From college and campus ministry, through seminary, and into parish ministry, I became increasingly aware of the damage done by some theologies within the church: specifically, the "Believe in Jesus or to go Hell" theologies. Knowing people who turned away from the church and from God because they'd been lambasted by such theologies, I decided to address those beliefs head on and look deeply at scripture, rather than simply ignore the tricky passages.
My goal was and is to bring healing to folks who have been harmed by those older, even foundational theologies, and to help free people from those theologies - people who don't believe in "believe in Jesus or go to Hell", but also don't know how they can't believe in them without ignoring much of scripture.
May you find peace and healing in the pages of this book, and may you help bring that healing to others.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston November 30, 2025 1 Advent, A Isaiah 2:1-5 Psalm 122 Matthew 24:36-44
“In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2) Isaiah spoke those words of apocalypse to the people of Israel over 700 years before Jesus was born. These are words of apocalypse because they are words of revelation, of revealing. That’s what apocalypse or apocalyptic actually means, revealing. Isaiah was revealing something to the people of Israel, something which couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be known, and was nonetheless true.
Eventually, someday, at some point in the future history of the world, “God shall judge between the nations, and [the people] shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
This apocalyptic literature, this revealing tells us that eventually, all of our fighting on earth will end. God will bring about this end, and this end of all wars and fighting on earth will also be a new beginning, an age of peace, a time when all people will join together as one, living the lives of love which God created us to live.
There are many apocalyptic visions like this throughout scripture, and many of them describe cosmic, enormously destructive events. Earthquakes, wars, fires from heaven, dragons coming out of the sea. All of this destruction comes before the age of peace. There is a most definite ending before the new beginning. So, because of these cataclysmic, destructive scenes in apocalyptic literature, apocalypse has come to mean “end of the world,” but apocalypse actually means “a revealing.”
Apocalyptic visions show us things that cannot be seen, and they are often written in coded language, using wild images of beasts and monsters to talk about spiritual warfare and using wild images of beasts and monsters to talk about real world enemies. The great whore of Babylon in Revelation, for example, was probably talking about Rome.
So, images describing spiritual warfare which cannot be seen with our eyes. We get these fantastical images to describe it. The ultimate revealing of apocalyptic texts is, God wins. The forces of evil and darkness do not triumph over the light and love of God.
Apocalyptic stories are meant to give us comfort in times of suffering. The evils of wicked people may harm us right now, but God’s goodness will prevail. The wicked will be punished for their injustice and selfish cruelty, and the victims of the wicked will be comforted and healed. So do not despair too much over the evils of wicked men, and do not be overcome by their darkness. Continue doing the next right thing. Continue following in God’s ways. Continue following in the way of love and service, in the way of repentance and forgiveness. Eventually, all will be made right.
In all of the apocalyptic stories I have heard and read, that is the message I get. Despite whatever problems you face, despite the tyranny of evil men, continue following in the way of love and serving, repentance and forgiveness. Eventually, all will be right. That’s a rather beautiful and hopeful message and one that I am glad God has given us.
Beyond that basic message, I don’t have a lot of time for the apocalyptic stories of scripture. They’re really cool, don’t get me wrong: dragons, war, pestilence, the wicked cast down, the lowly raised up, angels at war, swords, fighting. It’s great stuff. My problem with the apocalypses in scripture is when people start trying too hard to figure them out.
What do all the details mean? What does this particular image represent? Has this already happened? Is it still gonna happen? Earthquakes! Volcanoes! Fighting among the nations! Oh my gosh, we have all of those things happening right now! Run for your lives; it’s the end!
As I’ve said before, people in every generation since Jesus’ resurrection have believed that the apocalypses of scripture have been about them and their time, and so far, every one of them has been wrong. The world keeps spinning. The sun keeps rising.
When we read apocalyptic texts in scripture and we become fearful of the end, then we’ve missed the point. Remember, Apocalypse means “a revealing.” These stories show us something of God’s ultimate victory over evil and darkness, a victory of love and light.
As Jesus talked about apocalyptic imagery, he talked about the coming of the Son of Man, and he said it would come suddenly and unexpectedly. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” He was telling us all to be ready for the coming of Jesus, and he made an analogy to a thief breaking into a house. If you knew when the thief was coming, you’d be up and ready to stop him.
Ok, first thing, no, Jesus is not like a thief. Jesus didn’t use this image to make us afraid of Jesus coming like some horror movie villain with knives for fingers or a weird murderous doll. Jesus just meant that he would come at an unexpected time and so we should always be ready for God among us.
Always be ready. In other words, quit trying to figure out when it will be. Jesus said he didn’t even know, and if you’re trying to figure out when Jesus will come, you’re missing the point. It’s like cramming for an exam the night before, hoping to pass the test and learning absolutely nothing at all. The point of the class was not to cram for the test. The point of the class was to maybe learn something kinda cool.
We don’t try to figure out when Jesus will come so we can be really, really good for a few weeks or months ahead of time. That’s what we do as kids for Santa Claus.
“Have you been a good boy this year?” People would ask.
Uh, crap. Kinda, but it’s December tomorrow. I’ve got 24 days to be extra good to make up for the rest of the year.
Yeah, Jesus isn’t Santa Claus, and we don’t prepare for Jesus’ coming the way we prepare for Santa or cram for exams. See, in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus told about the judgment of the nations, at the end of time, and Jesus said people were judged by how they treated Jesus when he came among them.
“Dude, you never came back,” the people all said. “We never saw you.” Jesus replied that actually, they had seen him, whenever they saw anyone in need. “Whatever you did to the least of the people among you, you did to me,” Jesus told them. “Whenever you ignored someone in need among you, you ignored me. Whenever you cared for someone in need among you, you took care of me.”
The lesson I take is this: if we’re waiting for Jesus to come back with clouds, and angels, and a big to do so that we can praise him and have a big Jesus rock star party with him, we’re missing the point. If we’re a little more afraid of Jesus coming back, and we’re trying to figure out exactly when it’ll be so we can spend a few weeks or months trying to get in his good graces, we’re missing the point.
“The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” because Jesus is already here among us, all the time. You want to know when Jesus is coming? The next time you have an opportunity to be kind to someone, that’s when Jesus is coming. We don’t always do this very well.
Yesterday, when I was in a hurry while driving, I hurried around a guy, and he had to wait for me to change lanes. As it turns out, he seems to have been having a terrible day already, because he was pissed. I mean driving up in front of me, breaking, swerving, and pulling up beside me at the light to cuss me out pissed. I didn’t cause all that, but I added to the darkness in his life that burst the dam of all that anger. I wasn’t expecting Jesus in the car next to me, it was just some driver I didn’t give a crud about. Turns out, it was Jesus, deeply in need of any kind gesture, and I ignored him, whipping around him in traffic instead.
So, as I said weeks ago, don’t prepare for Jesus’ coming by preparing for the end of the world. Prepare for Jesus’ coming by assuming the world is going to go on spinning and the sun is going to rise tomorrow. Be prepared for living. When’ll Jesus come back? Whenever you see someone in need.
As for all of those generations of people who all thought Jesus was coming again in their lifetimes, in their generations, I said they were wrong in assuming the end was coming, but they were also right. Jesus was coming in their lifetimes and in their generations. The great apocalypse, the great revealing, is that Jesus comes back among us all the time, in every human being you’ve ever seen.
The great revealing for how we are to prepare for Jesus, for how we are to prepare for the end, the great revealing is there’s always an ending and a new beginning. Sure, there will be an ultimate, final end and new beginning, and that is meant as encouragement for us, believing that evil and darkness will be destroyed by God’s love and light. That is a lovely revealing, but the great revealing is that we get to be the ending of darkness and the beginning of light in each other’s lives all the time. Every time Jesus is present among us, meaning anytime we see any other human, we get to bring them light and love to cast out the darkness and evil.
When the people of Israel came into the promised land after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt, God commanded them to take the first fruits of the food they were growing, and bring them to the altar of God to be given as an offering of thanksgiving. This offering was a reminder that God had been with the people from the beginning and that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt so that they could be a light to the nations. The offering also reminded the people that God gave the growth to their crops, so they were to give thanks to God from whom all life flows. The people planted and tended their crops, and God gave the soil and brought the rain so the crops could grow.
Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey once noted that “despite all our many accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” If there were no plants on the earth, there would be no animals. If humans could not grow fruits, and vegetables, and grains, we would all die. So, we do indeed owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.
Giving thanks for the simple fact of food helps ground us because when we don’t give thanks, we tend to take things for granted. We don’t notice any of the blessings around us, and when we no longer notice blessings, we tend to fall into despair. If there’s nothing for which to be grateful, well then there’s nothing good in the world, and if there’s nothing good, well then everything is bad.
What do we do with the bad stuff in our lives? We tend not to like it that much, and we end up contemptuous and resentful of all the bad things in our lives. So, when we stop giving thanks, we tend to become contemptuous and resentful of everything in our life, even the good things.
It seems God really knew what he was doing when he told the people of Israel to give thanks for the first fruits of the harvest each year. Remain grateful so that you can remain joyful. Remain grateful so that you notice the blessings around you and don’t fall into despair.
There is also something particularly healing about being grateful for food, and I think it is this: food comes from the ground, from the earth, which is where we come from. We are connected to our food because we are connected to the earth.
When the people of Israel were wandering in the desert, God gave them manna to eat. It rained down from the heavens and the people gathered it every morning. It was described as the bread of angels. That’s pretty fantastic that God gave the people angelic food, and they didn’t even have to work for it. Every morning it just appeared, and the people quickly came to hate it.
Ok, on the one hand, guys, just be grateful. On the other hand, I think they grew to hate the bread of angels because it wasn’t from this world. They weren’t as connected to the manna as they were to the fruits of the ground.
There is something about real food that connects us to the earth and to each other. Meals eaten together connect our families and communities. Those meals, that food, connects us back to the earth, that six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. Those meals then, that food, helps remind us of our connection to God from whom all life flows and from whom all love flows.
God loves us so much that he thought becoming human sounded like a pretty neat idea, so that God is connected physically to us, just as we are connected physically to the earth. Our sustenance, our food, is not only the physical food that comes from the earth, but also the physical connection to God which comes from Jesus.
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Never be hungry and never be thirsty, Jesus said, even when we mess up, even when we turn away from Jesus, because we always get to turn back.
Jesus said that our work, the work which will bring us the bread of life, is to believe in Jesus. Well, that work that Jesus would have us do means believing in all of his life, and his teachings, and his death, and his resurrection.
Last Sunday, we heard about Jesus’ death in his crucifixion, calling out “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Forgive them for killing the bread of life. That’s love, right there, God’s great love for us. Not only did God give us six inches of topsoil and rain so that we can eat the physical food of this earth, God gave us the bread of life, the physical connection between us and God. In Jesus, God gave us a physical connection with God’s own eternal life, and when humanity tried to kill that physical connection between us and God, Jesus said, “Father forgive them.”
We can’t do enough bad to sever God’s connection with us in Jesus, and we know this because of Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection tells us that God doesn’t give up on us, even when we give up on God. As a friend of mine, the Reverend Pete Nunnally said, “Even though we tried to kill God, God came back to us.”
That is the bread of everlasting life which we eat by believing, and we let that belief be real enough to change our lives.
“Do not work for the food that perishes,” Jesus said. Do not work, and strive, and fight just for things that’ll help you feel better for a moment or two. The next bit of cush will make you feel better for a short while, but it will also drain you of life. The next drunk will help you not care for a time, but it will also drive people away from you and make them push you away.
The police are making the rounds more and more on the streets of midtown, moving people off the sidewalks, removing people’s belongings, and forcing people to leave the area. On the one hand, it kinda sucks to take someone who has no place to live and force them to go away to somewhere else. On the other hand, when folks are using drugs, getting drunk and high, threatening men and harassing women so they no longer feel safe coming to church here, who could blame the police for making people move on?
I don’t say this to condemn, because as a recovering alcoholic myself, I truly do understand the pull and the chains of addiction. I understand using something to feel better and feeling like that thing will fill the hunger. I also understand how addiction harms one’s behavior, and I understand how addiction leads to anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness.
I understand trying to fill a hunger with food that doesn’t satisfy, “food that perishes,” Jesus said, and I understand how dark life can be. I also believe that the true hunger we feel is not just to feel better. The true hunger we feel is for eternal life. The true hunger we feel is for connection with God and one another. The true hunger we feel is for love and belonging.
So, today I offer again what God has given us to fill our hunger, the bread of life which is Jesus. God became human to connect us physically with God’s own eternal life, and not even death Jesus’ death on the cross could sever that connection. “Even though we tried to kill God, God came back to us.”
No matter how often we turn away, God always invites us back. So for us, the antidote to our anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness is not numbing out with food that perishes. The healing for our anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness comes from the bread of life, and working for that bread, believing in Jesus. Our healing comes from believing in Jesus’ teaching and ways. Our healing comes from believing that Jesus is the eternal life of God joined physically, and our healing comes from letting that belief be real enough to change our lives.
So, on this day of giving thanks, we remember God’s gifts, and we remember the gift of gratitude itself, because without gratitude, we stop noticing the blessings around us, and we fall into despair. We give thanks today for the food of the earth, for that six inches of top soil and the fact that it rains, connecting our lives physically to creation. We give thanks for the bread of life. We give thanks for that physical connection to God’s eternal life, Jesus, whom we tried to kill and who came back to let us know that nothing can separate us from God’s great love for us and God’s eternal life.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston November 23, 2025 Proper 29 – Christ the King, C Jeremiah 23:1-6 Psalm 46 Luke 23:33-43
Jesus was killed by the Roman Empire as a heretic and potential insurrectionist. He had no political power and rejected political power when it was offered to him, both by Satan in his temptations in the wilderness and by Jesus’ followers when they wanted to make him king. He desired no earthly political power and taught no earthly political power for his followers. “You will be handed over to [the authorities],” he said, not you will become the authorities to deal out punishment and death to others.
Jesus’ church, therefore, remained a religious movement without great earthly authority for over 300 years. The church did not rule over others with political or governmental power. Rather, any authority or influence the church had came from the relationships of love and service they gave to others.
Jesus was the king of the church, and people followed his rule by living his teachings. Love one another. Pray for your enemies. Do not return anyone evil for evil. If you have more than you need, share generously with others. Live lives of prayer, service, and above all, love. That also includes having fun, enjoying life, working, being with friends and family. Love God, love people, and let everything else flow from that. However imperfectly Jesus’ followers lived that life of love, and they did live that way imperfectly, such is the church with Jesus as king. Love God, love people, and let everything else flow from that.
Then, in the year 380, Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. At that point, I would argue that the Emperor of Rome usurped Jesus’ role as king of the Church, at least in an earthly sense. At that point, the Church had political power and authority to force others to follow its desires.
War, for example, was not the way of Jesus, but once the Church and the Empire were united, when Empire when to war, the Church went to war. Rather than love and pray for one’s enemies, the church began killing their enemies at the point of a sword.
Even after the fall of the Roman Empire the Church was often closely tied to the government in many nations with great political power and authority. It seems like the Church got used to ruling, and the power of the church remained tied to the power of the State.
When Christopher Columbus came the Bahamas, he claimed the land for Spain, and he decided to convert the people to Christianity. The conversions didn’t really take all that well, and over the decades, the King of Spain ordered forced conversions, and the Church complied. Believe in Jesus or be tortured and killed. That’s what the church looked like with an earthly king as its head: forcing people to believe in Jesus, destroying their religious sites, enslaving people, and killing those who resisted.
That’s a far cry from love God, love people, and let everything else flow from that. Forced conversions are not what God intended for us. Coerced conversions, making people terrified of what will happen to them if they don’t believe in Jesus, is not what God intended for us. Offering our belief to others that they may find the healing that we have found, that is what God intends.
Be a light, Jesus taught us. A light attracts people in the darkness. The light of a loving God amidst the darkness of hatred. The light of taking care of one another amidst the darkness of indifference. The light of hope amidst the darkness of despair.
Bringing light into darkness is kinda God’s deal. In the beginning, when the earth was nothing but a formless void, and darkness reigned everywhere, God said, “Let there be light,” and light shined into the darkness.
When God made humanity, God gave us some of God’s own power so that we could rule over creation and care for this wonderful earth. We’ve not always done a particularly good job of that, but we see God continuing to love us, continuing to walk with us, continuing to shine light into the darkness.
When God formed the people of Israel, God made them to be a light to the nations. Love God and love people, God taught. Be a light to others by how you live. If you loan someone money, don’t charge interest. Use what you have to help out someone in need, and trust that they’ll do the same if things are reversed. If you really want to please God, take care of the poor and needy among you. Care for the orphans and widows. If you’re really angry with someone, leave the vengeance to God, trusting God’s justice, even when it doesn’t happen on earth.
The people of Israel didn’t always follow God’s ways, and eventually they even asked for a king to lead them like the other nations. God warned them that the king would take all of the best of what everyone had for himself. The king would take their sons to fight in his wars and his daughters to serve him in his palace, and the people said, “Sounds great.”
So, the people rejected God as their king and decided to have an earthly king instead. It didn’t work out all that well, as you might imagine, but God loved the people of Israel enough to let them make that mistake. Then God continued striving with the people of Israel so that despite all of their very human screw ups, they could continue to be a light to the nations to this day.
When Jesus founded the Church, he called his disciples a light to shine in the darkness for all. “Love one another as I have loved you,” he told them. That is the light he wanted his disciples to shine, love for one another. Jesus wanted his disciples to attract others to them by loving one another, by being light.
Now, the church has screwed up plenty over the centuries, and through it all, Jesus has stuck with us. When the Church even went so far as to reject Jesus as king, and began relying on the power of the Roman Empire instead, things went pretty badly, and Jesus continued to strive with the church. Jesus continued loving humanity. Jesus continued shining as a light for us to turn to when darkness overcame us.
I’d love to say that the church no longer rejects Jesus as king, but we know that’s not true. Even without the tyranny of the Roman Empire or the genocidal expansion of colonialism, there are plenty of ways that pockets of the modern Church still reject Jesus as king. Think of the Ku Klux Klan, which claimed Christianity as their faith, and yet their king was not Jesus but themselves and fear of being displaced or devalued.
Think of Christian groups who use the government to try to force Christianity on others, rather than trying to attract others simply by being the light of love. They may think of Jesus as their king, but Jesus didn’t use a government or anything else to force his beliefs on anybody.
Think about Christian groups who are constantly threatening people with eternal torture if they don’t believe in Jesus. Conversions based on those threats aren’t forced conversions, but they are coerced conversions with a foundation of fear, rather than a foundation of Jesus. Fear is king in such pockets of Christianity with Jesus serving to alleviate that fear.
Forcing people to believe, scaring people into believing, using Jesus as a weapon to achieve some victory or another: pockets of the church that do these kinds of things have the wrong king in charge.
Jesus didn’t force anything on anyone. When push came to shove, he let himself be killed, rather than rise up in revolt against Rome. Jesus’ way was to let Rome do their horrible, oppressive, imperial stuff, and he and his disciples were going to be the church. In the darkness of Empire and authoritarianism, Jesus was king by living the light of love. Actually, Jesus lived the lights of faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of those lights was love.
That light of Jesus’ love still shines in the darkness. The great love that God has for us shines in the darkness, and our faith and hope, the light that shines in the darkness, is ultimately the great light of love.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston November 16, 2025 Proper 28, C 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Psalm 98 Luke 21:5-19
Do y’all remember when the world was going to end on New Year’s Day, 2000? Then again in 2012? There have been several comets that were supposed to bring about the end of the world. I remember two or three pastors with mathematical predictions that didn’t pan out. The Branch Davidians in Waco. There was the Left Behind fervor with the book series. That’s around nine or ten end of the world predictions, just in the last 30 years, just that I can remember.
All of them have been wrong, and all of them have led to people living as though the world was about to be no more, usually in some not great ways. I heard of folks buying the pollutingist big SUVs they could because the end was coming and polluting the world more would help bring it about. People have made end-time bunkers, spending untold amounts of time and money, isolating, staying away from others, because they believed the end was nigh. Some even had suicide cults where folks killed themselves at just the right moment as the world didn’t actually end.
God didn’t make this world for us to end it, and God didn’t make this world for us to suffer an apocalypse. God made us and made this world for us to live in it. “Be fruitful and multiply,” God said. Live in this world. Be blessed by this world. Give blessings into the world. That is God’s desire for our lives. Living is the point, living as though the sun will rise again.
So, as Paul pointed out in 2 Thessalonians, you can’t live if you don’t eat. See, there were folks in the church in Thessalonica who not only believe that the end was coming very soon, but they believed that the end had already happened. Some had stopped working because they misunderstood Paul’s message to them and thought that the end of the world and God’s full reign on earth had already happened. So, they stopped working.
Therefore, Paul wrote, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” That was his advice to a church where some folks were living in a kind of end-time cult. Thinking that the world had already ended, they thought they didn’t need to work. Great! Paul was saying. Have them not eat as well as not work, and see which happens first: the end of the world, or hungry bellies and malnutrition.
As much as folks in the early church were expecting the end of days, they had to keep living as though the world was going to keep on turning.
You can understand, why some had this misunderstanding about the end of days. Paul himself thought that the end of days was coming in his lifetime, months, and then maybe years after Jesus’ resurrection. Paul even wrote in 1 Corinthians 7 that ideally, folks should stop making babies. Best way to be, Paul wrote, don’t have sex, just devote yourselves to prayer. That was Paul’s advice. No sex. Don’t make babies. Just devote yourselves to prayer.
He did make allowances. If you can’t not have sex, then at least only do it with your husband or wife, but best just not to have sex at all. He thought it was the end of days. Personally, I don’t know what not having sex has to do with the end of days, but for Paul it was a thing.
So, Paul went on, for those who were unmarried, it would be best to stay unmarried, so you could devote yourself to prayer. If you couldn’t keep yourself from having sex, though, then at least get married and have sex with just the one person.
Paul thought the end was coming very soon, and so his preference for the church was that everyone would stop having sex, just devote themselves to prayer, and of course, that would mean no more babies. Well, if that had happened worldwide, ain’t none of us would be here. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world, just the end of humanity.
Paul was wrong in his belief about when the end of the world would come. Paul’s advice about how to live an end of days life was actually not all that helpful because it wasn’t actually the end of days. The church in Thessalonica was wrong about their belief in the end of days, and since then, every end-time cult in the history of the world has been wrong. So far, the accuracy rate of all end-time predictions has been hovering really close to zero. Actually, it is zero. Even Jesus, to the extent that he thought the end was coming within his disciples’ lifetime was wrong, and Jesus admitted that he didn’t know when the end was going to be, that only God the Father knew.
The point is that end-time cults, as well as the early churches that Paul started were living as though the world was about to end. They were all living as though some terrible apocalypse was about to happen, but that’s not how and why God made the world.
God didn’t make this world and place us in it just for the world to end or for us to suffer a great apocalypse. God made this world for us to live in this world in joy and peace, to live in this world loving one another and loving this beautiful creation.
Now, I’ll admit, the end of the world is a lot of fun in fiction. Armageddon, Deep Impact, Independence Day, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Moonfall, Greenland, The Core: all of these end-time movies and more are hugely fun and wildly entertaining. There’s the big rush to try to save the world or for some few people to live through the end of the world. It’s exciting, and pulse-pounding, and a great escape from the daily grind and actual worries about actual life.
Folks in these movies aren’t worried about where their next rent check is coming from, how farmers are going to grow food, what grocery prices are going to be, and if there will be enough to eat. For a few hours, watching these movies, we don’t have to worry about these things either. It’s the end of the world. We get to escape reality and imagine some apocalyptic future in which we just don’t have to worry daily life.
End of time predictions, end of time cults all have that same appeal. If it’s the end of the world, you don’t have to worry about much. You don’t need to work if it’s the end of the world. You don’t need to worry about food or anything else if it’s the end of the world.
End of time predictions, even those of faithful religious people are misguided from the start because they are all about escape. We may often want to escape, and who can blame us? There are terrible things going on in the world. So, we try to escape through lots of things. We try to escape through alcohol and drug use. We try to escape through sex. We try to escape through violence. Some try to escape through end-time cults, and some try escape through end of days religious movements. If we have enough money, we try to escape by building rockets to go to Mars and things like that.
God didn’t make this world for us to escape it. Whatever way we choose to try to escape, God made the world not for our escape, but for our living. The thing with the whole end-time, apocalypse deal is, we know that eventually all will be well. We are told in many places through scripture that eventually, God will put all things right, and so we can rest some of our hope that eventually, all will be well.
In the meantime, our hope is not in escape. Our hope is in God’s great love for humanity that we get to be a part of making things well. God has given us strength, courage, wisdom, hope, love, so that we can be a part of making things well in this world.
That was God’s gift to us in Genesis, to be a part of governing and caring for creation. God made us in God’s image and found us to be utterly delightful, and so God gave us power to help make things well. Then, God continued to give us even more gifts to help make things well. God gave the covenant and the Torah to the people of Israel. God gave us Jesus to teach us God’s ways and to join with us in every part of our lives. God called us beloved and gave to us over and over again so that we might be a part of making things well in this world, not to prepare for the end, but to prepare for the next turning of the earth. We get to work to make things well because the sun will rise tomorrow. God made us to live in this world in joy and peace, loving one another, healing one another, and loving and healing this beautiful creation.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston November 2, 2025 All Saints’ Sunday, C Ephesians 1:11-23 Psalm 149 Luke 6:20-31
My son, on Halloween afternoon, said he was going to eat all of his Halloween candy that night and make himself sick. I didn’t point out that he was going to get sick if he ate all of his Halloween candy, mind you. He said, “I’m going to eat all of my Halloween candy and make myself sick.” I asked him not to, pointing out that if he did that, I’d have to take care of him, so really, he’d just be making life difficult for me, not to mention that he’d feel terrible and regret the decision. Grudgingly, he agreed to have mercy on his dad and not eat all of his candy in one night.
So, my darling angel chose to care about someone else and get a little less pleasure for himself. What a saint, and truly isn’t that the way of the saints? How blessed are you who don’t eat all of your Halloween candy in one sitting, for you avoid a tummy ache, as well as your father’s displeasure. That’s from an older version of scripture.
Seeking a little less pleasure for yourself so you can care more about other people and not get a tummy ache. That really does sound like what Jesus was talking about in the blessings and curses we heard him give in our reading from Luke 6 today.
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God…But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” Woe to you who eat all of your candy all at once and even take more of other people’s candy, so they don’t have as much and eat all of that too, but blessed are you who have just enough candy to enjoy and not get a tummy ache. It’s not the best analogy, but the point works.
Woe to you who have far more than you need and tend not to be all that bothered by the struggles of those around you. Woe to you who have far more than you need and end up relying almost totally on yourself and your money, seemingly without the need of anyone else.
That’s not how God made creation, for us to depend on ourselves alone with our stuff. We were made to depend upon one another.
So, Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” The kingdom of God is present when we are in love, and peace, and service with one another. When we are not rich, we kinda have to depend on one another, and Jesus calls that a blessing. Sharing what we have with one another, living with trust, and care, and concern for one another, that sounds like the kingdom of God. Sharing what we have with one another, living with trust, and care, and concern for one another, that sounds like the lives of the saints.
Put that way, being a saint sounds kinda good, and not terribly hard.
I knew a young man when I was a youth minister, many years ago. He said he didn’t want to be a saint because it seemed too much like work. There were too many things he thought he’d have to say “no” to. He felt there was too much pleasure that he wouldn’t get to have.
So, he went another way with things, sought a lot of pleasure real fast, ate all of his candy at once, and he struggled quite a lot for many years. He’s doing well now, and it took a lot of work with his parents and others to help get him back on track.
Unfortunately, when he was younger, he had this notion that being a saint was all about behaving well, being good, and not enjoying life too much. He had this notion that following Jesus was all about not going to hell and having to be miserable in this life to avoid hell. Trouble is, both those notions are wrong.
Following Jesus is not about avoiding hell or being miserable in this life. Jesus never said, “Be miserable, or God will be displeased with you.” Following Jesus is about living and receiving a life of love, peace, and kindness with one another. Following Jesus is about living with trust, walking with God, and having hope for life abundant even after we die.
Being miserable is not part of the bargain.
Being beloved and trusting how beloved we are, now that is part of the bargain.
Trust your belovedness, and then live in a way that brings love, peace, and kindness. Do not fear getting everything right. Just trust that you are beloved, and then live out that same love towards others. So, when Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” he wasn’t saying, “Make sure you’re poor so God doesn’t hate you,” Jesus’ teaching was more like, “Wait a sec, guys, you think you’re poor because God hates you? Look despite what others may say, you who happen to be poor are 100% beloved of God. Despite what others may say, you who are poor are not cursed by God. In fact, you who are poor are blessed by God, and the kingdom of God is yours to live, and love, and enjoy.
Also, if you’re terribly jealous of those who are rich, who look down on you and think of you as cursed, God’s got some words for them, and they aren’t going to enjoy those words.
Now, to be clear, there’s nothing particularly saintly about being poor, all by itself. Think of a guy who is angry and mean to everyone he sees, who then asks, “Do you think Jesus is cool with me? I mean, I’m a total jerk to everyone.” “Well, are you poor?” “Yeah.” “Ah, well then, you’re good. Don’t worry about it. Jesus is cool with you.”
Obviously, that’s not the case. You can be a hateful, mean, evil jerk, so long as you’re poor, of course not. Jesus wasn’t making a list of how to trick God into being on your side.
Jesus was teaching us to trust that we are beloved, and then to live out that same love towards others. Think about the people we consider saints in our lives.
I’m thinking of one of our kid’s teachers, Saint Rachel. She was so good with our kiddo and strove with him when he was having an enormously hard time. She may never be in a book of saints or have her face on a medallion in a Christian store, but our family will always be grateful for Saint Rachel.
When we talk about people in our lives and say, “She was a saint,” we’re talking about how they were with us, the impact they had on us, the kindness, caring, and love they showed. They weren’t perfect, but they were saints to us, living the love of God and making that love real in our lives.
That doesn’t mean perfection. It does mean habits and practices of doing good for others, treating other people as beloved. That’s part of what having faith in God is. We believe we are loved, and we let that belief be real enough to change our lives. See, we cannot separate what we believe from what we do. If we say we love God, but hate people, then we are lying to ourselves. We cannot claim to love God while hating people, and we cannot claim to love people while treating people terribly.
Having faith means we treat people well, and when we don’t treat others well, we work to repair any damage done. We see a beloved one whom we have harmed, and we work to help them heal. That’s having faith. Faith is not just what we believe with our minds, but also what we do with our bodies.
God became human. So, our human bodies and what we do with them matter immensely. When we seek too much pleasure for our bodies all at once, eat all the Halloween candy in one night, we get a tummy ache, the people around us suffer, and our faith suffers. Our ability to receive God’s love and then love others in return suffers. So, being a saint is about living a faith of belief and action. Being a saint is not about being perfect. Being a saint is about believing we are loved, as Jesus taught that we are. Being a saint is about living out that love towards others, as Jesus taught us to do, and being a saint is about practicing that belief and way of living.
Even as saints, we still get to have candy. We still get to enjoy life, and we get to do so with love and concern for others, trusting that we are loved.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston October 26, 2025 Proper 25, C Sirach 35:12-17 Psalm 84:1-6 Luke 18:9-14
“Jesus told a parable about those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that having contempt for other people still goes on. In fact, looking at other people and thinking, “They’re a piece of crap,” happens a lot.
Just last Sunday, we had a near fight because one guy did something that irritated another guy, who then said something about it, which irritated the first guy. At that point, it was just back and forth. “He did something wrong.” “No, he did something wrong.” “He’s a terrible person.” “No, he’s a terrible person.” Spouting insults at each other, one ready to punch the other guy right there.
Both were unable and unwilling to see their part of the problem. Both were unable and unwilling to say to themselves, “Maybe I did something that bothered this other guy,” and then say to each other, “I’m sorry about that.” Both saw themselves as the righteous one in the conflict, and both regarded the other with contempt.
Now, you could say that the argument between these two gentlemen last week had nothing to do with religion or seeing themselves as righteous in God’s eyes. You could say this was totally different than the Pharisee in Jesus’ story, bragging to God about how good he was, fasting, giving away his money. You could say two guys arguing with each other is different than some religious leader giving thanks to God about how good of a person he is. You could say that, but you’d be wrong.
If asked, “Are you righteous before God?”, I’m sure both of these gentlemen would have answered, “No, I’m not righteous before God. I’m a sinner. No one is righteous before God.” The contempt they held for each other, however, shows that they at least felt more righteous than that guy, and they might have said so even before God.
To be fair, I’m pretty sure most of us have numerous people we would want to stand before God and say, “But at least I’m not as bad as they are, right?” When asked, with regards to religion, “Are you better than other people?”, I’m guessing most of us know the “right” answer, “No. We all sin. I’m no better than anyone else,” and at the same time, I’m guessing most of us feel better and more righteous than other people when those other people bother us and do things we think are stupid.
Are you better than that other person? “Hell yeah, I am! I mean, not in God’s eyes.”
Truth of our belief is now shown in giving the right answer. The truth of our belief is shown in how we feel about others and how we treat others.
The Pharisee in Jesus’ story wasn’t treating others well. He was probably a really good guy, but in his view of being better than others, he was trapped in the sin of pride. We are often trapped in the sin of pride. Even when we’re right about the other’s faults, we can quickly fall into pride. From there, we very quickly fall into fighting with one another, getting pissed off all the time at every little thing people do around us.
Is being right and constantly angry at every little thing people do around us really the life we want? “Thank God I’m not like that guy who said something stupid or did something bothersome.” “Thank God I’m not like that whole group of people who are terrible sinners. I’m a sinner too, of course, but I’m not like one of those people. The church taught me that those people are sinners, so thank God I’m not like them.”
Is that really the salvation we want? Is a salvation of anger, pride, and irritability really the salvation we want?
Perhaps if we truly trusted how beloved we are, then we wouldn’t have a need to be better than anyone else?
See, beneath that sin of pride is the terrible fear that deep down, I’m not actually good enough, and I’m not actually beloved.
Look at the Pharisee in Jesus’ story. His fasting and giving a tenth of his income away were great things, but why was he doing them? Was he fasting and giving away part of his income to follow the correct rules and therefore have God be pleased with him? Was he in a competition with others for God’s love, in which only the best people really got loved by God?
It looks like he was, except that’s not how love works. God doesn’t need to love you less to love me more.
What if instead of wanting to do enough for God to love him, the Pharisee trusted that God loved him and then fasted and gave money away to be of help to others and to control his desires, so he didn’t do as much harm to others? Then, he might not have been looking down on the tax collector. He might have even heard the tax collector’s prayer and offered to show him the way of love.
“I heard your prayer earlier,” the Pharisee might say to the tax collector. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I heard your prayer, and I wondered if I might offer my belief that God loves you absolutely. God sees you, with all your faults, with all your sins, and God says, “My beloved.”
What change might have happened then? Perhaps they’d have talked more. Perhaps the Pharisee could have suggested that the tax collector seemed fearful and seemed not to love himself that much. Perhaps if the tax collector learned to love himself more and to trust how incredibly beloved of God he was, then he begun living the kind of life he wanted as well. Maybe he wouldn’t have cheated people out of their money, but been content with what he had and worked to be of good service to others.
Last week, there was another couple of guys who almost got into a fight. It was during breakfast, and the reason they didn’t get into a fight is because the one who was being insulted simply got up from the table and walked away. There was a guy at the table insulting him and threatening him, and instead of being tough and getting angry, he simply stood up and walked away.
Walking away was treating the aggressor as a beloved one, choosing to leave, rather than harm him. Now, I doubt that was his thought. I don’t think that what went through his head was, “Hmm, you’re insulting and threatening me, but you are so beloved, I won’t harm you.” No, his thought was probably more like, “This guy is a jerk, but I really don’t want to fight. Also, I don’t much care if he insults me.”
Trusting in God’s love, he didn’t need to fight over being insulted. Trusting in how very loved he is, the guy was able to walk away rather than fight back. He may have looked weak, but it didn’t matter because he knew how beloved he is.
Fear and lack of believing that we are loved leads to pride, so that when we are insulted or bothered, we fight right back. We need to look strong. We need to look tough. We need to be right. Trusting how beloved we are, we don’t need to be right, or tough, or strong. God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9), and God loves us not because we are strong or right. God loves us simply because we are.
My prayer for this morning is that we will all trust just how darn loved we all are. You are so loved. God became human, right? God loves humans so much that God thought it would be a good idea to become one of us. God became human as Jesus, and when Jesus died, he was resurrected; he was raised from the dead. In Jesus’ resurrection, God showed us that death is not the end of life, so we need not fear. God has declared us so beloved that God wants to keep us around even after we die. We get to live together, dwelling in God’s love.
Why would we then declare ourselves anything other than beloved? Why would we declare other people anything other than beloved? When others bother us, remember that they are beloved, and remember that we are beloved. We are so ridiculously loved by God.
