Father Snort

Brad Sullivan Proper 9, Year B July 5, 2015 Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Mark 6:1-13 Did you notice that Jesus didn’t send out his disciples to preach and to heal people until the disciples had seen Jesus rejected in Nazareth? I wonder if they needed to see that, to know they might be rejected before they were sent out. Maybe they needed to be kept from being too elated, as Paul wrote about himself. Paul wrote that he was made weak and tormented by a messenger of Satan, and that he prayed to God for it to leave him. In response, God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Not exactly the response Paul was looking for, but he understood. We can get too puffed up, too strong on our own, and then we tend to give too much glory to ourselves. Even when our words say otherwise, pride ends up telling us that we are great. Feeling self-sufficient can leave us isolate

Brad Sullivan Proper 8, Year B June 28, 2015 Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX Mark 4:35-41 Jesus healed a woman of her hemorrhage without even meaning to. She had been suffering from this hemorrhage for 12 years, was made worse by the doctors, and then she heard about Jesus. As he passed by her in a crowd, she touched Jesus’ garment, and immediately she was healed. “Your faith has made you well,” Jesus said, “go in peace.” Peace is, I believe, the key to her healing. The hemorrhage was obviously not bad enough to kill her. She had been living with this hemorrhage, bleeding for 12 years. The hemorrhage wasn’t killing her, but it was keeping her from living. Because she was bleeding, she was unclean. Anyone who touched her, or anything on which she sat was also unclean. She couldn’t enter the temple, and couldn’t live a normal life. I don’t know for su

Brad Sullivan Proper 7, Year B June 21, 2015 Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX Mark 4:35-41 Jesus and his disciples were in a boat, about to be swamped by the great wind and waves of a storm raging all around them. Amidst the fear and incredulity of the disciples, Jesus says three words, “Peace! Be Still!”, and the winds in the sea obeyed Jesus. The storm calmed. There was peace. On Wednesday night, 9 people were killed at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charlestown, SC. The gunman, terrorist we could call him, was caught, confessed to the killings, and on Friday, was being arraigned. I heard on the news, recordings of family members of those who had been killed who were there during the arraignment. They were forgiving the young man and praying for him. They obeyed Jesus, the storm calmed, and there was peace. The storm in their lives is far from over, and they are, I am sure, far fr

I’m going to talk today about faith and faithfulness, and how God can take small amounts of each and grow something beautiful. About 6 years ago, I was going through a period of great doubt, great enough that I was wondering if I could remain a priest or not. Nothing particular had triggered this, I was just questioning and wondering, and I really didn’t know if I was going to find faith again. I felt like a had to know for sure, with certainty, and I could never find certainty. Fortunately, I did remain faithful during this time, kinda had to, and so even amidst personal doubts, I was faithful in my role as a priest, faithful in prayer, preaching, teaching, worshipping, celebrating Eucharist. Faithfulness to our life and the ways of Jesus sustained me when my faith seemed gone. Then, about 5 years ago, my faith returned, or rather, I chose to have faith again. I loved the story of Jesus, and even though I couldn’t have certainty, I didn’t want to give that story u

The obvious part of our Gospel story today is that Jesus is telling the scribes that no, he is not using the power of the prince of demons to cast out demons. “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” Satan would not be stupid enough to be here casting out demons; he would not be working against himself. Jesus is making clear that he is casting out demons with the power of God, not the power of the enemy. Less clear is that Jesus is warning the Scribes not to turn the house of Israel against itself, lest Israel not be able to stand. Jesus spoke about not being able to plunder a strong man’s house until you first bind the strong man. On the one hand, he is saying that he has bound Satan, otherwise he wouldn’t be casting out demons. On the other hand, Jesus is warning the Scribes against binding the Holy Spirit. Don’t blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Don’t ascribe the works of the Holy Spirit to Satan.

I thought for Trinity Sunday I’d preach about God as a frosted Donut, with God as the dough part, Jesus as the frosting, and the Holy Spirit as the hole, where you’re thinking, “what is it; it’s hard to define, but it isn’t a donut without it.” Then I thought that would be a terrible idea, and decided against it. We just heard about Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night to question him, not like the Pharisees who questioned him during the day, trying to prove him wrong and make him look bad in front of everybody. Nicodemus came to Jesus and questioned him because he was genuinely curious and drawn to Jesus. Something about Jesus challenged or inspired Nicodemus, and he was led, I believe by the Holy Spirit to seek Jesus out and learn about him and from him. So he went under the cover of darkness to question Jesus. Nicodemus was a man who was very secure in his religion. He had all the right knowledge about God, all the right answers, and all t

I was in Austin last night at a Rush concert with my brother. It was a great show, their 40th year as a band, and the 40 years of Rush tour. During one song from their Couterparts album, I turned to Kevin and said, “we first saw the concert for this album 21 years ago.” “No,” he said, and then realized, “oh my gosh it was 21 years.” Then we realized it was actually 23. It was a joyful moment remembering those times together and thinking about my brother’s and my love for each other over the past 23 years and the 14 before that. I’ve had similar experiences of nostalgia and remembering life with joy when reading Scripture as well. Often, reading scripture brings me back to high school, when I first started reading scripture, and I remember the words of Jesus as I understood them then, when life seemed a bit simpler. Hearing and remembering Jesus’ words brings me joy. I believe Jesus disciples also found joy when remembe

6 Easter, Year B May 10, 2015 Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17 Last year I spent some time teaching a leadership class in the middle school and a couple of elementary schools here, and one of the biggest challenges I found was that the kids had no idea how to show respect for their teachers. Sit up straight, look at the teacher when there’re talking to you, wait to speak until you’re called on…some of these basic things, they just didn’t know. Some didn’t care, but many didn’t want to be disrespecting their teachers, they just had no idea that’s what they were doing. They needed to be taught how to show respect. Jesus said to his disciples, “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” We need to be taught how to love others, just like the students needed to be taught how to show respect. If we are faithful to Jesus, we end

5 Easter, Year B - May 3, 2015 Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX Brad Sullivan I’m going to talk today about a concept called “Ubuntu”. Ubuntu comes from the Bantu language in southern Africa, and roughly translates as “humanity toward others”. Ubuntu is also a concept of our interconnectedness as people, the basic idea being, “I am because you are.” We are not human beings by ourselves, and we cannot be truly human without others. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the first black archbishop of Cape Town South Africa, spoke often of the concept of Ubuntu in his and a major voice in ending apartheid there. He preached peace and reconciliation Of Ubunto, he said: Ubuntu is a concept that we have in our Bantu languages at home. Ubuntu is the essence of being a person. It means that we are people through other people. We can’t be fully human alone. We are made for interdependence, we are

Bishop Doyle has said that the church does not have a mission, rather, "God's mission has a church" in order to live out that mission. God's mission is to reconcile all things to himself, and that is the mission that the church was formed to live out. Sometimes, however, we lose our way and forget what God's mission is. Not long ago, I spoke with a young woman who had grown up in the church and then fell away from the church during college. This was largely because she was with a campus church group for a while, but when she revealed to them that she was not a virgin, they told her that she was no longer a Christian, and they kicked her out. They did a very effective job too, because she is now not a part of any church and barely even nominally Christian. They replaced God with their morality and put it in the place of God's mission to reconcile all things to himself. I wonder if they had John 3:1-7 in mind when they kicked this young woman out of the church. "Everyone who commits

We heard today about Thomas doubting that his fellow disciples had seen the risen Jesus, and we hear about Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to his disciples and telling them to continue his work of forgiveness and reconciliation. Have you ever heard someone say, "May God forgive you, because I never will"? I think I've heard it more in movies than in real life, and Queen Elizabeth I is reported to have said those words, but I'm guessing she's not the only person in the history of Christianity to utter those words. "God may forgive you, but I can't." Who are we to think our complaint is greater than God's so that we can't forgive? Of course we don't forgive and feel that we can't when we still feel the darkness of the hurt that was caused and we see the other as that person who caused us pain. How then does God see us, that he can forgive us? God sees us as beloved and broken, and hurting each other out of our brokenness. God forgives us and sent Jesus to forgive us, and th

I love Jesus and the resurrection. As a Christian, that may seem obvious, but those two things are why I am a Christian. I love who Jesus was, the God of the universe become human to unite us with God. I love what he did and taught, his way, and how he treated people. Those were not just things that Jesus did, that was who Jesus was. We saw who Jesus was exemplified in his final night with his disciples as he washed their feet and prayed that they would love one another. Then, when Jesus was resurrected, he found that his prayer had been answered and his commandment followed. At least some of his disciples were still together. When Mary thought someone had taken Jesus' body, she knew where to go to find Peter. They were still together, still loving one another, and when they went back to see the empty tomb, Peter and the other disciple seemed to have some inkling of what had happened. They remembered Jesus' words that he would be raised, perhaps? John doesn't write that, but the

Sometimes it feels as though Jesus is gone, like he is simply not there in our lives. Jesus has declared us to be one with him, as made evident in the last supper, and yet in John's Gospel, he does not tell about the last supper...at least not about the bread and wine being Jesus' body and blood. That has been discussed in chapter 6. In John's Gospel, the final meal Jesus had with his disciples is told primarily through the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, and commanding them to love one another as he has loved them. This was Jesus' death bed prayer for his disciples. "Little children", he calls them. I am reminded of an image of a parent on the death bed, telling his kids that he will no longer be with them, and praying that they will stay together and love each other after he is gone. We harm each other, as the Body of Christ; there are times when we are not overly loving to one another. Jesus' death bed prayer, however, was that when we do harm each other, w

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that we to judge thee have in hate pretended? By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted! Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee! 'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; I crucified thee. Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee, I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee, think on thy pity and thy love unswerving, not my deserving.

Jesus’ response to the news that some Greeks were looking for him seems odd. “The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.” Just before this, Jesus had come into Jerusalem, the crowds cheered, and the Pharisees said, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him.” The Greeks’ appearance and searching confirms what was said by the Pharisees – “the whole world has gone after him.” The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no stopping it now. They were right. Early church had no buildings or organized support. They could not worship in the synagogues, nor in the Roman temples, and yet the church, Jesus’ believers spread like wildfire.. They had to believe in Jesus, trust in him, and risk for their belief in Jesus…and the church thrived. The Gospel of Jesus and belief in Jesus spread like wildfire. Contrast with: How many articles, seminars,

Jesus said he came to bring light, to save the world. There seem to be a lot of "no"s with Jesus, e.g. the 10 Commandments. There are several things we are not supposed to do. Those "no"s, however, are really a way of saying "yes" to something else. We say no to harming people (adultery, theft, murder, lies against someone) so that we might say yes to loving other people. We say no to putting things in front of or in place of God so that we can say yes to God, yes to life, love, beauty, and relationship. We say no to hiding in the darkness, to keeping ourselves covered with fig leaves. In the Garden of Eden, the first thing Adam and Eve did after disobeying God was to cover themselves up with fig leaves. They were ashamed and they hid. That way they no longer had to connect to God or each other. They tried to stay safely hidden and invulnerable to each other. There are all kinds of fig leaves with which we try to cover ourselves. Sometimes rules and law become those f

I stopped drinking coffee last week, not out of a Lenten discipline, but simply because I was drinking too much, still tired all the time, and I thought, "This won't do." The week was fine until Thursday. I had a long day leading to a long night, and I wanted just one cup of coffee in the afternoon. Then I thought, "I can do all things through God who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13). I prayed that scripture, and I was suddenly no longer tired. God answered yes, and gave me strength. I realized then that my comments in weeks past about diet coke and chocolate not meaning that much as Lenten sacrifices were wrong. If giving those things up can bring you to pray, "I can do all things through God who strengthens me," then it is a great disciple. Anything in your life that just won't do is a great Lenten sacrifice. Jesus saw the money changers and the animals in the temple and thought, "this won't do." He was not, however, cleansing the temple as many Bible section h

I received an article about resilience written by Terri Hendrix. Thinking about her friends who had gone through difficult times, she thought the dictionary definitions of resilience we lacking. They didn't simply bounce back. She wrote: “No matter how much faith we might carry in our hearts, I think it's unlikely for most of us to be pliable enough to return to our original form 'after being bent, compressed, and stretched to the breaking point.' When you walk through the bowels of hell and make it out the other side, I doubt you're unscathed from the journey...Perhaps resilience is simply mastering the art of living. Whatever it is, I think the interim between the dark and daylight is pure hell. And that's a pit you don't just "bounce" out of - you have to climb. You stick your hands into the sides of the unknown and claw until your nail beds peel back. Then you claw some more." As disciples of Jesus, we are a people of resilience. Not because tragedy bounces off of us

There is a song which my son sings from Vacation Bible School last summer that says, "I want to be like Jesus." I've often heard this idea that we want to be like Jesus. I understand the sentiment, but we may not actually want to try to be like Jesus. As we observe our Lenten fasts, we realize that our fasting was inspired by Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by Satan. We aren't really trying to copy or be like Jesus in our fasts, however. Jesus' fast and trials with Satan were his task and his story, not ours. His story is that of the eternal Word of God becoming human to unite us with God. His fast and his story was that of the cosmic struggle between creation and the forces of darkness, and Jesus defeated the forces of darkness. That was his story to tell. Our stories are not of cosmic victory over the forces of darkness, nor are they supposed to be. Jesus was God incarnate. We often can't go 40 days without diet coke and chocolate. Lent is not a time to c

There are many ways that we try to escape life, many exit doors we take. Some seem fairly innocuous (TV, food, alcohol), while others are obviously more insidious (drug addiction, alcoholism, pornography). All of these escape routes are ways we fantasize about a better, more important life, in which we are great and our problems few. Such fantasies are what "the hypocrites" had in Jesus' day when they prayed, fasted, and gave alms for others to see them and think they were wonderful. They were masking who they truly were behind a front of greatness. We are told by Jesus not to put on a show or to fake who we are in front of others, but to be vulnerable enough with others for them to see us as we truly are. Deep down, we're all beloved of God, and deep down, we're all kind of a mess. In giving things up for Lent this year, I thought about giving up coffee, but so what. So I'd be tired by mid-morning for a month. Instead, I'm going to give up my B.S. I joke with people a lot in order to m