In God's Kingdom, We All Have the Capacity to Participate.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
June 30, 2024
Proper 8, Year B
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Psalm 30
Mark 5:21-43

Last week, we had a Bible study, and the question came up, “What is success?” There were a lot of answers that people gave, things like having love in your life; being at peace; having enough, not more than you need, just enough; seeking and living God’s will. All of the answers we came up with for what success is were right in line with Jesus’ way and teachings, and all of the answers we came up with were very different than what our fears, and advertisers, and big whigs in society may try to tell us success is.

To advertisers and companies selling products, success is having enough money to afford their products. Success is having a really big house or a really great car. Success is in riches. Even some preachers will tell you success is in riches…at least that’s what they’ll tell you God wants for you and how you can know that God has blessed you. All of those preachers are preaching against what Jesus taught. I’m also pretty sure all of those preachers tend to ask for a lot of money. They show their monetary success, tell others that such riches are what success looks like, and they sell that image, wrapped up in Jesus, which makes them more money.

Jesus didn’t teach that success was in riches. Jesus didn’t spend his ministry getting rich off of others. He certainly could have. We saw this in Jesus’ healing ministry. Let’s face it, he could have made a killing going from palace to palace, healing the infirmities of all sorts of rich folks, and charging as much as he wanted. They’d’ve even paid more just because he made his services exclusive to the rich, so they’d’ve known they had something special that no one else did.

Wealthy, powerful, Jesus could have had it made, and he certainly wouldn’t have been crucified, not with wealthy and powerful benefactors to keep him out of harm’s way.

Jesus could have done that, but of course he didn’t.

In the story we heard today, Jesus healed a woman who had a wound that wouldn’t heal for 12 years. She was a nobody, not wealthy, not powerful. She was just some random person who needed healing, and she received her healing from Jesus. Then, we saw him heal a little girl. Now, this little girl was someone kinda important. She was the daughter of a synagogue leader, an important person in their city. Jesus healed her as well and then, just as with the woman on the street, received no money or glory. He told them to keep quiet about the healing and to get their daughter a sandwich. 

God didn’t become human to be glorified and have his ego stroked by us. God didn’t become human to join just with the rich and powerful, and God didn’t become human to join just with those in poverty. God became human to join with all of us: rich and poor, powerful and powerless, all of humanity without exception. Jesus healed wealthy folks, and Jesus healed folks who were begging on the street.

That was success for Jesus. Not power, not accolades, not money, not glory. Nothing that people with something to sell want to call success, interested Jesus. The power, the money, nothing that much of our society wants to sell as success had any interest for Jesus. 

See, in God’s kingdom, all are important, not just a seemingly successful few. All are one with God. Those some want to exclude? God includes them. Those some find icky and objectionable? God finds holy and beloved. 

Success in God’s kingdom is how well we love one another, how we help one another heal, how we embrace all people: rich and poor, downtrodden and uplifted. As the church, that is the success that God calls us to, loving one another, embracing one another, helping one another heal. 

As the church, we all have a part to play in God’s kingdom. We all have something to offer. We all have the capacity to participate. That’s what we see in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. 

Paul was writing to the Corinthians, telling them about a church that had very little money and still shared what they had to assist others as there was need. Paul was then asking the Corinthian church to do the same.

Paul was making the point that the wealthy church wasn’t better off or more successful than the less wealthy church. Their success was in how they lived out their love and community in the kingdom of God.

Their success was not in how much money they could share. Their success was in how lovingly and freely they shared whatever they had. 

There’s a segment on National Public Radio called “Unsung Heroes.” On one of the shows, I heard the story of an unsung hero who simply sat with a woman while cried. He was a stranger to this woman, and he saw her crying on the sidewalk. So, he sat with her for a couple minutes and rested his hand on her shoulder. Then, as simply as he had come, he stood up and walked away. 

That small gesture of compassion and caring made a huge impact in this woman’s life. She knew she wasn’t alone in what she was going through. This stranger whom she never saw again, brought about great success in the Kingdom of God, simply sharing what he had, a bit of time, a hand on a shoulder, a gesture of support and caring. It didn’t take wealth, fame, or power to bring about the kingdom of God. When we offer whatever we have to others, that is success in the kingdom of God. 

So, I’m going to end with a song that I wrote about what success can look like. Spoiler alert, it ain’t about money and success in careers and what not. It’s about the people we love and support. Also, the line in the song, “All that is gold doesn’t glitter,” is quoted from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is called, On Solid Ground.


On Solid Ground
words* and music by Brad Sullivan
* “All this is gold doesn’t glitter” from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
His life was all laid out, before his family college line,
Fulfilling the hopes and dreams his parents had in mind,
With wealth and wisdom like many of his peers,
And yet he felt a stranger, alone in hopes and fears.

He grew into a young man, success the only road.
The sky was the limit, and a limitless load,
So when he quit school with his girlfriend, he threw it all away,
Or so his parents said, and so “they say.”

But all that is gold doesn’t glitter,
And not all heads were meant to wear a crown.
That tower he’d been sold was cold and bitter,
So he’s standing with his feet on solid ground.

A baby came along, sooner than they’d planned.
She was selling houses, he his music in his band.
They never had a pot of gold. Some months the ends just met,
But with their friends, they lean upon and haven’t failed each other yet.

‘Cause all that is gold doesn’t glitter,
And not all heads were meant to wear a crown.
That tower he’d been sold was cold and bitter,
So he’s standing with his feet on solid ground.

Cause life’s not a race full of wrangle and rancor, 
Climbing the bodies of those we would conquer.
The race for the top ends for most in a fall,
With all of the world or nothing at all.

His parents often visit and see the grandkids play.
They’ve even stopped their comments about the life he threw away.
They finally see his values, o’er the lavish lies.
Success is how they share their joys and soothe each other’s cries. 

‘Cause all that is gold doesn’t glitter,
And not all heads were meant to wear a crown.
That tower he’d been sold was cold and bitter,
So he’s standing with his feet on solid ground.

See the video of the song here:
https://youtu.be/F9DRn9IFEao

"To Hell with this, I'm gonna live!"

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
January 21, 2024
3^rd after Epiphany, Year B
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Psalm 62:6-14
Mark 1:14-20 

“To Hell with this, I’m gonna live!”

One of my favorite movies is Serenity, which y’all’ve heard me talk about before. It’s a sci-fi film, many centuries in the future, with a rather sinister galactic government over all the planets and the good guys, a crew of 8 people living on a space freighter, doing various legal and not quite legal jobs. On the ship, you have the captain and others, including the ship’s mechanic, Kaylee, and the ship’s doctor, Simon. Kaylee has had a crush on Simon since they met, and it has gone unrequited for a long time.

So, at one point in the movie, the whole crew is about to be attacked by a hoard of vicious creatures, and things are not looking good for our plucky band of heroes. The captain and a couple of good fighters look like they have things pretty well handled, but everyone else, including Kaylee and Simon…they don’t really have a clue what they’re doing. Assuming they are all going to die, Simon finally professes his love for Kaylee. At that moment, she goes from terrified and fumbling with her weapon to cocking her gun and saying, “To Hell with this! I’m gonna live!”

In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote, assuming that they weren’t all about to die, but that their lives were about to be drastically changed by the second coming of Jesus. Like many in the early church, Paul seems to have believed that Jesus would be coming again within their lifetimes. So, he was telling the church to act accordingly, as though the present form of the world was passing away. Paul was obviously not entirely accurate with that belief, as we see the world is still turning as it was back in the first century.

His advice to the church, however, was still sound. Far from giving up on everything, throwing up their hands and saying, “Well, I guess nothing much matters anymore,” Paul’s message was a little bit more of Kaylee’s “To Hell with this! I’m gonna live!”

Whether Jesus’ return and the fullness of God’s kingdom comes today, or in another couple thousand years, or even further off than that, the Kingdom of God has still come near, and so we get to live. The Kingdom of God is all around us, alive and well in thousands and millions of ways, all the time, every day.  God’s kingdom is alive and well even in things as simple as marriage and relationships, in joy and sorrow, in buying stuff, and in regular old dealings with the world.

Paul was writing about these things as though the world were about to end, and so he said, for those who had wives to live as though they had none. I can think that might mean, “don’t have kids” because, why would you if the world was about to end. There are all kinds of ways that if you were married, you could live as though you weren’t, some of those probably more helpful than others.

Thinking of marriage as it has been in some times and places, we can think of ancient times and of wives as not being owned by their husbands but there being a bit of a possessive aspect to that relationship. In that sense, it seems like Paul was saying, “Husbands, you can let go of your wives a little bit, rather than holding them as possessions. You can be equals as it is in God’s kingdom, equals without being given in marriage, as it is in the resurrection.”

The same seems true of the rest of Paul’s advice on how to live. Hold on lightly to possessions. They won’t go with you when this life is over, and we have to spend time in our lives working in order to get the money to buy possessions, so we’re literally spending our lives to get possessions. Paul raises a good question, then. How much of your life do you really want to give up in acquiring stuff?

Those who are mourning and rejoicing, Paul said, be as though you were not. Ok, we can’t just not be sad or not be joyful, nor would it be helpful to, but we can, again, hold on lightly to those times of mourning and rejoicing. Times of rejoicing will come to an end, and it’s ok when they do. We continue on, and there is still much beauty in life, even in times when we’re not particularly rejoicing. Times of mourning too, don’t have to last forever. We can after a time of sorrow, give that person or dream that we’ve lost over to God, and we let person go, let that dream go, let that life that we had go.

There is still plenty of life after mourning and sorrow when we are open to receiving it.

Hold on lightly. Even though The End may not come right away, it could come at any moment, and an end may also come at any moment. So, hold on lovingly but lightly. Holdin on with a tight grip is living in fear: fear of losing, anger at having lost, attacking any who seem like a threat. To that tight gripped, fearful life, Paul is teaching us to say, “To Hell with this; I’m gonna live!”

The end or an end may come at any time, so hold on lightly. By holding on lightly, we get to love people without possessing them.

By holding on lightly, we get to possess our things but with an open hand.

By holding on lightly, we get to open our hands to receive the beauty of the world and people around us.

Receiving the beauty of the world and people around us, and holding on lightly, we get to receive both joy and sorrow and not hold on to them forever, because there’s far too much living to do to be stuck fearfully clinging to people and stuff and even life itself.

There’s far too much life to live to waste time clinging to things in fear.

We’ve got a baptism today, and “To Hell with this, I’m gonna live,” is not exactly in the baptismal covenant, but it probably should be. What do we say at the beginning? I renounce Satan and all spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God. I renounce all evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. I renounce all sinful desires which draw me from the love of God. Then, I turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as my savior. I put my whole trust in his grace and love. I promise to follow and obey him as my Lord.

If that’s not saying, “To Hell with this, I’m gonna live,” I don’t know what is.

We’re declaring in our baptism that we’re gonna live. We’re declaring that we’re going to hold on lightly to the world around us and seek to love, rather than possess. We’re declaring that we’re going to mess up and that we’re even going to hold on to those screw ups lightly. Then, when we do mess up, we’re declaring that we’re going to ask God’s help to turn around again, to open up our hands, to let go of what we’re possessing and to receive from God the beauty of this life once again.

That’s the life of Baptism, the Way of Jesus, the life of the kingdom of God, for the kingdom of God is all around us, all the time. It may be tomorrow, or centuries, or millennia from now before Jesus comes and fully brings about God kingdom. However long or short it is, in the meantime, we get to live. However imperfectly it may be, we get to live God’s kingdom in our lives right now. Rather than wasting time clinging to fear, we get to open our hands and live.