custom categories: reverend: brad sullivan

We're defined not by what we do, but by who we love and those who love us. From Genesis, we are defined by our relationship to God and each other. We are to be the beauty of Love we were made to be.

God placed within us the ability to be forces for good in the world. To live into our potential as forces for good, there are things we simply must give up. Hatred, looking upon others for the purpose of arousal, living only for ourselves. We are called to live as salt and light, as repairers of the breach.

A narrative of American blessing is that each generation will be blessed more than the one before it through greater wealth...basically more stuff, the goal being to alleviate suffering. People now rush about trying to fulfill this narrative and some acquire a great deal, but through these efforts, we don't achieve the blessings of love, faith, hope, peace, confidence, and contentment. As disciples of Jesus, "fishers of people", our net is the Gospel of Jesus and his way of life, peace amidst suffering, contentment without great wealth, and confidence of eternal life in God even in death.

In Baptism, we are not made perfect. God doesn't need us to be. God sees and loves us, and God takes our messiness the crud of our lives and redeems it all, to partner with him in healing the world.

God is powerful and mighty, but more importantly, God is love and relationship. God came to us in the loving act of the birth of a baby. God will one day restore all of creation. In the meantime, we get to live out the love of God in Jesus.

The joyous affair of asking Jesus to burn away the chaff in our lives, i.e. asking offering up to Jesus our protective covering, our fears, insecurities, masks, anger, past hurts, etc...this joyous affair is Advent. A season where we ask God to help us become love, become more fully human.

We're told to wait for Jesus' return and the restoration of all creation. Not generally the biggest fan of waiting, I find that waiting for Jesus' return is intended to be a joyous, hopeful affair. We slow down to draw near to God in prayer. We slow down to realize our hope and joy. We slow down to realize and soothe the suffering in the world.

We don't "go to church". We are the church, and we go to corporate worship on Sundays. Then, we live as the church the rest of the time...if we live with Jesus as Lord, with Jesus as Torah for our lives.

Jesus predicted that the temple would fall...not surprising given Israel's occupation by Rome - he simply saw the facts on the ground, and encouraged the people to be faithful anyway. Discipleship of Jesus is shrinking; the institutional church is shrinking. Let's go to work anyway, living intentionally as disciples of Jesus.

The blessings and woes from Jesus are not so much a description for how to become a saint (get a low paying job), so much as they are a description of God who brings blessing to those who are not otherwise blessed, God who redeems the cursed, God who brings the dead to life and will remake all of creation.

Pray always and don't lose heart. God will write his law in our hearts.

The world doesn't owe us anything because we are disciples of Jesus. If another activity conflicts with our worship, the decision is our as to whether we will worship or participate in the other activity. Our discipleship is ours to live and to master, no one else's.

Paul encourages us to be content with what we have. Jesus warns those with more than they need to share what they have with those who have very little, or there will be hell to pay...for those with very little.

Use what you have for the well being of others. Even crooks can serve others when it benefits the crook. How much more would disciples of Jesus serve others purely for the sake of the other.

With the shrinking of the church, eventually all that may be left is a remnant of the church...which is really a reflection of the spiritual reality already largely in place. Jesus, however, taught to seek the lost and to invite folks into the Kingdom of God life. Such invitation is not a threat, nor does it seek to control the outcome. It seeks simply to invite.

The popular understanding of Christianity is highly unattractive to non-Christians...mostly involving hell. Love of God and neighbor, love of Jesus is often forgotten. It is any wonder, therefore, that people aren't flocking to Jesus/

In the tradition of the prophets, Jesus spoke of his / God's disapproval of how Israel was living in terms of a fire burning within him. Israel was not living the Kingdom of God life. Would they, Jesus was asking, live the Micah 6:8 kind of life?

We knock on God's door, wondering what in the world going on in our lives. Together with God, we seek those answers, seek God's Kingdom and presence. Together, we'll find God's Kingdom and presence. Working on rebuilding houses in Bastrop after forest fires was one of these experiences of God's Kingdom.

Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman saw each other as threats rather than as human beings. They were not living the Kingdom of God life in which we see each other as human beings, as beloved children of God first and foremost. Questions of race, guns, and courts are all ultimately irrelevant.

For a Samaritan to be a neighbor to the injured man rather than the Priest and Levite to be a neighbor to him was to say that in that moment, the Samaritan was more of a Jew than the Priest or the Levite