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 September 7, 2025 Proper 18, C Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Psalm 1 Luke 14:25-33
What are the two greatest commandments? Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what Jesus taught. Any other rule we have in our way of life as disciples of Jesus depends upon love God and love your neighbor. In our way of life as the church, everything we do is to be tested, evaluated by, love God and love your neighbor.
If something we start to believe or something we start to do fails the love God and love your neighbor test, then it’s probably not something we should believe or do.
Then we get today’s lesson from Luke 14, where Jesus said that we are supposed to “hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself.” We’re supposed to hate all of those people and even life itself, Jesus said, or else we can’t be his disciple.
That sounds unfortunate. Somehow, we need to figure out how Jesus’ teaching to hate our family and even life itself can possibly pass the love God and love your neighbor test.
So first, let’s try the hyper-literal method. Jesus said to love God, love your neighbor, and even love your enemies. Well, our families aren’t God, aren’t our neighbors, and mostly aren’t our enemies, so I suppose we do get to hate our families, right? Yea, Jesus! Even better, Jesus told his disciples to bless those who hate them, so if we hate our families, they will bless us? Doubtful. Besides, Jesus also said to give up all your possessions. So, going hyper-literal, if we want to be Jesus’ disciples, we all have to live naked without a penny to our names, despised by everyone who once loved us because we decided we had to hate them in order to be Jesus’ disciple. I’m guessing at that point, we might very well hate our own lives.
Obviously, that’s not what Jesus meant. So much for the hyper-literal method of biblical interpretation. (No one tell the your hyper-literal friends that doesn’t work.)
What if we actually look a little more deeply into Jesus’ words? Whoever comes to Jesus and does not hate their loved ones, he said, cannot be his disciple. At least that’s what it says in English, in this particular translation. The word was translated as “hate,” however, can also mean “disregard.” Whoever comes to me and does not disregard their loved ones and even life itself cannot be my disciple. In other words, be able to let your loved ones go, if need be, to follow Jesus’ ways. Be able to let your life go, if need be, to follow Jesus’ ways. That makes a lot more sense with what Jesus taught than, hate your family.
As a side note, in about 10 different translations I read for this passage, all but one used the word hate, rather than disregard. I think that says more about us than it does about Jesus, the fact that we seem to want to translate the word as hate, despite how that goes against Jesus’ teachings.
Let’s look at what Jesus meant by disregard your family and even life itself. In Luke 8, we hear about Jesus teaching a large crowd of people. His mother and brothers came to see him, and when folks suggested he stop teaching so he could meet with his family, he said that his family are all those who hear the word of God and do it. Jesus did not show any hatred toward his mother and his brothers. He did show some indifference to them. He disregarded them in order to show his love for those he was teaching. They too were his family.
Jesus didn’t hate his family, but he disregarded them, he set them aside, when he needed to in order to live God’s kingdom in that moment. He was not forever saying goodbye to them, and he was not disowning them. He was just acknowledging that right then, other people needed him more than his family did, and if his family got upset about that, he was willing to let them. No anger. No hatred. Just setting them aside for a little while, rather than letting them be an excuse to stop his ministry. So no, Jesus didn’t hate his family.
Jesus didn’t hate his life either. Shortly before being crucified, just before being arrested, Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane begging God not to have to be crucified. He was really hoping to skip that part, his painful and premature death by the state, because he really liked his life.
Nevertheless, he was willing to disregard his life if it meant following God’s will and God’s ways.
Jesus had been led to preach, and teach, and heal people, and in all of that, his preaching, teaching, and healing, he angered the religious and political leaders of the day. Remember all that stuff God said about not exploiting the poor? Yeah, God meant that. Remember all that stuff God said about religious practices not really have a heart of love for the people society disregards? Yeah, God meant that too.
Jesus had run afoul of the religious and political elite, and at the same time, many of the people who followed him wanted him to be a great military ruler. They misunderstood and thought Jesus was going to lead an armed revolt against Rome, killing and driving them all out.
So, at the time of Jesus’ arrest, it was either take up the mantle of military ruler and lead a rebellion to kill to all the Romans, or let himself be killed. Jesus chose to let himself be killed. Peter tried to stop it, grabbing a sword to try to kill Jesus’ accusers, and Jesus said, nope, thanks so much, Pete, but we’re gonna let this death thing happen. I’m going to disregard my life rather than kill and lead a rebellion, disregarding tens of thousands of lives in order to save mine.
Jesus loved his life, and he disregarded it in order to save others. Jesus loved his family, and disregarded them when he needed to in order to live God’s will and God’s ways.
So, Jesus tells us, if we want to be his disciples, we need to be willing to disregard our loved ones and even our lives for the sake of following God’s will and God’s ways. If someone harms a member of my family, my gut instinct is to find that person and get terrible revenge against that person, beating them senseless, but that’s not the teaching of Jesus.
I’d definitely try to hold that person accountable for what they did. If I needed to get the authorities involved. That could be about keeping others safe too, but going out and seeking revenge, blood for blood, eye for eye, that is not following the teaching of Jesus. So, if I’m going to live as his disciple, I wouldn’t go seek revenge on my own against that person, and my family might just feel like I was disregarding them, letting them down. Why do you hate us so much that you won’t get revenge?
Because I believe in the ways of Jesus. I believe that seeking revenge only brings about more revenge from the others person. Fighting and killing as revenge for fighting and killing never ends. If we need to disregard our family’s desires for revenge in order to break a cycle of violence and follow Jesus’ teaching, then so be it.
Being Jesus’ disciple has a cost to it. Sometimes it’s disregarding the desires of those we love. Sometimes it’s disregarding our own desires, because trusting in Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ ways, we come to believe that there will be greater healing and greater love in the world if we sometimes disregard our own desires. We come to believe that there will be greater healing and greater love in the world if we sometimes disregard our loved ones’ desires.
That’s a cost. What we get for that cost is greater peace, with work, over time. Disregarding our own desires and our loved one’s desire in order to follow Jesus’ teaching is a cost, and what we get for that cost is to be servants of peace, offering peace and healing to those around us.
Living as Jesus’ disciples comes at a cost. Not always getting what we want, not always giving our loved ones what they want to. Consider, however, that we’re not always going to get what we want anyway, and we’re definitely going to let our loved ones down anyway. The cost of living as Jesus’ disciple can be high, but you know what? We’re usually going to end up paying some kind of cost in this life anyway. Paying the cost as Jesus’ disciples, we get peace. We get love. We get healing, and we get to share that peace, love, and healing with the world.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston August 31, 2025 Proper 17, C Sirach 10:12-18 Psalm 103:1-8 Luke 14:1,7-14
Pride, to feel that I matter above anyone else. Pride, to be so angry when someone hurts me, insults me, or looks at me wrong, that I hurt or insult them back, because after all, I’m more important than they are. Pride, to turn inward, putting walls up around me, letting no one in because it’s safer that way and I don’t need anyone else anyway. In all of these ways, pride is to forsake God.
We heard in our reading from Sirach that the beginning of pride is to turn away from God, to pull our hearts away from God.
When we pull our hearts from God, then we assume that we are all-sufficient, that we have no need for others, that we trust no one and nothing. When we pull our hears from God, we have pride leaving us alone, hurting, often with violent anger which lashes out at others. As we heard in Sirach, however, neither violent anger nor pride were made for human beings. We’re not made to be prideful and violently angry. We’re made to be loving and supportive towards one another. We find our full humanity in being loving and supportive towards one another. When we withdraw and isolate in pride and violent anger, we pull further and further away from our own humanity.
Sometimes when I’ve seen folks get violently angry, or gotten terribly angry myself, I’ve heard folks say things like, “but he insulted me,” as though being insulted is a good reason for beating someone, punching and hurting them. Talk about pride leading to violent anger. He insulted me; he wounded my pride, so I am going to get violently angry now.
Ok, so on the one hand, that’s all too human. We strive, we struggle, we get hurt, we make mistakes. We lash out. We isolate. We’re human; we mess up. On the other hand, pride and violent anger take away from our true humanity.
Our true humanity dwells in love. Our true humanity dwells in forgiveness. Our true humanity dwells in kindness and in caring about others.
I preached several weeks ago about Mr. Rogers. He was someone whom we tend to put on a pedestal. He was like a saint, so wonderful and kind. Ok, but Jesus was telling us not to put people up on pedestals in the teaching we heard today. When we put some people up on pedestals, we tend to devalue others. These great ones are so wonderful, and these others are, eh, not as good.
When we put folks on pedestals, we also tend to elevate them even above ourselves. They are someone great, not someone like me. They can be kind, and caring, and wonderful because they are special, somehow, not like me. We tend to do that with people like Mr. Rogers, and his widow was adamant that people not put him on a pedestal. After all, Mr. Rogers believed all of us can be people of kindness, forgiveness, love, and caring. If we assume that we can’t, that people like Mr. Rogers are saints and we can’t achieve that, well that’s just another kind of pride.
I’m different. Someone else can do that, but not I. I’m not special enough to be able to be as kind and caring as that person is. The reality is that for Mr. Rogers and anyone who is kind and caring, it’s a choice and it takes work.
For any who think that Mr. Rogers was a saint, and I can’t do that, the truth is that it may just take more effort than we’re willing to put in. We’ll, if we’re unwilling to put in the effort, that’s the same kind of pride that says, “I matter above anyone else. I matter too much to waste my time working to be kind, forgiving, loving, and caring to others.”
When we put people like Mr. Rogers up on a pedestal as some kind of special saintly person and we tell ourselves we can’t be that good, we are forsaking God and others, because it is safer and easier not to have to work so hard. Overcoming our pride takes work. Not lashing out in violent anger takes work. Living into our true humanity takes work.
For Jesus, it took the work of the cross. “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, as he allowed himself to be crucified, rather than calling on hosts of angels to rescue him and kill his killers. That was Jesus’ work for our sake, to free us and to help us live into our true humanity.
“Take up your own cross and follow me,” he said. We don’t have to be crucified, but living into our true humanity takes work.
Sometimes that work looks like daily, hourly, or minute by minute prayer for God’s help so that we might live in kindness, rather than lashing out at others. Sometimes that work looks like sharing our difficulties with others and asking for their help so that we might live in love and caring, rather than pride. Sometimes that work looks like taking medicine because our brains need extra help to live into our true humanity, to overcome depression, violent anger, and other mental illnesses that we face. All of that work is what we can do to live into our true humanity.
Jesus taught us not to take places of honor, assuming we’re better than everyone else. Sometimes that means not putting others up on pedestals, as we refuse to do the work it takes to live into our own true humanity.
I had a friend, years ago; we were talking about the saints, and she said, “I don’t want to be a saint.” She was thinking of being a saint as being kinda miserable, giving up everything that makes you happy so that you can be good enough for God. That’s not what being a saint is; that’s just being miserable. No, being a saint looks like doing the work you need to do to care for others. Being a saint looks like recognizing that we are all in this life together.
At the beginning of our service this morning, we sang, “Satan, we’re gonna tear your kingdom down.” Satan, the Adversary, keeps us divided. Satan keeps us saying, “We’re not in this together.” “You don’t belong.” “I’m more important than you.” “We’re against one another,” or at the very least, “You’re against me, so I must be against you.”
In all of those ways that we remain against one another, we’re helping to build up Satan’s kingdom. When we exclude the undesirables, put others on pedestals, and determine that being kind and caring to others is too much work, we’re helping to build up Satan’s kingdom.
Now, long-term, big picture? Jesus has torn Satan’s kingdom down. While we get to live out Satan’s kingdom if we choose to, Satan’s kingdom has ultimately been torn down, by Jesus on the cross. So, we get to live Jesus’ kingdom.
We get to live the kingdom of kindness, mercy, love, and caring, and even if we have been building up Satan’s failed and doomed kingdom, we always get to come back. Jesus welcomes us with open arms, saying, “Come on, let’s start building together.” Living and building Jesus’ kingdom is work, but think about how much more work it is to live against one another. Think about how much more work it is to live with pride and violent anger?
Following Jesus’ way, doing the work, and building up Jesus’ kingdom, we get to let go of our pride and violent anger. We get to live and work for kindness, forgiveness, love and caring for all.
