. 

Then I heard about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and part of me was no longer ok with waiting.  Rather than looking ahead with joy at the coming of God’s kingdom, part of me now I struggles with frustration that it hasn’t already come…blaming God for humanity’s faults, maybe? 

We are still waiting.  We’re waiting for violence to end.  We’re waiting for the restoration of creation for the end of all sin, all unrighteousness, all harm, suffering, and death.  How long, O Lord?  John the Baptist said the coming of God’s kingdom involves wrath, and at times like these we can see why.  At times like these, I think, come on, God, bring on your wrath.  Bring on the judgment, and get your kingdom going already.  Just end the suffering and the heartache. 

That’s an ok way to feel for now.  Right now we are in pain, in shock.  We mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep, and we wonder, “how long?”  Jesus may even wonder, “how long?” as he mourns and weeps with us, as he mourns and weeps with the families of the victims. 

Over the weekend, Rabbi Shaul Praver of Temple Adath Israel in Newtown, Connecticut was interviewed about being there with families of the victims on Friday.  The interviewer asked how he responds when people inevitably ask why these things happen.  Rabbi Praver responded:

Yeah, I don’t know the answer to that.  I never try to present a theological answer to that.  I think that it’s more important just to have compassion and humanity and hold someone’s hand and hug them and cry with them.  I never liked answers, theological answers for things like that, personally, when I lost people that I love as well.  So, I don’t try to solve it like some kind of a math equation or anything like that.  (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/15/167321212/difficult-days-ahead-for-for-town-in-wake-of-shooting)

I suppose God could answer our question and give us a date so we would know how it will be until his kingdom comes, but rather than simply give us calendar updates, God chose to be with us as we wait.  Rather than simple answers, God has given us compassion and love.

What, then, are we supposed to do in the mean time?  That was the question people asked John the Baptist after his exhortation and call to repentance.  “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Even Now, the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:7, 9).  The people then asked, “What should we do?”  The answer, one might think would be to perform herculean feats of generosity and kindness with wrath to come and the ax lying at the root of the trees, but that’s not what John told the people.

Our feats needn’t be herculean.  Go, be kind, honest, and generous was basically John’s answer.  “If you have two coats,” John said, “give one of them away.”  He didn’t say give both of them away and go live in a gutter somewhere.  You get to keep one of your coats.  Share your food with people who don’t have enough to eat.  Don’t starve yourself, still eat, just share what you’ve got.  Be satisfied with what you’ve got and don’t cheat people what they have in order to get more.  

Go, be kind, honest, and generous.  Maybe unsurprisingly, the answer to the question, “what should we do?” is the same for us as it was for John’s listeners.  Go, be kind, honest, and generous.  Love deeply.  Share what you have with others.  Keep your hearts full of compassion, mercy, and love.  Mourn with those who mourn.  Weep with those who weep.  “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

Pray.  Pray daily, multiple times a day for the families of the children who were killed.  Pray for the children, for God to hold them in his arms.  Pray even for the man who did this.  Right now, I don’t even like saying that, much less doing it.  I’m sad, and I’m angry, and not even knowing anyone involved, I want vengeance on the man responsible.  Regardless of the fact that he’s dead, I want vengeance. 

Even so, over time, I have to let that go, lest it consume me and the darkness overtake me.  Let the anger and sadness happen.  Let any desires for vengeance happen.  Let them happen, and then let them go. 

What are we to do in the face of such evil as the killing of innocent children?  As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.  Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  (Romans 12:9-14)

We cry until we laugh.  We cry how long, O Lord, until we can laugh, rejoicing in hope.  Then, we remember the command of Jesus to his disciples.  "Love one another, as I have loved you."  The greatest command we have been given is to love each other.  The greatest way to combat evil is to love.  Light casts out darkness.  Love overcomes despair, hatred, and evil.  So love deeply.  Go, be kind, honest, and generous.  Mourn with those who mourn, weep with those who weep.  Cry till we laugh.  Pray.  Constantly pray.  Pray for those who are suffering.  Pray that love among us may increase.  Pray that God will create in us clean hearts, that we may be light bearers, casting out darkness and bringing his love to others.  Amen.

Selves, Souls, & Bodies

Brad Sullivan
2 Advent, Year C
Sunday, December 9, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Malachi 3:1-4
Canticle 4 / 16
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
         

 “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”  I’m about to ask that question to the parents and godparents of Holly Davant who is being baptized today.  “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child grow into the full stature of Christ?”  As I was thinking about the readings for this week, that question kept popping into my head, and looked in the prayer book so I could get the exact quote for the sermon, and I couldn’t find it.  That’s because I was looking in the ordination service rather than the baptismal service.

It seemed to me like a priestly kind of question, and I realized that is really is.  “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child grow into the full stature of Christ?”  That’s what priests do isn’t it?  We pray for folks and on behalf of folks, and we try to be a witness to people through our life and ministry to help folks grow into the full stature of Christ, to help folks become disciples of Jesus.  So in the baptismal promises, we make a priestly promise. 

In his first letter, St. Peter calls all of us priests: “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5)  What does Peter mean that we are to offer spiritual sacrifices to God as a holy priesthood?

In ancient Israel, the priests literally offered sacrifices to God on behalf of the people of Israel, offering burnt offerings of animals and grain on the altar.  This was the way priests interceded for people.  If you needed to give thanks to God or say you’re sorry to God, you would pray on your own, but you would also bring sacrifices for the priests to offer on your behalf.  Before they could offer these sacrifices, the priests had to be made holy, to be set apart from the people and have various ritual cleansings.

This brings us to our first reading today from Malachi.  God was sending his messenger to prepare the way before him, and he was going to purify the priests so they could present offerings to the Lord on behalf of the people.  Israel had been in captivity and was returning to God, becoming his people again, and they needed to be reformed as his people.  So, God was sending his messenger and purifying the priests in order to prepare his way into the midst of the people of Israel.

Then, centuries later, John the Baptist came, who was also preparing the way of the Lord, except John wasn’t purifying priests.  He was purifying anyone and everyone.  John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  If you want to be forgiven, change your ways, wash, and be made clean.  John wasn’t purifying the priests so that they would make Israel holy.  John was purifying the people of Israel so that they would, by how they lived their lives, be made holy.

How is it, then, that we are considered a holy priesthood?  Through Baptism and amendment of life, God makes us holy, but what sacrifices do we offer a holy priesthood?  In the beginning of Isaiah, the prophet is speaking for God, telling Israel exactly what kind of sacrifices he wants.

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?  Says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts…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. (Isaiah 1:11, 16-17)

That sounds a lot like what John was saying.  Wash yourselves and amend your lives, because what are the sacrifices God wants from us?  Our lives, well lived.  Our lives themselves are our sacrifices to God.  Our deeds, the way we treat ourselves and each other are our sacrifices to God.  As we state in the Eucharistic prayers in Rite One, “and here we offer unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee”.  We all serve God as priests, offering our daily lives to him, our lives well lived.  We serve as priests by praying for and on behalf of others, and we serve God as priests by helping others to be disciples of Jesus, to grow into the full stature of Christ.

So then, how do we prepare for this priestly ministry?  How do we prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight?  I’d say we prepare ourselves in about the same way we prepare for a party.  There are a lot of parties going on this time of year:  church Christmas parties, work Christmas parties, school Christmas parties, and when we prepare for a party, we often start by cleaning up a bit. 

At least with two small boys, that’s what we do in my house.  Things get a bit messy, so we need to clean up a bit.  In our lives as well, we tend to get messy.  We live in ways we know aren’t quite how God intends for us to live.  We do things that, in the long run, make life harder on us but that seem like a good idea at the time.  So our lives get messy, and we tend to get comfortable with a certain amount of mess.  When God is coming, however, we might want to clean up some of that mess so that we might enjoy his company even more when the party starts. 

Does this mean we’re trying to hide our mess from God or be fake with God?  Not at all.  It’s not as though we’re trying to clean up the mess so God doesn’t know there ever was a mess.  God already knows.  God knows better that we do what kind of messes we make.  So, when we’re preparing our lives for God to be with us, step one is to ask God to help us clean up our mess.    

We ask God to help us align our lives with the way of live he has given us.  We ask God to help us align our lives with God’s life of love.  We ask God to help us follow his commandments and his way, that we might love others more fully and do less harm that we would not following in God’s way. 

We’re wanting to get our paths to line up with God’s path, to be in sync with God, smoothing out the paths of our lives so we’re not constantly bumping up against each other, but walking in step together.  When we do that, when we’re walking in step and in sync with God, then living our lives as priests is easy.  When we’re in sync with God, our prayers and witness will certainly help others grow into the full stature of Christ as disciples of Jesus. 

So now in our season of preparation, and really throughout our lives, we’re reminded to clean up some of the mess of our lives.  We’re reminded to ask God to help us to clean up the mess in our lives, so that we may walk in step with God, making his paths straight, and living as a holy priesthood, helping each other, by our prayers and witness grow into the full stature of Christ.  Amen.

We've Got Some Storytelling to Do

Brad Sullivan
1 Advent, Year C
Sunday, December 2, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-9
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

Today, we heard Jesus talking about the coming of the Son of Man, what the signs will be, and the fear and foreboding that will accompany these signs.  There has been an interminable amount of speculation as to what these signs will be or when Jesus will be returning.  Some really bad movies have been made either about the coming of Jesus or about the end of the world, books have been written, the History channel has put out some shows on it, and zealots have convinced their followers that they knew the exact date when the end would come.  Some have used math, some have used world affairs, and some have just taken crazy pills all in order to try to determine when Jesus will be returning. 

There seems to be a tremendous amount of anxiety over the second coming of Jesus.  People have shouted for centuries “the end is near” and “repent, for the end is upon us”.  I was a part of a Bible study in which the participants each discussed our understanding of the second coming.  I presented the idea of looking forward to Jesus’ second coming and the final restoration of creation, and there was some surprise at taking a hopeful view of Jesus’ coming.

There’s some fear and trembling with the coming of Jesus, no question.  When the God of all creation comes to redeem his creation from sin and death, one can’t help but tremble.  In our story, however, Jesus’ coming is a good thing.  What did Jesus say?  “When these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21).  In our story, Jesus’ coming is a good thing.  The frantic terror and anxiety, which is often included in talking about Jesus’ coming is not a part of our story.    

This is our story.  Jesus’ second coming, the redemption of the world and restoration of creation, the final victory of God over death, the banishment of sin and unrighteousness, all of these are our story.  Too often, these things have been other people’s stories, and too often other people have not told these stories very well. 

Thanks to the doomsday predictions of Harold Camping and others like him, people who believe in and anticipate the second coming of Jesus are seen as more than a little bit kooky.  They’ve been the ones telling our story for too long.  To be fair, they are faithful followers of Jesus, and it’s their story too.  I just don’t think they tell the story very well.  They know the stories.  They just don’t tell them very well.

We, on the other hand, could tell these stories great, if we just knew them.  I bet most of us know the story of the prodigal son which Jesus told, but are we especially familiar with the Gospel story we heard today about the Son of Man coming on the clouds?

We know “The Lord is my shepherd…”, but do we know Daniel 7:13-14,

As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven.  And he came to the Ancient One …To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

            We may think we know about end times prophecy.  From Isaiah 13:9-10,

See, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger…For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

That’s the stuff.  That’s the kind of end times terror we’re used to hearing, but are we also familiar with Isaiah 40:1-2, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”   

The stories of the prophets, the stories of judgment and of restoration, the stories of the end and of a new beginning are all our stories.  Maybe they’re foreign to us.  Maybe they’re well known, but they need to be told and re-told among us, and they need to be told to others by us.  We need to reclaim our narrative as a message of hope and do some good storytelling.

We do this kind of thing all the time.  When we gather with family and friends, we tell stories of our lives together.  We tell stories of good times we’ve had together.  We tell stories of our loved ones who have died or moved away.  We tell stories of the good times and the bad times, stories of our life together.  That’s what these stories from scripture are, our stories of our family. 

There are good times and there are bad times.  There are stories we love to remember and stories we’d probably rather forget, but overall, ours is a story of hope.  Stories of the second coming of Jesus are stories of hope.

There’s judgment to be sure, but why would that bother us?  We tend not to like it when we see children spoiled by their parents and never disciplined.  Why would we want anything different from God?  There’s plenty of bad stuff in the world, and if we’re honest, there’s plenty of bad stuff within each of us.  Why would we not want God to deal with that?  Jesus is coming again to complete his work, to destroy sin, to destroy unrighteousness, to swallow up death forever.  Jesus is coming again to restore all things, to make all things new.  “…stand up and raise your heads,” Jesus said, “because your redemption is drawing near.”

That’s our story.  That’s the story we need to tell to a world hungry for hope.  That’s the story we need to tell to people who are hungry and thirsty for God.  That’s the story we need to tell this Advent, as we prepare for Christmas and as we prepare for Jesus’ return.

Now, we don’t believe that Jesus is necessarily returning right away or even anytime soon.  Advent is our annual season of preparation, our annual reminder that we should always be preparing for Jesus’ return, but how do we prepare?  Well, what did Jesus say about preparing for his coming? 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.”  Ok, so don’t be drunk all the time.  Don’t be hopeless, and despondent, and worried about life.  In other words, live in hope.  Live joyfully.  Don’t worry.       

The end may come in a billion years.  The end may come in a second and a half.  In the mean time, there’s a whole lot of living to do.  We sing “Joy to the Word” when we remember Jesus’ first coming among us.  Wouldn’t we sing the same song when considering his second coming?  The Jesus who came among us the first time is the same Jesus who will come among us the second time.

We prepare for Jesus’ second coming by living our lives.  We prepare during this season of Advent by living joyfully and peacefully, with prayer, hope, service to others, and hearts full of love, and by telling our story over and over again, with hope and excitement, and joy.  Amen.

Making Music - Christ The King

Brad Sullivan
Proper 29, Year B
Sunday, November 25, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-13 [14-19]
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

I used to hate playing guitar.  I liked the idea of it, and I wanted to be a great guitar player.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good and so I didn’t like playing.  My desire was simply to be great, and since I wasn’t great, I was a constant failure.  I couldn’t mess up or make mistakes if I was going to be great, and I couldn’t enjoy playing because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do…didn’t even have a clue how to get there.  So, I stopped playing.  Finally, after years of hardly playing, I realized what I truly wanted was to make music.  I didn’t have to be great to make music. 

I could mess up a lot and still make music.  No one else might have wanted to hear it, but I enjoyed it.  Mediocre and halting as it may have been, I began playing almost every day simply out of a desire to play and make music.  I loved it.  I wasn’t great.  I’m still not great, and it doesn’t matter.  Playing and practice isn’t drudgery.  It’s joyous because whenever I play, I get to make music.  When I mess up or get to something I don’t know how to do, I can take a lesson or ask someone for some help and try again.  Perfection is not important.  The beauty of making music is.

The perfection of Jesus’ kingdom is rather unattainable.  Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world.  In Jesus’ kingdom, there is no unrighteousness, no evil, bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, or malice. (Ephesians 4:31)  Considering that there is a lot of those things in this world, the thought of Jesus’ kingdom can be somewhat threatening. 

Even during Jesus’ days on earth, people were threatened by him.  Feeling that Jesus was trying to be king of Israel, the religious and governing rulers of Israel were threatened by him.  Rome was threatened by him.  To be fair, they didn’t much care if he was king or not, but he did mean insecurity and unrest in Israel and therefore he was a threat to the Pax Romana.  Rulers of this world thought Jesus was a threat to them and so they crucified him.  They just couldn’t handle him being around.

Of course, Jesus is also a threat to us in as much as we want to rule our own lives.  Jesus can be a threat to us when we want to rule our own lives in our own way, so much so even that at times, we might want to crucify him too…or at least get him to stop bothering us with his truth to which he wants us to listen.  Jesus’ way is hard, and he can be such a killjoy at times with all his, live righteously talk.  Jesus’ and his kingdom can feel threatening, but only when we see living in his kingdom as some call to perfection to which we cannot measure up.

In Jesus’ kingdom, there is no unrighteousness, no sin, no evil, no malice, or bitterness, etc, but Jesus’ kingdom isn’t fully here yet. 

Jesus’ kingdom coming – “…the heart of the earth’s inhabitants shall be changed and converted to a different spirit.  For evil shall be blotted out, and deceit shall be quenched; faithfulness shall flourish, and corruption shall be overcome, and the truth, which has been so long without fruit, shall be revealed.” (Esdras 6:26-28)  Esdras speaks of God making two worlds, the world that is and the world that is to come.  Jesus is king of the world to come.  In the mean time, Jesus is still king for us, and we’re asked to be his followers…more than that, his stewards.

We’re stewards of Jesus’ kingdom until it arrives.  As such, we needn’t wait for him to arrive to live righteously.  We know we’re not going to be perfectly righteous, but we’re not going it alone.  We act with God’s help, and God gives us the ability to live righteously and to seek forgiveness and amendment of life when we don’t.  As it is written in Ecclesiasticus, “If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.  [God] has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.” (Sirach 15:15-16)  With God’s help, we can choose life.  We can follow the commandments of God, living God’s life of love.

As stewards of Jesus’ kingdom until he comes again, we are called to live God’s life of love.  Imagine life without hatred, without fear, without anger, jealousy, malice, bitterness, etc.  Imagine such a life, and then live as though it were true.  I don’t think any of us, in our heart of hearts wants to hold on to bitterness, anger, fear, unrighteousness, etc.  It’s just hard to believe we can live without those things.

Yet Jesus tells us that to live in his kingdom, we should cut of our hands and pluck out our eyes if they cause us to sin.  Once again, I’m going with metaphor and hyperbole on that teaching and would say, “If you want to be who you want to be, you have to give up who you are.” 

There is no unrighteousness, in Jesus’ kingdom, so to live in Jesus’ kingdom, we would need to rid ourselves of those things.  Remove the anger, slander, envy, fear, bitterness, malice, etc, from you, Jesus is saying, and live as though my kingdom were already here, with my help. 

We’re not going to be perfect in this endeavor, but so what.  We don’t have to be perfect.  Perfection is not our goal.  Life in God’s kingdom is our goal.  I hated practicing guitar so long as my goal was to be great.  I wasn’t great, therefore I hated playing.  Finally my goal became making music.  Now I love playing guitar. 

If goal is to be sinless, to be perfect, then living as stewards of God’s kingdom is burdensome, because we will never be good enough and will always berate ourselves.  If, on the other hand, our goal is to live beautifully, live well a life as a steward of God’s kingdom, then we can find beauty in such a life, because we do have the ability to do so.  We can choose life.  We can follow God’s way.  We can live with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22)  We won’t be perfect, we’ll play some wrong notes along the way, but then we’ll seek God’s help, we’ll take some more lessons, and we’ll seek to play better next time.

  Even though Jesus kingdom is not of this world but of the world to come, we can still live into his kingdom if we want to.  Jesus’ kingdom is the kingdom of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, forgiveness and self-control.  We belong to his kingdom anytime we listen to his truth and live according to the way of his kingdom.  Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world but of the world to come, and yet but Jesus came to this world to testify to the truth, and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to [his] voice. (John 18)  We don’t listen to his voice in order to be great or perfect, but in order to enjoy making music, to live beautifully with peace and love.  Amen.

Believing is Seeing - All Saints' Sunday

Brad Sullivan
All Saints’ Sunday, Year B
Thursday, November 4, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

“It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.  This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)  Isaiah gives us beautiful images of God’s victory over death, when God will swallow up death for ever and wipe away every tear.  On All Saints’ Day and All Saints’ Sunday, we’re celebrating God’s victory over death, celebrating the promises that God has given us. 

We’re celebrating the lives of the saints, both those who are models for the church and those who are models only for us, our loved ones who have died and yet are alive in the Lord.  We’re celebrating God’s victory over death in them…and we’re waiting.

On Thursday, All Saints’ Day, I addressed these same readings with this idea of waiting for God.  We’re waiting for God’s ultimate victory over death.  God’s already won that victory in Jesus’ resurrection, but we’re still waiting for its final inauguration.  We’re still waiting for the day of joy and gladness which Isaiah describes. 

Martha and Mary were waiting for Jesus to come heal their brother Lazarus, and Jesus, it turns out, was waiting for Lazarus to die in order not to heal him, but to raise him from the dead, to show us that God really is more powerful than death.  It seems that Jesus was also often waiting for Mary and Martha to trust in him. 

When Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days,” Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  Trust in me, Jesus was saying.  Trust in me, Jesus is still saying.  Trust in me, and if you can’t, I’ll wait for you until you can.  Much of scripture refers to us waiting on God, but there is also much that speaks of God’s patience, God waiting on us, God’s patience and steadfast love for us.

Then we also have the idea of us waiting to see our loved ones again.  When our loved ones die, we believe they are alive with God in Christ, and we believe we will be reunited with them as we are fully united with God.  Might, then, they also be waiting for us.  Might the saints of our lives be waiting for us with as much anticipation and excitement as we are waiting for them?  Might they, with us and God together all be waiting for God’s final victory over death? 

I love that thought, that we’re all together, bound with God in Christ.  Our loved ones are alive with God in Christ, and we are made one with God in Christ.  While we’re waiting for the day which Isaiah describes, we’re also already one with our loved ones, one with the saints because we are one with Jesus.  That was his prayer to his disciples, that they would be one, just as the Father and he are one. 

We have these wonderful promises from Jesus, and yet, how do we know these promises are true?  Doubt is something with which many of us wrestle. Like Martha and Mary, we find disappointment in our lives and sometimes we may wonder if God’s final victory over death really is true.  How do we know?  Well, in any scientifically provable way, we don’t know.  We don’t.  We believe, and we let that belief to be real enough to change our lives. 

Our belief colors the world in which we live.  In one world, there is no resurrection, no life after death, no ultimate victory of God.  In another world, there is resurrection, there is life after death, and there is God’s ultimate victory.  I don’t know in a scientifically provable way which world is true, but I do know in which world I’d rather live.  I know the hope, and peace, and courage which believing gives me.  I don’t know, but I believe.  Some of us have family and friends who no longer believe.  Perhaps the death of a loved one is what led that person not to believe.  Maybe talking about our belief not as knowledge but as belief which gives hope, peace, and courage is a way we can explain our faith to those who don’t share it.

Believing that we truly are one with the saints and one with God can be difficult, at times, because we generally cannot feel or hear or see the saints or God, but what did Jesus tell Martha?  “See the glory of God that you may believe?”  No.  Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  Believing is seeing. 

Believing in the resurrection of Jesus, believing in the raising of Lazarus, believing in God’s victory over death gives us hope and joy, peace and courage even as we wait.  As Paul writes in Romans 5:

…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

We’ve been given a beautiful promise of a glorious future in which death is no more, in which God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, and he will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears from all faces.  Then it will be said, this is our God for whom we have waited, let us rejoice.  In the mean time, we all wait together.  The communion of saints wait together with us, united together with God in Christ as God waits for us and we for God. 

So, with this idea of all of us waiting together, I’m going to end with the words of a song called, “I Will Wait by a band called Mumford and Sons, off their new album, “Babel”. 

And I came home

Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of darkness
Which we've known
Will blow away with this new sun

And I'll kneel down

Wait for now
And I'll kneel down
Know my ground

And I will wait, I will wait for you

And I will wait, I will wait for you
Amen.

Two Wolves - All Saints' Day

Brad Sullivan
All Saints’ Day, Year B
Thursday, November 1, 2012
St. Mark’s, Bay City
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

God will wipe away every tear.  God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples…he will swallow up death forever.

We’re still waiting.  We will wait.  We’re with Mary and Martha…Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Raising Lazarus, Jesus’ resurrection.  Shows us that our waiting will not be in vain.  The one who had power over death, Jesus, is the same one who was raised from the dead.  “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)

How do we know?  We don’t.  We believe, and we allow that belief to be real enough to change our lives. 

One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside of people.  He said, “The battle is between two wolves inside us all.  One is evil.  It is anger, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, self-pity, guilt, inferiority, lies, superiority, and ego.  The other is good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, truth, compassion, and faith.”  The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”  The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

“The Two Wolves,” (based on an old Cherokee folktale)

Sometimes we may feel crazy for believing in the resurrection, for believing in Jesus, for believing that one day God will wipe away every tear.  Look at the death and destruction all around us.  Look at hurricane Sandy.  How can we believe that God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all of us, that God will swallow up death for ever?  Sometimes I wonder, how can we believe this.  How can I believe this?  Doesn’t it make more sense not to? 

We could believe in waiting on God.  Doing so gives us hope.  We could, stop believing.  We could believe that waiting on God is simply waiting on a train which doesn’t come.  We could find such belief to be ridiculous. 

Two beliefs.  Two worlds.  One in which death has the ultimate victory over life, one in which life has the ultimate victory over death.  Which world becomes alive in us and changes our life?  The one in which we choose to believe.  Amen.