Walking On Water: The Martyr of Charlottesville

Brad Sullivan

Proper 14, Year A

August 13, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Matthew 14:22-33

Walking On Water:  The Martyr of Charlottesville

Jesus was the Word of God which spoke all of creation into existence.  On some level, even subconsciously, I’d guess Jesus began to have some inkling of who he was.  I wonder if in his encounter with his disciples on the boat, Jesus just forgot for a minute that humans can’t walk on water.  He was tired; it had been a long day.   He’d gone away to be by himself to pray for a while after learning that his cousin, John the Baptist had been beheaded, and instead of getting a break, Jesus ended up teaching and multiplying food some somewhere around 10,000 people (including the women and children).  Finally, after all that, he sends his disciples across the sea in their boat while he gets to spend some time alone in prayer.

So, worn out, dog tired, Jesus spent time alone in prayer, and I think he might have been so caught up in his time with his Father, that he just totally forgot that people aren’t really that adept at walking on things that aren’t solid.  So, like Superman forgetting to put his glasses back on before going to the office, Jesus just starts walking on the sea out to his disciples.  Why not?  Why shouldn’t he walk on the sea?  He made the sea, after all.

So, he’s walking out onto the water, lost in thought, barely aware of his surroundings.  Eventually a storm comes, and he’s thinking, “eh, not too bad, I’ve made worse,” and then the disciples see him.  They’re terrified, and he realizes what’s going on.  He covers as best he can, saying, “Ok, guys, I know this looks weird, but it’s not what you’re thinking.  I’m not a ghost.  It’s just I; It’s just Jesus.”  That calms them a little, and then Peter’s like, “Hey cool, Jesus, can I come out and play?”  Perfect, Jesus thinks.   “You bet, Pete!  Come on!”

Then we all know what happens.  Peter walks on the water for a while, until he notices the wind and waves, and like Wiley Coyote walking off a cliff and staying aloft until he looks down, Peter starts to sink.  So, Jesus picks him up, gets them both into the boat and decides he’s had enough of his little wind storm, dials that down a bit, and tries to pass the whole thing off, real nonchalant,  “so what’s been going on, fellas?”

They start to get the idea pretty quickly that Jesus is more than a prophet, but the Lord of all creation, the one who actually made all of creation.  I’m guessing they got pretty excited at that point, excited and amazed at the wonder of it all.    

I get really excited when I think of the Word of God who spoke creation into existence becoming human and walking on this earth.  I love that God was human and walked on this very earth.  Whenever I start to take the world for granted, that very idea of God walking on this earth makes the whole creation hallowed again.

Then we get people treating creation like garbage.  We get people like the angry mob in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend deciding that only some parts of creation are hallowed, only some types of people are hallowed.  All people are made in God’s image.  All  of creation is hallowed, and yet, despite the beauty and sacredness of people and all creation, people will all too often de-sanctify creation by driving a car into a group of people, killing someone for thinking that racism isn’t a particularly good idea.

Imagine those folks holding a rally within these walls, declaring most of humanity damned.  Imagine people coming in here with shields and sticks and guns, ready and willing to physically harm anyone who disagreed with them.  Imagine that folks who disagreed with them did come in here and were beaten and killed.  That is exactly what happened in Charlottesville, because in God’s eyes, all of creation is hallowed.  Every place is a place of worship.  Everywhere Jesus looks and says, “This place is great; I remember making this place.  I remember speaking this place into existence, and I love this place.”  The same goes for every person on earth, yes, even the angry mob of people who assume that God hates most of the people he created.

Hatred and violence.  Shame and anger.  Assuming one type of person is better than another type of person.  Jesus was pretty darn clear that we are all the same in God’s eyes.  Jesus was pretty darn clear that he loves all people and he loves all of this beautiful Earth which he created.  He was also pretty darn clear that as much as he loves all people, there is no place in his kingdom for the kinds of thoughts and actions demonstrated by the angry white supremacist mob in Charlottesville.

Now, if we’re honest with ourselves, we all have hatred, anger, and violence within us too.  Everyone does.  The question is, what are we going to do with it, and what Jesus calls us to do, what he teaches us to do with our hatred, anger, and violence is not to act it out, not to act upon it, but rather to give it to him, to place it at the foot of the cross so that he can transform it into love.

That is often not done, however, and we have a world that is full of anger, hatred, and violence (as well as love).  So, what are we to do amidst such anger, hatred, and violence?  Well, let’s call the anger, hatred, and violence of the world storms and waves.  Then, let’s do what Peter did.  Amidst the storms and the waves, we look up and see Jesus coming to us, not where we expect, not in the quiet sanctuary, but right in the middle of the storms and waves, right in the middle of the hatred, anger, and violence.  Then, rather than waiting for Jesus to come to us in the safety of the boat, the sanctuary, we ask Jesus to summon us out into the storms and waves.  Rumor has it, he’ll say yes.  Then, like Peter did, we step out of the sanctuary and risk drowning in order to go and be with Jesus amidst the storms and waves.  We risk drowning, going out into the anger, hatred, and violence to be the light of Jesus within the storm.

Sometimes we’re not even entirely sure what we’re going to do there.  We want to bring the light of Jesus with us.  We want to live out the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus amidst the storms and waves, and it is darn scary.  We just may be killed if we go out amidst the storms and waves.  A 32 year old woman was killed in Charlottesville by a man who drove his car into a group of people who stepped out of the boat amidst the storm of anger, hatred, and violence to declare that anger, hatred, and violence have no place in this world.  This woman risked and gave her life to give witness to love rather than hatred.  That’s what we call a martyr, a witness.  I don’t even know if she was Christian, but I know she was amidst the storm, declaring the light of love for all, not just some.  She gave her life for that witness, and that is martyrdom.

Stepping out amidst the storms and waves of anger, hatred, and violence, we too will risk drowning.  We’ll risk our lives and well-being to live out and be the light of Jesus amidst the darkness of hatred, anger, and violence.  When Peter stared to sink, Jesus reached down and picked him up.  I’d like to say that his doing so is a guarantee that so long as we ask Jesus for help, we won’t be harmed, but that simply isn’t true.  Peter began sinking because he became overcome with fear of the storm and waves.  The call to Jesus keeps us from being overcome with fear, keeps us from succumbing to the anger, hatred, and violence ourselves.  The call to Jesus doesn’t guarantee that we won’t be harmed.  The call to Jesus keeps our hearts from falling into hatred, anger, and violence.  The call to Jesus keeps the darkness from overcoming the light of Jesus within us.

Truly to  be the light of Jesus amidst the darkness of anger, hatred, and violence, we truly do need to risk drowning, to risk not only our lives and well-being, but also to risk being overcome by the darkness.  In all likelihood, we will be overcome by the darkness at times, and in those times, we call out to Jesus to save us, to reach his hand out, pull us out of the storm and waves and put us back into the boat, the sanctuary.  Then, once we’ve recovered, we step out of the boat, amidst the storm and waves once again to risk our lives and well-being, to be the light of Jesus amidst the darkness of hatred, anger, and violence once again.

Risk is part of the deal to live as Jesus’ disciples.  We’ve got to risk drowning to walk out on the water with Jesus.  We also need to be able to see the beauty and sacredness of the people and creation all around us, even amidst the storm and waves.  We realize the waves are there, but don’t get too daunted by the waves.  Keep your eyes on Jesus.  Imagine the magic, the possibility, the wonder of seeing him walking to you on the water.  Imagine the magic, the possibility, the wonder of asking him if you can come out and play too, and Jesus saying ,”yes.”

A Woman Made Bread, and Jesus Said, "This Is My Body"

Brad Sullivan

Proper 12, Year A

July 30, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

A Woman Made Bread, and Jesus Said, “This Is My Body”

Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to “yeast that a woman took and mixed in with tree measures of flower until all of it was leavened.”   Bread.  The kingdom of heaven is like bread, the yeast mixing with the flour, helping it all grow together, the hands of God working to knead the dough and bake it, transforming it from something gooey and inedible, to something delicious and life-giving.  God gives life and forms people in the Kingdom of Heaven, transforming us from one thing into another.  Like God took clay and formed it into Adam’s body and transformed it into a living being, so did a woman knead and shape dough to make bread, which Jesus took, and broke, and gave to his friends and said, “this is my body.”

We are called the Body of Christ live here on earth, as we believe in Jesus, recognize him moving in our lives, and as we seek to live out his Kingdom here on earth.  We’re called to be bread, our separate lives transformed into something greater and life-giving, yeast mixed with flower and water, kneaded, shaped, and leavened into a large loaf of fresh baked bread.   Think for a second about the smell of fresh baked bread; it smells so good, makes you hungry, even if you’re not, you smell that bread, and you want some.  That’s what the Kingdom of God is like.  When we see or hear about the Kingdom of God really being lived out here on earth, we want to go there, we want to be a part of it.

Really living out the kingdom of God here on earth takes time and effort, just like it takes time to and effort to make bread.  It takes time and effort to mix the ingredients together, to knead the dough, and then it takes God’s transformation, the ingredients literally becoming something else as they are baked together.  That’s life in God’s Kingdom:  time, effort, mixing, and God’s transformation.

Life in God’s kingdom, truly living our God’s kingdom takes time.  It takes time for people to form relationships with others, time to get to know our neighbors.  Life in God’s kingdom takes effort.  It takes effort for people to join with others in their communities to serve others, to pray together, to strive together for justice and peace: seeking and serving Christ in all people, respecting the dignity of every human being, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. 

Life in God’s kingdom also takes mixing.  For the kingdom of Heaven to work, the yeast doesn’t just sit on the counter and watch the woman make the bread.   The yeast moves in and  around and interacts with the flour, the yeast and flour joining together with each other, changing each other, becoming something different than the two were separately.  In the kingdom of God, we take time and effort mixing our lives with the lives of others.  We work.  We strive.  We meet people, and we see where Jesus is moving in their lives.  We join with them:  the movement of Jesus in our lives joined with the movement of Jesus in their lives.  When we take this time and effort to mix our lives together, Jesus works to knead the dough, like a woman who kneaded and shaped dough to make bread, which Jesus took, and broke, and gave to his friends and said, “this is my body.”

I read an article last week which was about this kind of Kingdom work, people mixing together and forming bread.  The article from gravityleadership.com, was titled “How to Shift Small Groups to Missional Communities”  For those unfamiliar with the term, mission communities are groups of people within a larger body of the church who “are committed to growing closer to Jesus, doing life together, and joining God’s work in the world.  In other words, missional communities embrace worship, community, and mission as a holistic life of discipleship.” 

The thrust of the article was that missional communities are different from small groups and that in order to live God’s kingdom, we need to shift some of our small groups into missional communities.  The article points out that many churches have done pretty well at gathering their large worshipping communities into smaller groups which pray together, and study scripture, and get to know each other more deeply through their faith.  The small groups take a large community in which some people know hardly anyone, and they give places where people can grow together in deep relationships with one another.  The article went on to say, however, that often these small groups grow stale, continually looking for the next book or next study, and the mission and work of Jesus gets left undone.  Even with a good focus on formation and sharing faith together, reaching out to others beyond themselves is often left out of these small groups.  The yeast remains on the counter, watching the flour from a distance, not mixing and allowing the woman’s hands to form them into bread.

To be fair, the yeast is always ready for the flour to come to it.  We, the church, want people to come here.  We have become a largely attractional community, waiting for folks to come through the doors of the church building and join us in worship.  While we do outreach here and have mission trips which are all good things, those efforts are not usually part of our daily lives and the communities in which we live.  Rather, much of our life in the church is a part of this attractional model:  come to church to be a part of these outreach efforts here. 

With the attractional model of church, we’ve also done Sunday school pretty well for those who are here.  If you come to church on Sunday, you can be formed in the stories of scripture and the faith of Jesus.  If you can’t come to church on Sunday, you’re kinda left on your own.  Folks can watch Joel Osteen on TV, but there’s not actual interaction, actually community with real people, watching something on TV.  We have not been really faithful to Jesus’ calling for us to go out into our communities and form disciples of Jesus there.

Now, that sounds like evangelism, which the Episcopal church has not historically been overly well known for.  We can share our faith within communities within the church, but going out?  That sounds like less than happy street corner people.  Let me be very clear:  a faithful, yet less than happy person on a street corner, threatening strangers to believe in Jesus isn’t yeast mixing with flour; it’s rat poison.  Truly being yeast that gets up off the counter to mix with the flour means mixing with others in our communities, living life together, and thereby allowing Jesus to transform us into bread.  Evangelism is not generally done with strangers.  Evangelism is done with people we know and people we have gotten to know.  Evangelism is done in community, not by ourselves.  Becoming bread, becoming the kingdom of God means we live out our faith in community with others, going out together in our communities to serve others and likely to be served by them as well.  That is what missional communities are, what the church was always intended to be.

The article, “How to Shift Small Groups to Missional Communities”,  gave three steps toward transforming a small group into a missional community which has an outward mission:

• Start a conversation with your existing small group about joining God’s work in your community. If you are not currently part of a small group, prayerfully make a list of people you can invite in on the conversation.
• Discern mission as a group by making a list of areas in the community that God might be inviting you to step into. This could be a place like your neighborhood, [joining with others to regularly and consistently help at a non-profit or community home], or a people group that you feel especially called to serve and love.
• Develop some rhythms to support your life together that includes regularly seeking God, connecting in community with one another, and engaging your shared mission together.

Prayer, Worship, Service.

[Finally], as you step into mission as a community, think presence more than projects. How can you be intentional and consistent in being present among a group of people as a community? Then simply keep noticing where God is at work and join him there!

Now, I’d love to give an exact, step by step process for becoming a missional community with a simple beginning, middle, and end, but the Kingdom of God doesn’t work like that.  What exactly a community is going to look like, what exactly the community mission work will be depends on what needs there are in each of our communities.  What are our passions, and were do the needs of our communities meet the passions of our hearts?  A missional community could join together to serve together, regularly, at a non-profit or a community home/shelter.  A missional community could join together and get to know their neighbors and serve them when in need.  Then that person might join the missional community and serve with them when someone else is in need. 

A missional community, like the Body of Christ, like the Kingdom of God, is not a project that can be easily drawn up, pre-formed, modeled, and packaged for easy assembly.  Missional communities, the way of the kingdom of God, requires work, effort, mixing together, dreaming and praying together with guidance from Jesus.  Missional communities are going to be different everywhere because the needs and the people are different in each community. 

Our part is to be formed as bread, to be yeast, to mix with our communities, to really get to know the communities in which we live, to notice what the needs are, to notice where Jesus is already at work, and then to be willing to be changed by mixing our lives and the work of Jesus with the lives and work of Jesus within others in our communities.  Then we become the Kingdoms of God. 

When we take this time and effort to mix our lives together, Jesus works to knead the dough, like a woman who kneaded and shaped dough to make bread, which Jesus took, and broke, and gave to his friends and said, “this is my body.”

https://gravityleadership.com/small-groups-missional-communities/

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.