We Are One With Jesus, and Jesus Is With Us

Brad Sullivan

Proper 11, Year A

July 23, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 28:10-19a

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

We Are One With Jesus, and Jesus Is With Us

I had a wonderful week last week at Camp Allen.  Kristin and I, along with Machel Delange and Caroline San Martin were the camp directors for a session of summer camp for 3rd and 4th graders, and our theme was Star Wars based, “I am one with Jesus, and Jesus is with me,” that line taken and modified from a prayer that a character prayed in the most recent Star Wars movie, substituting “The Force” for Jesus.

We showed clips from the Star Wars movies and talked with the kids about trusting in Jesus and following in his way, like Jedi trusted in the Force and followed the path of the light.  We hiked, we swam, we comforted homesick kiddos, and we supported the teenagers and young adults who were counselors and staff members of the camp.  The kids gave these great responses during our discussions about Jesus being the light of the world and us following him and being one with him.  “Jesus’ light is within us and we offer pieces of that light to others.”  We talked about being one with Jesus and that because we are one with Jesus, we are one with each other and with all creation, so what we do really does matter; if we do good things to one, we are bringing light to all, and if we harm one person or even one part of creation, we’re harming and bringing darkness to all.  Then, we made prayer beads and prayed “I am one with Jesus, and Jesus is with me” on the prayer beads to help us to be aware of his light within us so that we live and act out of that place of unity with God and with all creation.

It was a really good week.  Then I came back and started working on the sermon for today, and was met by one of my not quite favorite passages:  Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds:  Jesus sows good wheat seeds, and then the devil comes along and sows weeds among the wheat.  On the one hand, I love that Jesus says not to tear out the weeds until the harvest so that harm doesn’t come to the wheat.  We’re all connected, and so tearing out the weeds would harm the wheat.

On the other hand, at the end of the parable, Jesus explained that the weeds would be burned, meaning all causes of sin and all evildoers will be thrown into the furnace of fire at the end of the age.  I imagine that means that some people will be punished eternally for what they did during one lifetime, and I’ve always been bothered by that idea.  I fret over who is going to end up as the weeds and who will end up as the wheat.

How does this work?  Are we all children of Jesus or children of the devil from our birth with nothing we can do to change it?  That’s certainly what Jesus’ explanation of the parable sounds like.  Perhaps he was using black and white language to describe something more complicated so his disciples would understand.  Perhaps it is every bit as simple as it sounds.  Perhaps the furnace of fire will burn the evil away and leave what is good in people?  I honestly don’t know.  I struggle with this one.  How could there be causes of sin and evil doers in God’s kingdom?  Of course there wouldn’t be, but doesn’t Jesus redeem them?  Isn’t that what his death on the cross was all about?  I wrestle with these questions, as have Jesus’ disciples for 2000 years.

Most of this wrestling has to do with our fears over the idea of a final judgment.  Who will be wheat and who will be weeds?  Many Christians end up try to assuage those fears by coming up with biblically based rules about who will be in and who will be out, rules about determining who is wheat and who is weeds.  Predestination.  Double predestination.  Marks of election.  These and other attempts to defend God’s sovereignty and to identify who is wheat and who is weeds all have several problems.

While trying to tie up Jesus’ parables and teachings about his kingdom into a nice neat package with a bow on top, and all such attempts lead to putting our faith in rules rather than in God, and we end up determining for our own sense of security who is in and who is out, which means we end up taking removing Jesus and the angels from the story and put ourselves in their place.  When we start supposing that we can determine who we believe to be weeds and who we believe to be wheat, we end up exalting ourselves to the place of Jesus, and not surprisingly, folks who engage in this type of supposition also end up placing themselves on the side of the wheat, not the weeds. 

Whenever we start trying to determine who is wheat and who is weeds, we also end up making the same first mistake of Adam and Eve, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Such determinations are not ours to make, and Jesus expressly forbids our doing so.  So on the one hand we aren’t supposed to make determinations about who is good and who is evil, and on the other hand, we don’t have to.  There is great relief in not having to determine who is good and who is evil.  There is great relief in not having to determine even if it is so clear cut as good and evil, black and white.  Thankfully, we don’t have to make those determinations. 

So, rather than try to justify God’s sovereignty and make ourselves feel better by assuring ourselves that someone else is the weeds and we are of course the wheat, we can take comfort in the idea that God will eventually judge justly and eradicate all evil, all malice and fear, all hatred and enmity.  God doesn’t do so right now, because we are all so interconnected that removing all evil right now would destroy us all.  That’s another question I often hear asked, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”  Because removing all evil right now would destroy us all.  If God just killed all the people we though were bad, eventually it would get back around to someone we love.  Additionally, we just might be on someone else's bad list.  Remember that when we determine who is evil and who is good, one person’s evil enemy is another person’s hero.   If we got to determine who is evil and who is good, there would be none of us left.

As much as we may want to determine who is good and who is evil, ours is not to answer such questions.  Ours is to trust in the way of Jesus who prayed for God to forgive the evildoers who killed him.  “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” Jesus prayed.  Ours is to forgive others even as we have been forgiven.  Ours is to trust the Word of God which spoke all of creation into existence, to trust that the Word of God which became human as the person of Jesus just might have a good idea about how to run the universe which he created. 

Then, we continually seek Jesus’ help in our lives, to live out his kingdom now.  We get to seek Jesus’ help to eradicate evil from ourselves and to live out God’s kingdom as best we can now.   Freed from having to run the universe, we get to trust Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life.  We get to live with his light within us, and we get to share that light with others. 

We get to live and share his kingdom, and what is life like in God’s Kingdom here on earth?  Well, it's wheat and weeds.  At least in this life, it is full of joys and sorrows, full of missteps and faithful following in Jesus’ way.  Life in God’s Kingdom is full of grace and compassion, understanding and forgiveness, messing up and reconciliation.  God’s kingdom is full of joining together to help one another in times of adversity, and joining together to celebrate in times of joy.  God's Kingdom is reaching a hand out to those whom we believe to be weeds, helping them out as well, remembering that they probably believe we are weeds.  Rather than trusting in rugged self-reliance, the hubris of earned or deserved wealth, and a lofty self-appointment as being wheat among the weeds, life in God’s kingdom is life lived together, putting our trust in Jesus and in each other, sharing with others what we have been given by God.

As we said at camp last week, we trust in Jesus and follow in his ways, for he is the way, and the truth, and the life.  We trust the light of Jesus within us.  We trust in his goodness and ability to order well the universe that he created.  We live life not with continual fear, wondering are we wheat or are we weeds.  We live life in God’s Kingdom, life lived full of the assurance that we are one with Jesus and Jesus is with us.

Come On, Jesus! You’re Supposed to Be the Prince of Peace!

Brad Sullivan

Proper 7, Year A

June 25, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 21:8-21

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

Come On, Jesus!  You’re Supposed to Be the Prince of Peace!

Several times last week, someone would ask me what the Gospel reading is for this Sunday, and every time I told them, their reaction was, “Oh, yuck, I hate that passage.”  Honestly, that was my reaction too.  “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  Come on, Jesus, you’re supposed to be the Prince of Peace, not the Prince of Jerry Springer.

I could say that Jesus’ talking about family members being against each other harkens back to Micah 7:6 - “For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  Obviously that passage was in Jesus’ mind, but the context was that things had gotten so bad in Israel, that Micah was describing how things were, families were against each other, and children were treating their parents with contempt.  It would be a little disingenuous, therefore, to say, Jesus was just trying to remind people of scripture.  He didn’t say children were treating their parents badly.  He was saying that because of him, because of people believing in him and following his teachings, parents and children were going to turn against each other.  Those who didn’t follow him were going to turn against those who did.

This really isn’t all that surprising to those who have read the Gospel.  Jesus was a polarizing figure.  On the one hand he healed people and was a champion of the outcast and downtrodden.  He had a lot of wonderful teachings which we love to hear like “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  On the other hand, Jesus wasn’t just the easy listening station.  There was a lot of metal in him too, a good bit of raging against the machine of religious moral superiority coupled with economic and social injustice. 

Jesus did not mince words when denouncing religious leaders who demanded  religious perfection from others and yet did not care for the vulnerable and needy.  “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearances, say long prayers.”  (Matthew 23:14)   Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, because y’all are supposed to be using the money given to you by faithful Jews to help the vulnerable.  You’re supposed to be helping widows and helping others who have a hard time getting by.  Instead, you’re demanding that they do their religious duty and pay up in order to beautify the Temple.  Do you really think God will be pleased with a pretty building when his people are suffering? 

If you really want to please God, Jesus taught, then love God and love people.  Love people.  Care for them.  Help them mightily in their hours of need.  Take up your cross daily, and follow me.  Sacrifice your own safety and security in order to help people who are vulnerable, needy, down and out, rejected, and downtrodden.  Love God and love people…and don’t even pretend that you love God if you don’t love people.  There’s no way we can love God through our religion, if we don’t love people through our daily lives and actions. 

Folks like the Scribes and Pharisees, who dotted the “I”s and crossed the “T”s of their religious duties, didn’t like hearing that they actually had to care about people.  They didn’t like hearing that they would actually have to sacrifice some of their own comfort and security in order to help those less fortunate and (according to their theology) less deserving people.  “I have what I have because I’m a good, God-fearing person, and I earned it,” they thought.  “Those others would be better off than they are if they feared God like I do and worked harder.” 

That was pretty well what folks thought of the poor and the down and out back then, and Jesus was having none of it.  “No guys, the kingdom of God belongs to them too, and the kingdom of God is actualized in this world when you who have enough and more than enough, do all in your power to make sure that those who don’t have enough are cared for as well.”  Folks didn’t like hearing that.  In fact, folks killed Jesus for saying things like that.

Jesus was a polarizing figure.  Folks who really engaged with Jesus either loved him or were pretty turned off and scandalized by him.  He claimed to be God.  He claimed to be the way and the truth and the life.  He upset people’s comfortable focus on themselves, and forced them to take a hard look at others and their needs, and he taught folks to take a hard look at their own lives and see how their lives might be harming others.  Truly taking Jesus seriously today, he is still a polarizing figure.  You can love him, you can be pretty turned off by him, or you can assume he really didn’t mean or say much of what he said. 

When we do take seriously living as he taught, believing in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, then some people are going to turn against us.  Heck, even grace is going to turn people against us.  Grace is great for those whom we feel deserve it, but what about when we follow in Jesus’ way and offer grace for those who don’t really deserve it?  That’s going to anger some people, and Jesus would have us do so anyway, rather than take the easy road and get on the bandwagon of self-righteousness and condemnation. 

“Take up your cross daily,” Jesus said, “and follow me.”  Let parts of you die, daily, in order to offer grace to others.  Let some of your needs die in order to help provide for the needs of others.  Be willing to accept the deaths of relationships that will come when people turn against you for truly taking Jesus seriously. 

A friend and colleague of Kristin’s was at a fundraiser and raffle to support a girls’ softball team in his community.  One of the raffle items was an AR-15, and this man really doesn’t like guns.  So, he spent thousands of dollars on raffle tickets, won the rifle, and had a friend help him turn it into gardening tools.  Swords into plowshares.  He took an instrument of death, and turned it into instruments of life, and he has received death threats for having done so.  He’s lost friends, received thousands of hateful messages, and he’d do it again, seeking life, rather than the possibility of death.

Jesus’ teaching that he has come to set family members against each other is still not my favorite passage to hear.  It’s not exactly the feel good film of the summer.  The reality of suffering ridicule, of straining and even losing relationships over taking Jesus seriously is, however, the way of Jesus.  What Jesus taught in our Gospel passage today is the way of him who is the truth and the life.  Do we dare take Jesus seriously?  Imagine the world if we do.  Imagine the changes in the world when we and other Christians acknowledge and share our faith in Jesus not through religious moral superiority while ignoring the problems of others, but rather through living and sharing our faith in Jesus by daily sacrificing greatly for the sake of others. That’s life following the way of Jesus, life in the Jesus movement. 

Thinking only about myself, hearing today’s passage leaves me not wanting to hear Jesus’ words.  Thinking about others, however, I want to hear more of today’s passage.  Thinking about others, I find hope and joy in today’s passage.  We get to be part of the Jesus movement in which we sacrifice some of our own safety and security for the sake of others, to provide safety and security to those who don’t have enough.  We get to accept grace for all those times when we don’t follow Jesus all that well, and we get to offer grace to those who don’t deserve it.  We get to offer grace even to those who would turn against us for taking Jesus seriously and following him as the way, the truth, and the life.  We get to be part of the Jesus movement, knowing that there will be consequences, and choosing for the love of others, to follow Jesus.

Wonder Woman & the Divine Feminine

http://wonderwomanfilm.com/

(WARNING:  There are some spoilers below, so I recommend bookmarking this page, watching the movie, and then returning to read.)

So I saw the new Wonder Woman movie on opening night with my wife, and we loved it. Great action, plot, writing, acting.  It was funny and serious, exciting and heartfelt.

What I loved most about the movie was the portrayal of the divine feminine.  Diana was a goddess, brought forth from Zeus in order to protect humanity from (all kinds of bad things, including ourselves), and she was absolutely devoted to that cause.  Fierce and strong in combat, uncompromising in her moral compass, and more than ready to question a group of generals who didn't seem to care that those they commanded would die while they sat safely giving orders, she was a warrior to be feared by any who would try to inflict harm.  In short, she was a protector.

This is one important aspect of the divine feminine:  Protector/Warrior.  Far from just being a masculine trait, protector is part of the divine image that is hard-wired into femininity. Think of a mother protecting her children - few, if any, things in this world are more fierce.  As a warrior, she was unrivaled, not only because of her strength, but also because of her femininity - she fought not for anger or vengeance, but ultimately for love.
(For a Christian perspective (or at least this Christian's perspective) see Genesis 1:27; Isaiah 66:13; Matthew 23:37)

Another aspect of the divine feminine seen in Wonder Woman:  Mother/Caretaker.  She was on an urgent mission to stop a great evil from destroying humanity...she keenly felt the urgency of her task.  So, as she walked the streets of London to find her adversary, she was immediately side-tracked and almost jumped with delight as she saw a little baby.  "Oh, a baby!", she exclaimed, rushing over to get a better look.  It was funny, sure, but it also exemplified something great about the divine feminine.  As a mother-figure and caretaker, she delighted in life, in innocence, in babies.  Even with her urgency, she did not have blinders on to the beauty of life all around her.

This role of lover and caretaker showed up again in the scene from the picture above.  They were very close now to her final adversary, and according to her male companions, they didn't have time to save the besieged villagers in the war zone through which they were traveling.  Nope!  Not for Diana.  She would not leave them to die, and so she was once again (seemingly) side-tracked from her mission.  She once again showed that being a protector/warrior did not prevent her from also being a mother/caretaker.  In fact, the one worked with and complimented the other.  It was beautiful to behold.

Wonder Woman also inspired those around her as:  Muse/Encourager.  One soldier boasted of his prowess on the battlefield, and then when it was time to act, he found he couldn't.  He was an obviously wounded man with scars deep down, and he was as rough as they come, yet something kept him from fighting that day.  Later that night, after the battle was won, Diana heard him singing, entertaining a group of people during a victory celebration.  She loved it, delighting once again in his humanity, the vulnerable, wounded man, who not only fought, but also sang.  When he apologized later for his failure on the battlefield, she simply praised him for his singing, praised him for that beautiful part of his soul that still clung to and remembered the love and beauty of the world.  He found healing in her words, and the next time battle came, he did not hesitate.

A final aspect of the divine feminine which I saw in Wonder Woman:  Lover/Beloved.  Diana loved deeply, universally, and personally.  Diana was continually horrified at the terrible things we do/did to each other, horrified at the darkness of humanity.  Her heart was broken time and again when she beheld such atrocities.  She also loved one man in particular, and was his beloved as well, and when he was killed, she went into a rage.  What was left but to exact revenge on any and all who had caused him to die, to destroy any and all who may one day cause harm to others?  She had seen the darkness of humanity, a darkness that lies in all of humanity, and there was only one surefire way to destroy that darkness:  eradicate humanity.  She found, however, that love was stronger than anger and hatred.  Her love guided her to see that our darkness did not define us, that despite our atrocities, we were also lovers, also beloved.

Diana's role as both lover and beloved kept her fighting to protect people, delighting in humanity, caring for people.  Her love kept her encouraging the good in people, inspiring the best in them.

The divine feminine is as aspect of God which we need and which we need to remember.  Protector/Warrior.  Mother/Caretaker.  Muse/Encourager.  Lover/Beloved.

As we are all made in the image of God, both male and female, we miss so much of who and what God is when we acknowledge only the masculine aspects of God.  The divine feminine is so deep and beautiful, protecting and compassionate, inspiring and loving.  Thanks be to God for this aspect of God.  Thank you also for all involved in Wonder Woman, for bringing us this beautiful, powerful character, and for bringing such a beautiful portrayal of the divine feminine.

Love, Grace, and Communion: The Holy Trinity

Brad Sullivan

Trinity Sunday, Year A

June 11, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Matthew 28:16-20

Love, Grace, and Communion:  The Holy Trinity

A couple of years ago on Trinity Sunday, I had this idea to preach about God as a frosted Donut, as a way of describing the Trinity, with The Father as the dough part, Jesus as the frosting, and the Holy Spirit as the hole, where, it’s kinda hard to define, it’s kinda hard to explain the Holy Spirit, but it isn’t a donut without the hole.  Thankfully for the sake of the congregation a couple of years back, I decided not to do that.  It would basically be heresy, unless it’s Shipley’s Donuts, but in all seriousness, I’ve heard similar approaches to describing the Trinity, such as, “God is like an egg” with the shell, white, yoke:  three and yet one.  Of course that’s three parts that make the whole egg, rather than three whole persons who make the whole God.  Honestly, if we’re going in that direction, I kinda like the donut thing better, but the big problem with any such means of trying to describe God as a trinity of persons is none of those metaphors say anything at all about God as a relationship of persons.  The relationship is key to who God is and what God is as a single God in Trinity of persons.

So as an analogy for understanding God as being three persons and yet one God, I’d like for us to think about our own relationships.  Are we closer to people whom we have never met and don’t even know exist, or are we closer to people whom we love deeply?  Obviously, we are closer to people whom we love deeply.  We know them intimately.  We get to know the deep parts of who they are.  As we love more and more, we become more and more connected to a person, and while we are still distinct persons, we become more and more united as our love for each other grows. 

Ok, so multiply that by infinity, and we have some understanding of God as three persons united so completely in love for one another that they are one.  It still doesn’t entirely make sense to our rational little brains, but it also kinda does.  God is a relationship of persons:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each fully God, and yet each distinct from the other, so completely united in a continual dance of love that they are one.

Then there are, of course, the inevitable questions of this Trinity of persons such as, “which one came first?”

“Oh, they’ve always been together as one.”

“But I thought the son was begotten of the father?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“So when did that happen?  How long was the Father around before the Son was begotten of him?”

“Oh no, they’ve always been together forever.”

Whenever we try to tease out all the specifics of how God as a Trinity of persons works we generally end up with God as a frosted donut.  Tasty, but perhaps an understanding of God as Trinity comes less from our brains and more from our hearts.

Think about how much logical sense some of our relationships make?  Brain work or heart work?  God is described after all as love, not logical rational sense.  Consider how Paul ended his second letter to the church in Corinth.  “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  Those are words of the heart. 

Love.  The basis of all our relationships.  The best of who we are.  Peaceful, giving, not worried or concerned about what’s next, but content with now and fully present with the person right in front of us, fully honoring the person right in front of us.  Love means seeing ourselves as we truly are, warts and all, and not only accepting who we are, but delighting in who we are.  Love means seeing others as they truly are, warts and all, and not only accepting who they are, but delighting in who they are.  Love means seeing our common humanity, that divine spark, divine image in which we were all made, and living into and honoring that common humanity.  Love means giving for the sake of the other and also receiving from the other.  Love means honoring, accepting, and delighting in each other, recognizing and celebrating the beauty in each of us.

Grace…for all the times we don’t love.  Grace.  Forgiveness and understanding.  Compassion and empathy.  Grace is forgiving others for the hurt they have caused us.  Grace is looking at those who have harmed us and seeing them through eyes of compassion and empathy, offering some understanding that they are wounded as well, and they only hurt out of their own hurt and fear.  Grace is saying “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” even as they nail you to a cross.  Grace is the acknowledgement of our common humanity, our common weakness, our common harming of each other and offering peace to those who have harmed us, even as we accept peace from others, accept in our own hearts for the harm we have caused. 

Communion.  Delighting in time spent together.  Shared meals.  Shared endeavors.  Shared lives.  With love and grace, we share and join together with others, enjoying the love we share, grateful for the grace we give and receive, free to be fully who we are, loved and accepted by others without pretense or show, without hiding our true selves, unashamedly being seen, seeing others, giving and receiving love, and gratefully receiving and giving grace.  We enjoy life together, and we share our lives with one another. 

You want to know what God is like as a Trinity of persons?  Who or what do we understand God to be?  Love, Grace, and Communion.

Love does not exist without grace and  communion.  Grace does not exist without love and communion.  Communion does not exist without love and grace.  Each are distinct, and yet they are inseparable. 

With such a life of love, grace, and communion, Jesus told his disciples to go and baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Go and baptize into the way, into the very life of love, grace, and communion.  We baptize and are baptized into the life of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We baptize and are baptized into the life of God who is love, grace, and communion. 

Echoing and reminding us of Jesus’ command to his disciples to go and baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I say this day to go and invite people into the life of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Go and invite people into the life of God who is love, grace, and communion.  Live the life of love, and grace, and communion.  Life the very life of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Live that life with others in how you love them, how you offer them grace, and how you share communion with them. Say to those who are spiritual but not religious that the life of love, grace, and communion is the life of God.  Say to those who have been harmed by churches preaching an angry God who hates most of who and what we are that such a God does not exist, but is the vain invention of fearful men. 

Say to them that the God we know, the God we worship, the God whose very life we live is love, grace, and communion.  Go and teach them about God who is love, grace, and communion; God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Baptize them with your words.  Share communion with them in your actions.  Love them well, and ask for grace for those times when you don’t love them well.  Share the very life of God, the very life of Jesus, and invite them to be disciples of Jesus as well, sharing also in the life of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; God who is love, grace, and communion.