The Good Old Days

Songs of Hope #2: "The Good Old Days" is about looking back at our lives, the good and the not so good, and realizing that even the bad parts were not as bad as we thought. They often held a lot of blessings. May you find hope and peace with this song. Please share if you do.

Light On The Horizon

Songs of Hope #1: "Light on the Horizon" is the first in a collection of songs I have written which I am recording and sharing during the coronavirus quarantine/social distancing. More to come. Blessings and peace be upon you.

Baptized In the Name of Conservative? Liberal? Any Particular Ideology or Political Belief?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

January 26, 2020

3 Epiphany, A

Isaiah 9:1-4

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23

Baptized In the Name of Conservative?  Liberal?  Any Particular Ideology or Political Belief?

Jesus prayed for his disciples, for his church, for all of us, that we would be one, united together in love.  Paul then appealed to the church in Corinth that they would stop having division among them.  They were dividing over which preacher they liked better, which church leader had baptized them.  That may seem a little familiar to us when we think in terms of denomination.  I’ve heard folks say, “I was baptized Episcopalian…or Baptist, Roman, Lutheran, Methodist, and on and on.  We were of course baptized into Jesus, not into any particular denomination.  

Jesus is our unity and love binds us together, and yet we still let things divide us.  Issues, arguments, labels.  We weren’t baptized in the name of conservative.  We weren’t baptized in the name of liberal?  We weren’t baptized in the name of any particular stance on any particular issue.  We were baptized in the name of Jesus, and our faith and reliance on him is what unites us.  No issue is greater than our faith and reliance on Jesus.  He is our way, for his is the way of love, the way of grace, the way of seeking God’s will before our own and surrendering our wills to the will of God.  There is peace and freedom in that surrender, trusting in one so much greater than ourselves, trusting in a God of love who is everywhere around, among, and within us.

God is completely present to every one of us, and that is another aspect of our unity.  No one of us is closer to God than any other of us.  Some may be more habitual in prayer, more practiced in turning our wills over to God, but our access to God is absolutely the same for all of us.  There is no division or distinction within the church over who has greater access.  God doesn’t have a bandwidth problem.

Still, when someone asks me to pray for them, I often hear, “You’ve got the direct line to God.”  I think some of y’all know this and for some this might be news, but we’ve all got the direct line to God, or were Lance and I baptized in the name of “priest” rather than Jesus?  Clergy have no more direct line to God than anyone else.  There is no division of distinction or position within the church.  

See, Lance and I were privileged to get to study for three years at Seminary.  It was a privilege, a joy.  We love this stuff.  The scriptures, church history, theology, ethics, music, liturgy, prayers, partying like the guys in Animal House.  We had a privilege to get to spend time studying and learning about our faith.  None of that makes us any closer to God than anyone else.  Nor does it make us particularly better at ministry than anyone else.  The study and the priesthood gives us a particular role within the structure of the church, namely, “minister to the ministers.”  All of everyone in the church are the ministers.

Who did Jesus choose for his disciples and first ministers in the church?  It wasn’t the folks who were privileged enough to spend years studying religion.  He chose regular people, fisherman, a tax collector.  They were Jesus’ ministers, folks just like every single person here.  Our ministries and gifts vary, but every one of us is a minister of Jesus.  

Who here has ever comforted a friend, family member, classmate, colleague when that person was hurting.  If you ever have comforted someone else, you have been doing ministry.  If you’ve ever prayed with someone or eased someone’s burdens, you’ve been doing ministry.  If you have ever shared the fact that you find strength and hope in your faith and surrender to God, you’ve been doing ministry.

There is unity in the church because we are all ministers in the church.  We are ministers of Jesus, and our ministry is to help set each other free from all of the things which bind us.  Freedom from that which binds us is what Jesus gives us.  “For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.” That’s from Isaiah 9:4.

About 2700 years ago, Israel had made an alliance with Assyria, and things did not go well for Israel under this alliance as they became dependent upon Assyria and alliance became more like oppression.  So, Isaiah is telling the people that this alliance will not continue and they would be freed from the oppression of the Assyrians.  The people sought God, surrendering again to God’s will, trusting in God, and freed them from the rather poor decision their leaders had made in turning their will and their lives over to the Assyrians rather than God.  That was salvation.  They were a people no longer oppressed.  They were freed.  That freedom from what binds us is the freedom Jesus gives us, and we find unity in Jesus because we all need freedom from something.   

Sadness, not as a passing emotion over a particular situation, but sadness so deep that we are plagued by it daily, hourly.  Sadness which began with some event or situation but which has taken over and now holds us captive, our minds and emotions no longer able to move past whatever event or situation began the sadness.  Jesus would free us from that oppressive sadness, offering to take the burden from us, as we let go, turn our will back over to God, and trust that God will heal our hearts, even if we can’t imagine being healed.

Hopeless, as we see a world around us not as we would have it be, and the problems are too great for us to do much of anything about them.  Jesus would free us from that hopelessness, offering to take the burden from us, as we let go, turn our will back over to God, and trust that this is God’s world, not ours, and while we cannot change the whole world, God has given each of us ways to bring healing into the world. 

God makes each of us his ministers.  Noticing those around us, choosing to care, to bear one another’s burdens, we are all ministers of God, and God has no bandwidth problem.  We all have that same direct line to God.  

We’re united, one in God, one in Jesus, one in love.  We are all one in our need to be set free from burdens that oppress us, and we are all one in finding salvation, finding freedom from those burdens through Jesus, casting our burdens upon him and turning our wills and our lives over to him.  No other issue or belief is greater than that.  

The freedom that Jesus gives, freedom from whatever binds us?  No other belief or issue should cause us to be divided into camps or factions, not when we all get to be ministers of Jesus’ freedom from bondage.  We’re a diverse bunch of folks, with all sorts of political beliefs and backgrounds, cultures, and ideologies, and that’s just within Emmanuel.  Worldwide, we’re an extremely varied group of people, but we’re not baptized into any of those political beliefs, backgrounds, cultures, or ideologies.  We’re baptized into Jesus, into the freedom from bondage that he gives, and we are all ministers of that freedom, all ministers of Jesus.

Sermon: Dance With the Demons

Brad Sullivan

Proper 14, Year C

August 11, 2019

Emmanuel, Houston

Luke 12:32-40

Dance With the Demons

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  We live with quite a lot of fear, don’t we?  Fears of all kinds and varieties. Economic insecurity, health issues.  Fear of loss. We have fears of violence, fears of natural disasters destroying what we have.  We have fears of the other political party gaining power (whichever political party that is for each of us).  We also have fears of not being good enough, worthy enough. Fears that someone might find out the truth about us.  We have fears of what the world will be like for our children and grandchildren.

These fears keep us striving against each other, trying to overcome each other, trying to make sure that if the world is not going to be ok, at least those I love and I will be ok.  In the midst of these fears, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  It seems that our fears are nothing new, but they are the same fears which have been with humanity forever, and Jesus repeats what God has said throughout scripture, “Do not be afraid.”  Rather than overcome each other, let go of your fears and live in love toward each other.  “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Live in love with each other, and trust each other.  For economic security, trust not only in yourself but also in those your love, your community and neighbors.  Give to others in their time of need, trusting that they will give to you in your time of need.  Rather than overcoming each  other, we live for and with each other.  That is life in the kingdom of God, and it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Lutheran Pastor David Lose writes:

I think the call – or at least one of the primary calls – of the church today is to become a place where people are so rooted in the promise of God’s good pleasure, reminded of their identity as God’s beloved children, and affirmed in their inherent self-worth and dignity, that they can, indeed, see all those around them as similarly beloved and deserving of self-worth, dignity, and God’s good pleasure. The question for a Christian..[is] discovering that as we give ourselves away in relationship and service we find a deeper sense of self than we’d imagined possible. We are born for community and find a sense of self and meaning and purpose as we trust God’s promises and give ourselves away in love.”

Give ourselves away in love.  That’s not an easy thing to do when we’re afraid of ourselves and those around us.  Our inner demons often keep us from giving ourselves away in love.  A friend of mine, Steve White, recently wrote, “Perhaps it isn’t actually about overcoming all your inner demons.  Maybe it’s about learning how to dance with them.”  That speaks to me not only of the fears we have about ourselves, but also the fears we have about each other.  What if we don’t need to fight against and overcome our inner demons, but rather learn to dance with them, to accept them as a part of who we are.  What if we also don’t need to fight against and overcome each other, but rather learn to dance with each other, to give ourselves away in love, to offer ourselves daily to God and join with each other in God’s divine dance, turning even our scars into something beautiful.  That’s life in God’s kingdom, and it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Fearing each other, we end up scattered and fragmented, continually knowing that we don’t belong.  We have folks who have felt like they can’t or don’t belong to the church because of their political beliefs.  I know I’ve made people feel this way at times, as have other church leaders, church members, and congregations.  The thing about our political views is, most people I know, on both sides of the political spectrum want the same thing: a just society which brings about the best way of life for the most number of people.  Their difference is simply the ways and the roles they believe the government should have in bringing about a just society.  They both have their religious beliefs tied up into that, and folks on both sides of the aisle believe in Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom of God. 

Here’s the secret:  The government is not how Jesus calls us to bring about God’s kingdom, even though it is the tool some would use to try.  God’s kingdom is given through God in partnership with us, with our living into God’s kingdom, and there is room in God’s kingdom for all of us.  All of us belong in God’s kingdom, and so we need not overcome each other, but learn to dance with each other, to give ourselves away in love. 

Rather than fearing that the other side may win, can we at least realize the while the other side may be wrong, it is still striving for the best system for the good of the most people?  Can we accept the consequences if it turns out our fears were right?  Can we trust in each other, rather than feeling threatened by each other?  Cane felt threatened by Abel, and so he killed him.  We hear of folks and have experience feeling threatened by each other and each others’ beliefs, so we attack each other verbally, sometimes physically, deriding each other, feeling that they want to destroy all that is good in our society, our country, and our world. 

"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit,” Jesus taught, so that he will find you not asleep, but alert and ready.  Our fears and the ways we seek to overcome each other, feeling threatened by each other, are ways that we fall asleep.  We fall asleep to God’s kingdom and are alert only to our fears, to our inner demons.  We all have inner demons.  Our families have inner demons.  The church has inner demons.  Our cities, our state, and our nation have inner demons.  Keeping alert, staying awake and being alert is about not overcoming and striving against our inner demons and each other, but rather learning to dance together. 

If we learn to dance together, we may find that we are not asleep when the master of the house or the thief comes.  Whenever Jesus shows up in our lives (and it happens all the time), how wonderful if he finds us not trying to overcome each other, but instead learning to dance with each other, giving ourselves away in love.  Over time, we learn how each other moves and thinks.  We still step on each others’ toes, but we laugh about it.

Living into God’s kingdom, us giving of our abundance when folks are in need, receiving from others’ abundance when we are in need; living in that kingdom, we can live without fear of the other.  We can offer ourselves in love, and learn to dance together.  “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Becoming a People Loved

Brad Sullivan

Maundy Thursday

April 17, 2019

Emmanuel, Houston

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

Psalm 116:1, 10-17

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Video of the Sermon

Becoming a People Loved

 “I am who I am.”  That’s what God said about himself when Moses asked for God’s name.  “I am who I am,” or another way of understanding what God said, “I will be what I will be.”  God is, God was, God will be.  “I will be what I will be,” God said, or put another way, “I am becoming what I am becoming.” 

Now, we are made in God’s image, and so we are becoming as well.  We are now who we were once becoming, and we are currently becoming who we will one day be. 

The people of Israel in our Exodus reading, at the time of the Passover, were becoming a free people.  Having been enslaved by Egypt, they were becoming something new, God’s holy nation, freed from bondage, and they continue to this day to be what they were becoming during that first Passover.  Israel is a nation, a people, set free by God to live according to his ways of love, justice, and mercy. 

More’n a few years later, Jesus was with his disciples, sharing the Passover feast, remembering that they were a people freed to live God’s ways of love, justice, and mercy, and Jesus told his disciples that his commandment was for them to love one another.  This was no mere sentiment or feeling, but active, moving, doing love. 

                      

Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another because he knew they were becoming who they were going to be.  He wanted them to become a people loved, a people healed and transformed through love.  See, all that we do and say to each other forms us into who we are going to be.  We make each other into who we are going to be.

As we consider Jesus’ command to love each other, consider the question, “who are you forming other people to be?”  In daily interactions with family, friends, strangers, clerks, servers, folks on the phone.  Who are you forming those around you to be?

Then consider this.  “Who are those around you forming you to be?”  Are you surrounded by people who love you in action and deed as well as in word? 

By realizing who we are forming others to be and who we are each being formed to be, consider what changes you might get to make.  Consider what help you might need in making those changes. 

Sometimes we get stuck or trapped because of who we have become and because of who others have helped for us into.  Like Israel, we can become enslaved.  Enslaved to anger, enslaved to resentment.  Enslaved to fear or pessimism.  Enslaved to doubt and worry.  Enslaved to self-righteousness judgment of others. 

We can become enslaved to all kinds of things, but we don’t have to stay that way.  We are not simply who we are; we are also becoming who we are going to be.  We can ask God to liberate us from parts of who we are so that we can become a people loved, a people healed and transformed through love. 

Now, like Israel being transformed from a people enslaved to the people of God, our becoming a people loved may take time.  It certainly takes effort on our part working at loving others and working at surrounding ourselves with people who love us.  We put in that effort, following Jesus’ command, and then we surrender to God ask him to do within us and around us far greater things than we can ask or imagine. 

I think of people I’ve known who fostered and adopted children whose birth parents had been hopelessly addicted to drugs.  The kids had been loved, but not well cared for, and they suffered the trauma of that.  Their adoptive parents loved them into healing.  It took time; it took effort, and the kids became very different people than they originally were going to become. 

Think of being kind and understanding with someone who messed up something they were doing for you.  You take it on the chin, knowing and trusting how loved you are by God, and you show that same love to that person who messed up.  You’ve just changed who they are becoming that day. 

Making the first step or even the second step at befriending someone who drives you nuts.  Becoming truly friends and seeing that the stuff that was driving you nuts was really more of a fear/anxiety reaction, and you really don’t drive each other nuts anymore. 

Jesus tells us to love each other as he loves us, and there is the essential part of our becoming a people loved:  trusting and believing that Jesus loves us, trusting and believing in just how darn much we are loved.  Trusting first in Jesus’ love, we begin to become a people loved, a people healed and transformed through love.  Then, living out that same love, risking while still trusting and knowing how loved we are, we begin to form others (and ourselves even more deeply) as a people loved. 

As we trust in Jesus’ love and as we love other people ever more fully, we become freed from all that binds us and enslaves us.  That’s what Jesus washing his disciples’ feet was all about.  Washing their feet was an act of love, of generosity and hospitality.  Walking around dusty roads in sandals, a foot-washing was pretty darn nice, and so for Jesus, it was an act of giving love, and for the disciples, it was an act of receiving love. 

So, whether you are like me and are kinda ooked out by feet, or you think feet are the coolest thing ever, I invite you to wash each others’ feet tonight as a reminder, as a mark, as a new start in becoming who we are going to be.  A people loved.  A people healed and transformed through love.  

 

We make each other into who we are going to be. 

Love each other into healing.

 

Bottom of the Ninth, and Judas Is at the Mound

Brad Sullivan

Palm Sunday

April 14, 2019

Emmanuel, Houston

Mark 14:3-9

Mark 14:1-2, 10-16

Video of the Sermon

Bottom of the Ninth, and Judas Is at the Mound

It’s the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes, one runner at first, and you’re ahead by one run.  You’re pitching, and all you have to do is get one more strike, one more out, and you win the game.  You throw the pitch, and crack!  Homerun.  Two runs score.  You lose.  Many would say, “You lost the game,” as the pitcher in the final moments.  I say, “It’s a team effort, and if the team had been further ahead at that point, the team wouldn’t have lost.

I don’t usually do sports analogies, so I hope I didn’t lose anyone there.  The basic idea is, we’re pretty good at picking out scapegoats, pointing fingers at “the one” who messed everything up, and there is probably no easier scapegoat to pick on than Judas.  He’s the one who betrayed Jesus.  He’s the one who sold out his Rabbi, his mentor, his friend.  What’s that about?  He’s the one who messed everything up for everybody, right?

Except of course, scapegoating Judas?  That doesn’t work, for a couple of reasons.  One, Jesus was supposed to be betrayed, handed over to the authorities, and killed.  That was the plan.  He was to take our life and our death upon himself so that we would be united in God even in death. 

The other reason scapegoating Judas doesn’t work is, we’re all in this human team together.  We can’t really divorce ourselves from Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.  Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches.  He says that humanity is so connected to each other that we are one, and what harms any one of us harms us all.  So, Judas’ betrayal is all of our betrayal.

Now, when exactly did any of us see Jesus and betray him?  Well, as Jesus points out in Matthew 25, whenever we’ve betrayed any human being, the least of human beings, we’ve betrayed Jesus. 

Whew!  Alright, dark enough for everyone as we start Holy Week?  We good? 

The nutso thing about betrayal is that there are so many ways and kinds of betrayal.  Sometimes in a conflict, folks will turn against the side they had been on and actively choose to join the other side and fight against former allies. Maybe the betrayer is angry or disillusioned, seeking revenge or lashing out.  Sometimes the betrayer isn’t trying to fight against his former allies, but is simply trying to do the right thing, realizing the fight, or the cause, or the manner of fighting wasn’t good.  The betrayer in this case isn’t angry and isn’t trying to harm his former allies, and yet they feel no less betrayed.

Sometimes, there’s no real conflict, and yet a person will be betrayed by another’s actions, even though the betrayer had no idea he was doing anything against the other.  A person does or says something seemingly innocuous or well-intentioned to a friend and steps in a landmine.  The friend feels betrayed by one who had no idea or intention of betrayal. 

Sometimes greed or need or feeling alone and crushed down by the stresses and anxieties of life leads to an act of betrayal.  There’s no intent to cause harm, only a desire for self preservation, self soothing, self centeredness, and all awareness of the harm cause to others is muted, the ability to even see beyond oneself is gone. 

I reckon there are those of us who can view the betrayer in each of these scenarios with greater and lesser degrees of compassion.  Towards some we feel sympathy and even empathy.  Towards others, our ire is so great that we would find ourselves betraying them, seeking or desiring some kind of vengeance or ill will toward them.  We’ve all got it, that anger or hurt that can lash out at the person or group of people we see as a scapegoat, as the one who blew it for everybody.

So what about Judas?  Where is he in this realm of betrayers?  Angry and vengeful?  Convinced and convicted that he was doing the right thing, that Jesus really was dangerous and needed to be stopped?  Was Judas overcome by fear at the very real threats to his own life and the lives of all Jesus’ followers?  Was he overcome by fears of Rome, that they might destroy Israel if Jesus was seen as some new revolutionary?  Was he just greedy as John would suggest?

Ultimately, we have no idea.  We have different Gospel writers giving different portrayals of Judas, each with greater and lesser degrees of compassion towards him.  Our challenge with Judas is not to scapegoat him, but to see ourselves in him and to see our acts of betrayal in his act of betrayal.

Why?

Because of what God does with betrayal.  God takes the ugliness and death of betrayal and turns it into new life, into something beautiful.  We see God’s grace and love in his response to betrayal through Jesus’ actions in Mark’s Gospel.  Immediately after Judas betrays Jesus, Jesus starts making dinner plans with his disciples.  He knows Judas betrayed him, and yet he doesn’t stop it.  He doesn’t kick Judas out.  He arranges his dinner plans like nothing has happened and has Judas join him with the rest of the disciples for dinner like nothing had happened.  Judas was part of the meal.  Judas was part of the body.  Nothing changed that.  As Paul wrote, “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. 

We’ll see over the coming week the beauty of what God does with betrayal, the promise of new life that God sees in all of our betrayals.  We’ll see that God needs no scapegoat, and therefore neither do we.  We don’t  need to blame the pitcher for losing the game.  We take our wins and our losses together, and we find we’re not even alone on the pitcher’s mound because we’re all in this thing together.  We are one, together in each other and together in God, and God is greater than our betrayals, greater than our losses and our victories. 

Our challenge is to believe that, to believe that God is greater than our losses and our victories, to believe that God is greater than our many betrayals.  Without God, we are left scapegoating each other or left as the scapegoat; we’re left as the betrayer or the betrayed.  We know what that looks like.  It’s ugly and full of death. 

With God, there is the promise of new life, with and through betrayal, God gives grace and love, transforming betrayal into something beautiful.  We don’t always know what that’s going to look like, so we trust, and wait, and keep on returning to God and each other.  We return over and over again and see what beautiful new thing God is going to do. 

Mary Poppins is IT

For all who love Mary Poppins (and I am very much among your number), I have a rather alarming revelation to share. It came when I was watching "Mary Poppins Returns", toward the end of the movie (fear not, intrepid reader, no spoilers are coming), when Mary Poppins was holding a red balloon.

That was my first clue.

My second and third clues were that Mary Poppins is a seemingly immortal being of goodness and light who appeared in the lives of the Banks family in an approximately 30-year interval.

Approximately 30.
Perhaps closer to 27 years?
With greater certainty and and revulsion, I let the thought, the inescapable conclusion fully form in my mind.
Mary Poppins is in fact IT, the murderous shape-shifting demon thing from the town of Derry.

Both IT and Mary Poppins delight in children. Adults don't even typically remember them, at least they forget/block out the horrors/magic.

How can this be? Mary is so wonderful, loving, firm yet gentle. IT is frightening, murderous, cruel yet inviting. They are the Yin and the Yang. The light and the dark. Two sides of the same coin.

Speaking of coins, note how they both exhibit a preoccupation with the poor use of money. Pennywise the Dancing Clown, as in "penny-wise and pound-foolish." His name itself is a reminder of how not to manage one's finances. Mary Poppins (who also dances) likewise told a young boy to spend his tuppence on food for birds, making fat birds rather than a sound investment for his future.

This final connection crystallized for me with absolute certainty the dark and terrible connection between London's favorite nanny and Derry's most terrifying monster. With as much love as I and we all have for Mary Poppins, make no mistake, for every "merry pop-in" she makes in London, IT is stalking Derry with blood-lust and fear.

Life may be a jolly holiday with Mary, but no number of spoons full of sugar will stop the dreadful nightmare of IT's deadlights for the poor children of Derry.

#MaryPoppinsisIT
#MaryPoppins
#IT