For the Hurt, the Blessed, and the Damned was years in the making.

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.

Peace and love,

Brad+

A Place Where People are Honored, Respected, and Loved

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
May 18, 2025
5 Easter, C
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
John 13:31-35

Love God, and love people. It’s just that easy, right? Love God, and love people. All of the commandments and all of the laws and ways of God really boil down to those two simple things. Simple, easy, until we actually try to start living it. 

Anyone ever felt like, “I love God, and because of that, I just can’t stand people”? Yeah, me to sometimes. People can be hard to love. That’s why it’s not easy.  Of course, the book of James points out that we can’t love God if we don’t love people. So…yeah, it might be that loving God isn’t always easy either. 

It takes work and commitment, loving someone. That means loving them when you don’t like them and staying committed to them at the times when you’d rather just turn tails and run. To make it even tougher, Jesus tells us to love even our enemies, and let’s face it, I have a hard time loving my friends sometimes, much less people I consider enemy, but there it is. Jesus tells us to love, like, everybody. By doing that, we show that we actually love God.

In the commandment we heard from Jesus today, however, he gives us a starting point with that love, making things potentially a little easier. “Love one another,” he said. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love your fellow disciples; love your fellow followers of Jesus. Realizing there are disciples of Jesus all over the world, let’s keep it really simple. Love the people in your church.

That doesn’t mean don’t love everyone else, but particularly, as a start, focus on loving your fellow disciples in your church. Make sure your church is a community of love, a place and a people where others would see the love we have for one another and recognize that as the love of God. 

We’ve been hearing about the decline of church for decades now. More and more people are not going to church, more and more people are saying they don’t believe in any religion, and even among those who believe in Jesus, more and more are believing privately, choosing not to be a part of a church community. 

I wonder if part of that might be because the church hasn’t been a place where people truly love one another. I mentioned a couple weeks ago about things like people being shunned for backsliding. Think about the fighting we have in the Church over whose Baptism is the right kind of Baptism. We fight over how exactly salvation works, and we tend to divide over which groups disagree too much. We have some denominations claiming that other denominations aren’t really Christians. 

On a congregational level, I know people who have been gossiped about until they left their church, then came back and gossiped about others. I know churches that have divided and then fought over who got to keep the building. Hell, I even know folks who have fought over things like which flowers were the right ones to put in the church. 

Is it really that surprising that people see that and think, “Yeah, maybe not so much”? 

I don’t mean that people within churches should never fight. That’s not possible. People fight over things. Also, not fighting doesn’t equal love. Love is not just the absence of conflict. Love is striving together to work through conflict and come out stronger and even more committed to one another on the other side. 

Marriages that last 50 and 60 years don’t last because of a lack of conflict. Those marriages last because the couples are committed to staying together and working through the difficult times, sometimes the difficult years. Marriages last because couples are willing to let some things die in the marriage and see what is resurrected on the other side. It’s the same with the church.

A church where people love one another is not a place of fake love, of surface level pretending, and just being politely nice to one another. A church in which people love one another means actual love. That means when we don’t like each other, we choose to look for what is lovable about each other. When we disagree and harm one another, we work to be reconciled; we work to mend the harm done to the other and to heal our broken relationships. 

If anything, that’s what the church is meant to be known for. They will know you are my disciples, Jesus said, they will know you are my church because of how you love one another. Now, what if people saw and heard about churches being places like that? 

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people weren’t shunned, but embraced? 

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people honored and cared for one another?

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people knew that if they did fight with someone, they would do the hard and beautiful work of making things right and healing any harm done?

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people believed they would be respected and loved?

Anyone else feel a need for a place like that, a place where you know you will be honored, respected, and loved? I get the feeling there’s not a whole lot of that going around nowadays. Honor. Respect. Love. I get the feeling the world could use a lot more honor, respect, and love.

That’s why Jesus commanded us to love one another. Make your church a place where people are honored, respected, and loved. Make your church a place of healing. You need it, and those around you need it.

When we love one another inside the church, even loving the ones we don’t like, then we have a place we can invite others to for peace and healing. When people see they are being invited into a community of honor, respect, and love (love without conditions), then folks just might want to join that community of peace and healing. 

Everyone here needs peace and healing. Everyone here needs to be honored. Everyone here needs to be shown respect. Everyone here needs to be loved. That’s why Jesus made his church, that we might be a place where we choose, and strive, and commit to love one another every day. 

The Armalite Rifle Won’t Save You

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
May 11, 2025
4 Easter, C
Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm 23
John 10:22-30

“Come on, Jesus, tell us if you’re the Messiah or not!?” That’s what the people wanted to know. “Are you the Messiah, or aren’t you, Jesus?” Jesus responded that he had already told them, and they did not believe. Part of why they didn’t believe is because they were looking for a different Messiah.

When the people asked Jesus about being the Messiah, it was during the festival of Dedication, in other words, Chanukah. Chanukah is the feast of the consecration of the altar, over 100 years before Jesus, after the Israelites drove out the Syrians who had desecrated the temple. Having in mind Israel’s military victory over the Syrians, people wanted to know if Jesus was going to drive out the Romans. 

Folks in Israel had been looking for a revolutionary leader who would overthrow the Roman Empire ever since they took over Israel. Jesus just wasn’t their guy. When Jesus was on trial, the crowd told Pilate to release Barabbas, the revolutionary leader, rather than Jesus. Then, a few decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Jewish people actually had a revolution against Rome, and that revolution ended poorly for Israel and in fact destroyed Israel.

“Are you the Messiah?” The people asked. Yes, Jesus was telling them, but you won’t see me as the Messiah because you’re looking for the wrong Messiah. You’re looking for someone to lead you into war and bloodshed. You’re looking for someone to kill your enemies and rule over others in a kingdom of power and might, and that’s just not the Messiah I am.

If you want a warlord as your messiah, that’s fine, and you’ll have a warlord’s salvation. Death, destruction, violence, anger, strife, and fighting forevermore.

That is not the salvation Jesus brings.

Jesus’ salvation comes through love and justice, mercy and forgiveness. Jesus taught that we don’t need to fight and kill to wrest our peace and security from others. Instead, we can seek peace though our unity with God, and then work with God to save and shepherd the lives of those we love (and the lives of those we don’t love). With Jesus as our Messiah, we seek to live God’s kingdom of love and peace, knowing that we won’t fully achieve the love and peace we desire. We strive for justice, knowing that justice will not be complete in this life. We recognize that the peace of God means others will see us as enemy, and we will not seek to dominate or kill them. The peace we fully seek will only happen one day, in that time and place of God’s making where we all “will hunger no more, and thirst no more,” where the “Lamb…will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

We won’t get that full peace in this life, but we strive for it anyway, and we get glimpses of that peace throughout our lives. We get glimpses of the peace of God’s kingdom as we trust in Jesus and love and serve others as he loved and served us, following the voice of Jesus, our shepherd Messiah.

That’s a very different voice than the voice of the warlord Messiah. If, like some of the people talking to Jesus in our Gospel reading today, if we are listening for a warlord Messiah, then we won’t recognize the voice of Jesus. Listening for a warlord Messiah, we’ll want to conquer, rather than comfort; to subdue, rather than serve; to lecture, rather than love.

Listening for a warlord Messiah, you won’t hear my voice, Jesus tells us, because you’re looking for the wrong Messiah.

I think of churches full of people who brought their Armalite Rifles, AR-15s, to church so they could have a service of blessing for their rifles. Ok, so that’s kinda nuts, and it makes me ask, who is the Messiah for such people? I suppose to be fair, just before Jesus was arrested, Jesus did tell his disciples to gather up some swords. I’ve even heard that said as a reason why Christians should be armed and ready to kill.

Of course that’s a misreading of scripture and ignoring half of the story. In Luke 22, Jesus did tell his disciples to get some swords. Then he told them why. It was so the scripture would be fulfilled, that he would be counted among transgressors. Jesus had no intention for his disciples to use the swords. Peter tried to when Jesus was arrested, and Jesus immediately told him and the rest of them to put their swords down.

I like to think that people who read Luke 22 and think we are supposed to get guns and be ready to kill are not intentionally misreading scripture, but that they are faithfully misreading scripture. I like to think that their reading is simply tainted by nationalistic fervor and a strong gun culture in America. When having a gun becomes synonymous with being a Christian, and being a red-blooded, gun-loving American becomes part of what it means to be a Christian, then we have mistaken Jesus for Barabbas, replaced the shepherd with the warlord.

Even without bringing guns to church for God to bless them, we still may end up following a warrior, rather than a shepherd. In the small, everyday battles of our lives, who do we follow, the warlord or the shepherd? When we come to church seeking blessing, do we intend to change our ways so that we may be blessed in order to bless others? In the words of one of our Eucharistic prayers, do we come to church “for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal?”

Looking to Jesus and hearing his voice, we get to follow Jesus as our shepherd, and we are called, as his sheep, to serve as fellow shepherds. We are called to care for others, and not just those we think are worthy, not just those we think are part of Jesus’ flock. See, the warlord tells us to create and ingroup and an outgroup. The warlord tells us to care for the ingroup and to keep the outgroup away.

The shepherd says, “Feed my sheep,” and the shepherd also says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this flock.” We may think someone doesn’t belong, but that’s thinking like the warlord. Jesus said, “one shepherd and one flock.”

As Jesus’ sheep, called to live as shepherds, we are called to seek and serve Christ in all persons. We are called to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. The warlord doesn’t do that, and the warlord’s salvation comes in this life only, a salvation of death, destruction, violence, anger, strife, and fighting forevermore.

Jesus is the Messiah, because Jesus is a shepherd, calling us to live as shepherds, bearing one another’s burdens and caring for one another. Jesus’ salvation comes in this life and the next, in this life because we help to save each other from hell on earth, and in the next life because we will live with Jesus in that place where “we will hunger no more, and thirst no more; where the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

If Christians Tried to Save People from Hell on Earth

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

May 4, 2025

3 Easter, C

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)

Psalm 30

John 21:1-19

Imagine if Christians overall were far less concerned with saving people from Hell, and far more concerned with helping people from living through Hell on earth. The Church might be a bit different than it is right now. The world might be too.

I think about some of the things the Church has done over the centuries in the name of saving people’s souls. We’ve fought wars and killed those we called heathens. We’ve burned people alive. Churches have ostracized people because they sinned or backslid, shaming them into leaving their church. Churches have joined with the U.S. government to take native American children from their homes and putting them in boarding schools to Christianize them and basically turn them into white people.

The government just didn’t want Indians around anymore. The Churches wanted to save people’s souls, seemingly oblivious to damage they did in the process. Gotta get people saved, right? If bad things happen here in the process, well, you’re doing good because you’re saving them eternally, keeping them from Hell, right?

Mph, I don’t think so.

Just looking at the church’s role in trying to Christianize native American children, lovely that they were trying to save souls, but many of the children forced to go to these school end up living through Hell on earth. They were separated from their families and made to forget and forsake their own culture and language, just so the government would have an easier time dealing with them. We don’t want those pesky natives around, so let’s make them like us…I mean, not too much like us, not enough to have them truly be a part of us, but just enough so they’re not a problem. Then there’s the abuse many of the children suffered, and various churches ran over half of these schools.

If only the Church hadn’t been so focused on saving souls, perhaps they wouldn’t have partnered with the government to harm children. If only the Church hadn’t been so focused on saving souls, perhaps they wouldn’t have spent so much time ostracizing people who sinned or backslid. Perhaps they wouldn’t have fought wars and murdered people in order to save souls.

Besides, when it comes to saving souls, I’m pretty sure Jesus already took care of that.

What if instead of, “we gotta get people saved,” what if it was, “we might should help people out. We oughta strive for justice and peace, forgiveness, healing, and, mercy?” What if, instead of worrying about getting people saved (which again, Jesus already took care of), what if we worked to live in such a way that we don’t create hell on earth? What if that’s what we chose to mean by saving people, trying to keep from creating hell on earth?

That’s what Jesus was doing when he met Peter and the disciples on the beach. See, Peter was going through his own hell on earth. He’d been with Jesus for three years, trusted in, believed in, and loved him. Then, when things started to go badly for Jesus, Peter immediately denied that he even knew him. Three times he denied knowing Jesus, and hours later, Jesus was killed.

Peter had to be going through some guilt and some shame over that. Even after Jesus was raised from the dead, it seems like Peter was wracked with guilt. Peter and the disciples heard from Mary Magdalene that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Then Jesus appeared before them and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Jesus sent Peter and the other disciples as apostles of forgiveness. He sent them, just as he had been sent, to grant forgiveness and healing and to teach others forgiveness and healing as a way of life. Peter was sent, the same as the rest of the disciples.

After that, however, Peter decided to go fishing. Ok, so, it seems that Peter and the others still needed to make a living, so fishing made sense, but it also seems like Peter was stuck. Peter seems to have been unable to live as the apostle of forgiveness Jesus had sent him to be.

Even though Jesus had said, “Peace be with you,” even though Jesus sent him as an apostle, Peter seemed to think that his life as Jesus’ disciple was over. He thought his life as Jesus’ apostle of forgiveness was over. It wasn’t. It never had been, but wracked with guilt, Peter couldn’t get past his denial of Jesus. He seems to have been living in his own self-imposed hell.

So, when Jesus met Peter and the other disciples on the beach, he helped heal Peter’s broken heart by forgiving him. To be clear, he had already forgiven Peter, again, that was taken care of on the cross, but when he met Peter on the beach, he spoke that forgiveness out loud. Now, he didn’t say the words, “I forgive you.” Instead, he gave Peter three opportunities to claim his love for Jesus, once for each time he had denied Jesus. He let Peter repent, out loud, for his own sake, to heal the guilt and shame he felt. Jesus saved Peter from his own self-imposed hell on earth.

As far as big S salvation goes, “getting Peter saved,” as some folks would say nowadays, that was already done. Jesus had done that a few days earlier on the cross on Friday afternoon. Jesus was saving Peter from hell on earth. In doing so, Jesus told Peter to do the same for others.

“Do you love me?” Jesus asked Peter. “You know I love you,” Peter replied. Then, “feed my sheep,” Jesus said. That was Jesus’ declaration of forgiveness. You are already forgiven. You are already restored. Now go, and be an apostle of forgiveness, healing others as you have been healed. Go and save others from hell on earth, just as you have been saved from hell on earth.

The big S salvation, our unity with God in all of our lives, including our sins, that’s already done. What Jesus has given us to do is to live and share his teachings and way of life. Cause harm to no one, and when you do, work to put things right. Forgive others when they harm you, and help heal the world through your forgiveness. Don’t worry so much about saving people from Hell (that’s already done). Instead focus on keeping people from living through hell on earth, and help release people from those hells, in Jesus’ name.