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 August 30, 2026 Proper 17, A Romans 12:9-21 Psalm 26:1-8 Matthew 16:21-28
“There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” That’s what Morpheus said to Neo the 1999 sci-fi film, “The Matrix.” In the movie, humans were struggling to be freed from machine overlords, and humanity was waiting on a savior, The One. Morpheus was looking for this savior, and he was firmly convinced that Neo was the one. At one point, after Neo did some truly amazing things, Morpheus again said how he believed Neo was The One. Neo again protested, and Morpheus said to him, “Sooner or later, you’re going to realize just as I did, there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” You may not know exactly where this is leading, Morpheus was saying, but you can walk the path you are meant to walk, regardless.
As I read today’s Gospel, I have a lot of questions, particularly around Jesus telling his disciples that some of them would not taste death before they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Was he talking about when Jesus would return in the clouds with great majesty, bringing in this new paradise on earth? If so, he was wrong, because that hasn’t happened in 2000 years, much less in the disciples’ lifetimes.
Did Jesus mean they would see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom because they were going to see him riding into Jerusalem on a donkey to much fanfare and praise, because they did see that. A week after he rode into Jerusalem, of course, he was executed as an enemy of the state, so maybe Jesus meant that they would see him come into his kingdom, but that his kingdom was not some great seat of governmental power that they thought it was. I kinda like that, but it also feels like a stretch.
So, maybe Jesus meant they would see his resurrection, that rising from the grave with everlasting life was Jesus coming in his kingdom. Many of Jesus’ disciples did see him after being resurrected, and that’s certainly amazing and wonderful and far greater than riding a donkey into a city, but Jesus said the Son of Man would “come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he [would] repay everyone for what has been done.”
That just straight up ain’t happened yet. So maybe he did mean his resurrection when he said they would see him coming into his kingdom and the whole coming with his angels in the glory of his Father thing was something else? I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve got a lot of questions on this one. I’m not sure what I believe about Jesus coming with his angels in the glory of his Father and his disciples not tasting death before they see him coming in his kingdom.
I could try to come up with an exact answer that suits me, and fits all the pieces together, and defines everything exactly. I’ve seen it done, but those answers, fitting everything together perfectly, tend to leave me cold. They kinda sorta make sense-ish of what Jesus said, if you don’t ask too many questions, but they tend to feel like an unskilled writer tying up loose ends in a script. You end up with something that’s definitely, almost a movie but the kind that you’d wait till it was out of theaters to watch and then just decide to skip entirely.
The other reason I don’t tend to come up with an exact answer that suits me, and fits all the pieces together, and defines everything exactly is that I don’t really need to. “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
In the midst of all my questions, I don’t really know the right answers, but I choose to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, nonetheless. I believe Jesus was showing us that life does not end in death, but that life is transformed in death into something else, that we will all continue living together after our deaths. I find that beautiful. It gives me hope.
Morpheus - "The Matrix", 1999
Even not knowing how it all works, believing in Jesus’ resurrection gives me a path to walk, a path of hope, peace, and trust. I may not know exactly where the path will lead or how it all goes, but “there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” Knowing the path can lead to that really bad b-movie thing I was talking about earlier. Walking the path, well, that’s pretty much what Paul was writing about in Romans 12:9-21.
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
That’s some of the highlights. Paul shows a path of hope and peace, a path of trust. Now, full disclosure, Paul seems to have thought that the end was coming very quickly, that Jesus would return any minute. So, you could see Paul’s advice as being, “Eh, since it ain’t gonna be too long, you can put up with some suffering for now.” That may be what he was thinking, but my question there is, if Paul had thought that Jesus wasn’t coming with his angels in the glory of his Father for at least 2000 years, would he have given the same advice. I think so, because as much as he thought Jesus was returning any minute, his hope was in Jesus’ resurrection, in life after death. So, Paul taught a path of hope, and peace, and trust. Paul walked that path, and he taught the churches to walk that path as well.
Hope. Peace. Trust.
That is a decidedly different path than Peter was on when he rebuked Jesus. Peter thought he knew the path he wanted to take. He thought he knew the path he wanted Jesus to take, a path of power and glory. So, when Jesus said that he was going to be arrested, beaten, killed, and on the third day raised, Peter rebuked Jesus for being on what he thought was the wrong path. Power, glory, destruction of enemies, that’s the path Peter thought Jesus should have been on.
Now, they hadn’t been walking the path of power, glory, or destruction. Peter had been with Jesus for years, watching Jesus walk the path of hope, and peace, and trust, and yet, somehow Peter still thought the path they were on was power, glory, and destruction.
“You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” Jesus told Peter. Peter assumed he knew the end, power and glory, and so he was ignoring the actual path they were walking. That continues to happen quite a lot in the church. Sometimes followers of Jesus know how things should be, and they are so determined for things to be that way, that they leave the path of hope, peace, and trust in order to force their way in the world.
They form groups based on political beliefs to try to force things to be the way they think Jesus wants them to be. They try to pass laws to force others to conform to their morals or beliefs. They want Jesus’ kingdom here on earth, and they try to make it happen, but the path they end up walking is the path of power, glory, and destruction.
That wasn’t the way of Jesus, it wasn’t the way of Paul, and even Peter abandoned that way of power and glory after Jesus’ resurrection. They all walked in the path of hope, peace, and trust. That’s the way of the church.
I want to walk that path, except of course in the times when I don’t because I want to walk the path of power, glory, and destruction, because I want my way and I know how things should be, and I’m angry, or I’m frustrated, or whatever else it is. Jesus tells us to take up our cross as we follow him, and we put onto that cross what that cross represented for Rome: power, glory, and destruction. We put on to that cross our desires to force our way in the world and crucify those with Christ so that we can then walk with Christ in the path of hope, peace, and trust.
We don’t know exactly where that’s going to lead in this life. We seek to bring healing and love as we walk the path of Jesus. We crucify our desires for power, glory, and destruction, forcing the world to be how we want, and we don’t know when or how the path will end. We do know we can’t force Jesus’ kingdom on the world. We can’t force Jesus’ kingdom to come. It isn’t ours to bring about. So, when will Jesus’ kingdom fully come? Where exactly will walking the path of Jesus lead? We don’t know, but we don’t need to know. We don’t need to know the path. We just need to walk it.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston August 16, 2026 Proper 15, A Isaiah 56:1,6-8 Psalm 67 Matthew 15:21-28
I was on a radio show a couple of weeks ago on 90.1, KPFT. The show is called, THNX, spelled T-H-N-X, and the host, Rand Mintzer was interviewing me and the Rev. Laura Mayo, senior minister of Covenant Church Houston. The topic of the show that night was “Faith in Today’s World.” Rand was looking at the challenges people are facing and the struggles so many are having while a very few are exceedingly, mind-numbingly wealthy. He asked about how our faith relates to these struggles, and he asked how we and our congregations are able to maintain hope amidst such disparity and injustice.
Rev. Laura talked several times about Amos – pointing out that it’s pretty short (only 9 chapters), and is fantastic when it comes to talking about the justice God desires.
Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, 5 saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, 6 buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” (Amos 8:4-6)
Here, you had folks keeping the sabbath; they were following the law, not working on the day of rest. Unfortunately, they were like beasts lying in wait to pounce on their prey. Once the sabbath was over, they overcharged for grain and wheat, they lied and cheated to make extra money, and through all of that, they robbed the poor.
In modern times, you could say they kept wages low while increasing prices so they could keep more profits for themselves. They weren’t breaking laws enough that you could really catch them, and by all outward appearances, they looked like fine, upstanding people, but they trampled the needy and brought ruin to the poor of the land.
In our reading from Isaiah 56 today, we heard God calling people to “maintain justice, and do what is right,” and to “keep the sabbath, and [not] profane it.” As we saw in Amos, keeping the sabbath and maintaining justice are tied together for God. Doing religious practices right doesn’t matter if we don’t treat people with dignity and respect. Following religious rules to keep ourselves in God’s good graces may even count against us if we are adding to the hurt and harm in the world.
Folks that oppress others and harm others tend to divide people up into categories like the worthy and the unworthy. These fine, upstanding people are worthy of honor and respect. These lowly schlebs, well, they’re not worthy of much of anything, are they? It’s easier to exploit people and oppress workers when you don’t see them as worthy. It’s easier not to care about the harm you are causing others when you don’t see them as worthy.
Jesus taught his disciples something about worthiness in his conversation with the Canaanite woman in the story we heard today.
On the surface, we have Jesus telling this woman, who just wanted to have her child healed, that she was a dog and not worthy to have anything from him, especially not something as grand as healing of her child. That is decidedly different, however, from how Jesus usually treated women and how Jesus usually treated people who came to him asking for healing. Jesus usually gave honor and respect and chose to show mercy to people, relieving their suffering.
When the Canaanite woman shouted at Jesus to heal her daughter, he first ignored her, and his disciples asked him to send her away because she was bothering them. Rude. Talk about not seeing her as worthy, Jesus said that he was not sent for her kind of person, but only for the people of Israel. In other words, “You aren’t worthy.”
So, the woman decided to spar with Jesus. Since she wasn’t worthy, she knelt down before Jesus and asked again for Jesus to heal her daughter. At that point, Jesus called her a dog, once again, not worthy of him or his mercy. The woman came right back with “Even the dogs eat the crumbs under their master’s table.”
That was a rather brilliant move on her part. I can see her getting angry and shouting at Jesus at this point. “I’m not a dog! How dare you call me a dog! My daughter is sick, and you need to heal her! You’re horrible! You ain’t no healer or good person! You’re the devil!” Well, he might have seen that like a dog barking angrily at someone, and Jesus could have been proven right, that she was just a dog, not worthy of him.
So, rather than take offence at Jesus calling her a dog, the woman basically said, “Ok, fine. I’m a dog, but I’m still a human being.” That revealed her dignity.
I’ve heard this referred to as sparing between the woman and Jesus. Perhaps he was sparing with her to teach his disciples a lesson? Perhaps she brought him up short. He had just said that what defiles us is not what our particular religious practices are, but what we do to one another, how we treat one another.
Well, Jesus wasn’t treating the woman well at first, and through their sparing, Jesus was shown to believe what he taught. He helped the woman out.
He also revealed her human dignity. Through their sparing, she didn’t deny being a dog, she just took his insult and turned it right back around. Even the dogs eat the crumbs. Again, “Ok, fine. I’m a dog, but I’m still a human being. You want to give me crumbs? I’ll take crumbs.”
That revealed her human dignity far more than if she had shouted back at him. Dogs bark and bite. She did not. She talked calmly and reasoned with Jesus. In admitting to being a dog, she showed that she was far from actually being a dog. In agreeing that she was a dog, her humanity was revealed.
That’s like Jesus’ teaching about turning the other cheek and not resisting an evil person. (Matthew 5:39) She didn’t resist his evil sounding words. She turned her cheek, offered herself the same insult again and exposed the inhumanity of calling her a dog in the first place.
It really was brilliant, and I can see Jesus’ excitement. “Dude! She’s doing exactly what I taught!” I can also imagine the whole conversation between them being a way that Jesus took the opportunity to teach his disciples. “Here’s what turning the other cheek is all about, and here is what it means to treat people with dignity and respect.”
So, through all of that, her dignity was revealed and her suffering was relieved. Jesus showed that the way of God is not to some people worthy and some people unworthy. The way of God is not to practice religion and look good to others while oppressing workers, trampling the needy and bringing ruin to the poor of the land. No, the way of God is to care for all and to reveal the dignity and relieve the suffering of people some may consider to be unworthy.
Revealing dignity and relieving suffering is our way of life at Lord of the Streets. That’s our mission. “Reveal dignity and relieve suffering, through ministries and relationships with people facing homelessness.” As I said last week, that’s the mission for everyone who chooses to be a member of Lord of the Streets (and for everyone who chooses to be a partner and supporter of Lord of the Streets). That’s our mission in each of our lives, and that’s our mission as a church community.
That mission is also how we can find faith and hope in today’s world. We strive to reveal one another’s dignity and to relieve one another’s suffering. That is the true life of our religion. Like Amos said, like Isaiah said, like Jesus said, revealing dignity and relieving suffering is how we show that we truly love God, that we live our religion. Recognizing all people as worthy of honor and respect, love and belonging, that’s how we find hope and faith in today’s world.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston August 9, 2026 Proper 14, A 1 Kings 19:9-18 Psalm 85:8-13 Matthew 14:22-33
“Dude, if I called you out of the boat to take a stroll on the water with me, did you really think I was going to let you drown?” Ok, so that’s a bit snarkier than what Jesus said to Peter, but I think it really gets to the heart of the question, don’t you? Jesus had called Peter out of the boat in the middle of the sea to take a stroll on the water with him, and when Peter got afraid and began to drown, Jesus picked him up, put him in the boat and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
That’s actually a pretty good question. Why did Peter doubt? He saw Jesus, walking on the water. When Jesus called him out of the boat, Peter started out walking on the water just fine, but then he got afraid when he saw the wind and the waves. So, of course, Peter doubted because he was afraid. With fear of drowning foremost in his mind, I can imagine Peter having two questions. Could Jesus keep him walking on the water, and would Jesus keep him walking on the water. In other words, Peter was doubting Jesus’ ability and his good will.
Maybe that sounds familiar.
Sure, Jesus is powerful and all, but can he really help with this? I can see Peter wondering just how far Jesus’ powers extended. If a wave knocked Peter ten feet away from Jesus, would the floaty, water-walking awesomeness still reach him? Then there’s the question of Jesus’ intentions. What if Jesus was secretly angry with Peter and had only called him out of the boat to trick him? What if Jesus actually wanted him to drown and figured this way he could make it look like an accident?
That may sound nuts, and it is nuts, but Peter wouldn’t have been the first to question God’s power or good will. When the people of Israel were hungry and thirsty in the desert after God freed them from slavery in Egypt, they cried out, repeatedly in Exodus and Numbers, “What the heck, God? Did you bring us out of Egypt just so we could die in the wilderness?” The people were hungry and thirsty, so of course they began to doubt. Could God bring them food and water in the desert? Would God bring them food and water in the desert? Spoiler, but God did.
Photo by Sebastian Bill on Unsplash Text inspired by Despair.com
So, as much as some may like to dis Peter a little bit for his lack of faith, he was in pretty good company in questioning the power of Jesus and the good will of Jesus. Truth be told, Peter was in pretty good company with all of humanity in being afraid and wondering, “Is this really gonna work?” Of course, Peter was afraid. He was walking on top of the water in the middle of a stormy sea. If he hadn't been afraid, he would have been in a coma. I don’t care how much faith he had, his fear response was going to take over. There’s no shame in that.
We all have a fear response. For some of us, it’s kinda mild, and for some of us, our fear response is huge. Now, that’s supposed to be a good thing, protecting us from actual threats, but we often become afraid over things that feel like threats or remind us of threats, even if we’re not really in danger. Just the wrong thing will hit, past trauma will get triggered, and the fear response takes over. So, we get afraid, sometimes very afraid, and once that fear takes over, we may just start to sink. Even if we have great faith, we may start to sink when fear hijacks our brains.
There’s no shame in that, and the fact that fear takes over doesn’t mean we don’t believe well enough. No matter how well we believe, that fear response may hijack our brains, and we may begin to sink. That’s ok. It happens. So, when it happens, when we’re overcome with fear and we begin to sink, Peter has shown us what to do. Turn our fear over to Jesus and ask for his help. Trust in Jesus and allow our fears and doubts to quiet down so that love, hope, and faith can lead us.
Now, that doesn’t mean everything is always going to turn out great, if only we trust in Jesus enough. Jesus did tell us that even if we have great faith, bad things may still happen to us. People are still people, the world is still the world, and no matter how faithful we are, life’s slings and arrows may still hit us.
The work of the church is to continue in the ministry and mission Jesus has for us, even when we are hit by life’s slings and arrows. We are to offer our fears to Jesus, trust in the mission and ministry Jesus has for the church, and remember Jesus’ message, “Dude, if I call you out of the boat, do you really think I’m going to let you drown?”
In our life at Lord of the Streets, Jesus has given us a mission, and our mission is to relieve suffering and reveal dignity by rebuilding lives through ministries and relationships with people facing homelessness. That’s how Lord of the Streets lives out Jesus’ mission of love, hope, and faith: relieve suffering and reveal dignity by rebuilding lives through ministries and relationships with people facing homelessness.
That’s the mission for everyone who chooses to be a member of Lord of the Streets (and for everyone who chooses to be a partner and supporter of Lord of the Streets). So, for everyone here, that’s all of our mission if we choose for it to be. We help one another out, we build relationships together, healthy relationships where we support each other and build each other up in love.
I was talking to a member last week. He was homeless and now has a place to live near here, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of drugs where he lives and not a lot of love, hope, and faith. So, I suggested that he start offering some of that love, hope, and faith. Invite some neighbors to meet together, pray together, have fellowship together in ways that don’t involve drugs. Ask Jesus to let that grow and bring love, hope, and faith to his apartment building and drive out the drugs and despair.
The man I was talking to hasn’t stepped out of the boat on this one yet. That’s ok, it’s a fearful prospect. Jesus’ message to him is, “Dude, if I call you out of the boat, do you really think I’m going to let you drown?” If he does begin gathering a community of love, hope, and faith to drive out the drugs and despair, I really don’t think Jesus intends for that to fail.
I’m having to listen to that same message right now as well, “Dude, if I call you out of the boat, do you really think I’m going to let you drown?” We’re in the midst of renovating our building at Lord of the Streets, and at the same time, our A/C went out. This is all happening as we’re working to expand our ministries to help folks get off the streets and stay housed. We’re working to build greater community of love, hope, and faith at Lord of the Streets, so that community can spread, so that folks do get housed, like the man I mentioned earlier, they can continue to build greater love, hope, and faith wherever they are.
Well, with all the crud going on with our building and the A/C going out right as this is starting to begin, I’m seeing a lot of wind and waves, and it’s hard not to get afraid and start to sink. So, what I’m trying to do is listen to Jesus’ message, “Dude, if I call you out of the boat, do you really think I’m going to let you drown?”
What I’m trying to do is believe that Jesus has this ministry for Lord of the Streets, and even though things are a pain in the tail right now, it’s gonna get better. We’re gonna get through this, and we’re going to have this ministry of connection and relationships. We’re going to have this ministry of being able to join together, and grow together, and support one another together, and not only get housed but stay housed and have these communities of love, hope, and faith so the church continues to spread, not only in our building, but in all the buildings where we end up living.
So, what do we do with our fear of drowning in the meantime?
Well, we keep on praying. We keep on, every day, saying, “Lord, grant me love, and hope, and faith. Guide me. Guide us. Guide your church into the mission and ministry you have for us at Lord of the Streets.
Then, when we do get knocked down by the slings and arrows of life, because we will, we continue to trust that even though resistance happens, Jesus’ mission ain’t gonna fail. What did Jesus say? “The gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Any one of us may get knocked down. Any one of us may get hurt, but we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves. We’re a part of Jesus’ mission of love, and hope, and faith, and nothing is going to stand against that, as we live that out together, and step out of the boat, and listen to Jesus’ words. “Dude, if I call you out of the boat to walk on the water with me, I ain’t gonna let you drown.”
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston August 2, 2026 Proper 13, A Isaiah 55:1-5 Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22 Matthew 14:13-21
Last week, I saw something really awful and disturbing. There were several of us talking together, three women, another man, and I. After a while, the other man had to go, and he said, “hugs all around.” He hugged each of the older women and me with a quick, friendly hug, and then he got to the third woman, who was younger, and the man obviously found her attractive. When he hugged her, she was trying for the side hug, not really knowing this person, and instead, he pulled her close, squeezing her body to his, rubbing her back, basically groping her with his body. She finally was able to push him away, and he left, looking very satisfied with himself.
It was disgusting.
He felt good pulling her body against his. He probably felt like a man, except those weren’t the actions of a man, not a real man. Those weren’t even the actions of a little boy. Those were the actions of, I don’t know what, someone who has lost part of his humanity. He didn’t see this young woman as a person; he didn’t treat her as a person. He just saw her and treated her like a piece of meat, a play thing that he used just to get hard.
That’s the same attitude towards women as rape, using a woman’s body just to get hard, to feel good, to get your rocks off. I get that a hug is not the same as rape, but the difference is a matter of degree. The man who did this saw and treated this woman as a plaything for his physical enjoyment. Her humanity didn’t matter, and even though it was only a hug, that’s a huge problem, that her humanity didn’t matter.
What do we often hear in defending the humanity of women? “That’s someone’s sister or daughter.” That’s a problem. Who care’s whose daughter or she is? She is a woman, a human being in her own right. She has eternal value and worth all of her very own. See, if her value only matters because she is someone else’s daughter or sister, then she has no value of her own. Well, if she has no value of her own, then it’s that much easier for guys to do whatever they want.
Look at the woman in John 8, whom people were trying to murder because she was caught in the act of adultery. What about the guy? They were all fine murdering the woman whose worth only counted as someone else’s, while the man, yeah, he got off scot-free.
If we don’t truly value every human being as having eternal value all on their own, then we’re going to continue raping and killing each other just so we can feel better, or we’re going to do things like full-body groping people just to feel a little juiced, a little sexed up.
We’re going to continue to be disgusting with one another, if we don’t truly accept and believe that every single human being ever has eternal value all on their own.
I do mean “we” are going to continue to be disgusting with one another, because it wasn’t just this one guy devaluing and groping this one woman. What he did, we all do in various ways with one another. I’d guess most every guy in this room has at some point devalued a woman and seen her just as an object of lust. I’d guess a lot of the guys in this room have held on just a little bit long, wanting to feel the woman’s body against theirs, whether the woman wanted that or not.
Disgusting behavior is, of course, not only something men do. Women also can see men as just pieces of meat, and everybody can treat others terribly. Every one of us has at some point devalued another person and treated them just as some thing, whether as an annoying thing or as an object of some kind of desire or way to get what we want. We use one another in a thousand different ways. We lie to one another. We cheat and steal from one another. We hurt one another, all in order to feel better in some way or to get something we desire. In all of these ways, we treat people as things, not as beloved human beings with eternal value.
In this way, we fill our lives with the hurt of others. We feed off of each other’s hurt. It doesn’t really help us, not for very long. The guy with the disgusting, groping hug felt better for a couple seconds, but he had just caused harm to someone else and hadn’t done anything to truly feed his soul.
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” Isaiah asks. “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”
Of course, the food Isaiah is talking about is fulfilling the covenant that the people of Israel had with God. Stop chasing after foreign gods. Stop cheating one another and using one another just to get what you want. That is all food that does not satisfy. Instead, Isaiah was reminding the people to love God to love one another, to eat the food which does satisfy by following the ways of life that God had given them.
We talked about this during Bible study last Thursday, looking at the kind of spiritual food we eat. There is the food which does not satisfy, things like sexual immorality which I’ve mentioned a lot today; there is also the unsatisfying food of anger, jealousy, fighting, drunkenness and drug use, unforgiveness, and so many more things like that. Boy, those things sure taste good at first, but we are left feeling bad, wanting ever more just to keep feeling worse.
The fruit of the Spirit, on the other hand, is the food which does satisfy: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are all good, rich foods which will sustain and heal us. Like most good food, it requires some work actually to eat the fruits of the Spirit.
See, the food which doesn’t satisfy, the anger and lust and all that requires no effort. If we just go through our day and wait long enough, something is going to make us angry, or lustful, or whatever else. It’s like eating a bag of chips: easy, fast; you tear it open and chow down.
The fruit of the Spirit is like good food which requires some time to prepare, like cooking a good meal. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We work at these things. Being led by the Spirit, eating the fruits of the Spirit means putting in the work to cultivate and prepare that good food.
If we’re angry and want love, joy, and peace, then we need to take the time to offer our anger to God. We need to trust that any vengeance that needs to be taken will be taken by God, rather than trusting our own hand for vengeance. Time in prayer, time learning rules of a way of life that God has taught, and time practicing that way of life that God has taught, that’s some of the preparation needed to be guided by the Spirit.
Treating people as full human beings with eternal value takes work. Taking a full-body, groping hug from someone, doing whatever we want to one another to get hard and feel good, that takes no work at all. We just have to let our base, animal desires take over and lose a bit of our humanity. Then we can eat all of that spiritual junk food we want, losing more and more of our humanity with every bite, or we can do the work needed to be real men and real women. We can do the work needed to be led by the Spirit and eat the fruit of the Spirit. We can gain more of our humanity and be healed with every bite. Choosing a life of Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we can eat food which does satisfy and spend our lives on the true bread which comes from heaven, Jesus our Lord.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston August 2, 2026 Proper 13, A Isaiah 55:1-5 Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22 Matthew 14:13-21
Last week, I saw something really awful and disturbing. There were several of us talking together, three women, another man, and I. After a while, the other man had to go, and he said, “hugs all around.” He hugged each of the older women and me with a quick, friendly hug, and then he got to the third woman, who was younger, and the man obviously found her attractive. When he hugged her, she was trying for the side hug, not really knowing this person, and instead, he pulled her close, squeezing her body to his, rubbing her back, basically groping her with his body. She finally was able to push him away, and he left, looking very satisfied with himself.
It was disgusting.
He felt good pulling her body against his. He probably felt like a man, except those weren’t the actions of a man, not a real man. Those weren’t even the actions of a little boy. Those were the actions of, I don’t know what, someone who has lost part of his humanity. He didn’t see this young woman as a person; he didn’t treat her as a person. He just saw her and treated her like a piece of meat, a play thing that he used just to get hard.
iStockphoto / Getty Images
That’s the same attitude towards women as rape, using a woman’s body just to get hard, to feel good, to get your rocks off. I get that a hug is not the same as rape, but the difference is a matter of degree. The man who did this saw and treated this woman as a plaything for his physical enjoyment. Her humanity didn’t matter, and even though it was only a hug, that’s a huge problem, that her humanity didn’t matter.
What do we often hear in defending the humanity of women? “That’s someone’s sister or daughter.” That’s a problem. Who care’s whose daughter or she is? She is a woman, a human being in her own right. She has eternal value and worth all of her very own. See, if her value only matters because she is someone else’s daughter or sister, then she has no value of her own. Well, if she has no value of her own, then it’s that much easier for guys to do whatever they want.
Look at the woman in John 8, whom people were trying to murder because she was caught in the act of adultery. What about the guy? They were all fine murdering the woman whose worth only counted as someone else’s, while the man, yeah, he got off scot-free.
If we don’t truly value every human being as having eternal value all on their own, then we’re going to continue raping and killing each other just so we can feel better, or we’re going to do things like full-body groping people just to feel a little juiced, a little sexed up.
We’re going to continue to be disgusting with one another, if we don’t truly accept and believe that every single human being ever has eternal value all on their own.
I do mean “we” are going to continue to be disgusting with one another, because it wasn’t just this one guy devaluing and groping this one woman. What he did, we all do in various ways with one another. I’d guess most every guy in this room has at some point devalued a woman and seen her just as an object of lust. I’d guess a lot of the guys in this room have held on just a little bit long, wanting to feel the woman’s body against theirs, whether the woman wanted that or not.
Disgusting behavior is, of course, not only something men do. Women also can see men as just pieces of meat, and everybody can treat others terribly. Every one of us has at some point devalued another person and treated them just as some thing, whether as an annoying thing or as an object of some kind of desire or way to get what we want. We use one another in a thousand different ways. We lie to one another. We cheat and steal from one another. We hurt one another, all in order to feel better in some way or to get something we desire. In all of these ways, we treat people as things, not as beloved human beings with eternal value.
In this way, we fill our lives with the hurt of others. We feed off of each other’s hurt. It doesn’t really help us, not for very long. The guy with the disgusting, groping hug felt better for a couple seconds, but he had just caused harm to someone else and hadn’t done anything to truly feed his soul.
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” Isaiah asks. “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”
Of course, the food Isaiah is talking about is fulfilling the covenant that the people of Israel had with God. Stop chasing after foreign gods. Stop cheating one another and using one another just to get what you want. That is all food that does not satisfy. Instead, Isaiah was reminding the people to love God to love one another, to eat the food which does satisfy by following the ways of life that God had given them.
We talked about this during Bible study last Thursday, looking at the kind of spiritual food we eat. There is the food which does not satisfy, things like sexual immorality which I’ve mentioned a lot today; there is also the unsatisfying food of anger, jealousy, fighting, drunkenness and drug use, unforgiveness, and so many more things like that. Boy, those things sure taste good at first, but we are left feeling bad, wanting ever more just to keep feeling worse.
The fruit of the Spirit, on the other hand, is the food which does satisfy: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are all good, rich foods which will sustain and heal us. Like most good food, it requires some work actually to eat the fruits of the Spirit.
See, the food which doesn’t satisfy, the anger and lust and all that requires no effort. If we just go through our day and wait long enough, something is going to make us angry, or lustful, or whatever else. It’s like eating a bag of chips: easy, fast; you tear it open and chow down.
The fruit of the Spirit is like good food which requires some time to prepare, like cooking a good meal. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We work at these things. Being led by the Spirit, eating the fruits of the Spirit means putting in the work to cultivate and prepare that good food.
If we’re angry and want love, joy, and peace, then we need to take the time to offer our anger to God. We need to trust that any vengeance that needs to be taken will be taken by God, rather than trusting our own hand for vengeance. Time in prayer, time learning rules of a way of life that God has taught, and time practicing that way of life that God has taught, that’s some of the preparation needed to be guided by the Spirit.
Treating people as full human beings with eternal value takes work. Taking a full-body, groping hug from someone, doing whatever we want to one another to get hard and feel good, that takes no work at all. We just have to let our base, animal desires take over and lose a bit of our humanity. Then we can eat all of that spiritual junk food we want, losing more and more of our humanity with every bite, or we can do the work needed to be real men and real women. We can do the work needed to be led by the Spirit and eat the fruit of the Spirit. We can gain more of our humanity and be healed with every bite. Choosing a life of Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we can eat food which does satisfy and spend our lives on the true bread which comes from heaven, Jesus our Lord.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston July 26, 2026 Proper 12, A 1 Kings 3:5-12 Psalm 119:129-136 Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Have you ever tried to trick God into giving you what you wanted by asking instead for something you know God would want you to ask for, whether you really wanted it or not? I don’t know that the Bible intended to teach us such manipulation of the Almighty, but it is definitely a lesson that might could be taken when reading the story of Solomon asking for wisdom and God being so pleased with the ask that he granted him riches as well. “Um God, I’d really like to be hugely wealthy, like hundreds of millions of dollars wealthy, heck, even tens of millions of dollars. I mean, just think of all the good I could do with that kind of money, but I know I’m not supposed to ask to be filthy rich, so how about you just make me a really good priest instead?”
I may have prayed something very close to that at some point or several points in my life. I still haven’t found just the right combination of magic prayer words to make God the prayer-wish granting genie thing give me all the money, or maybe the kingdom of heaven isn’t some get rich quick scheme. Sorry Joel, but that’s just not what Jesus taught.
He did say the kingdom of heaven is like finding a wonderful treasure in the middle of field or like finding a great pearl, so great that you sell all your other pearls just to get it. So, that sounds like money-type treasure stuff, but that doesn’t make sense. That’s like finding a hundred-dollar bill and selling a hundred one-dollar bills in order to get it. That’s kinda stupid. So no, again, sorry Joel, but the treasure is not money.
That whole approach to the parable starts on the wrong path from the very beginning because I’m making it all about me, rather than about us. The kingdom of heaven is about us. Individuals, of course, can find the kingdom of heaven, can receive the kingdom of heaven from God, but it is never intended to be just for that one person. God’s kingdom is always a “we” kingdom, not an “I” kingdom.
When Jesus compared the kingdom to a woman who made bread out of three measures of flour, she wasn’t making enough just for her. I’ve read that the three measures of flour would make anywhere from 15 to 50 loaves of bread. She couldn’t keep that all for herself; it’d go bad before she could finish it. She could have kept the flour and made just one loaf at a time so she could eat for as long as possible, but instead, she made it all at once in order to share with others. So, the kingdom of heaven is like having enough flour to make a huge amount of bread, and rather than saving it all for yourself, you make it to share with others.
The kingdom of heaven is never just about me. The kingdom of heaven is always about us.
The kingdom of heaven is about finding a life so wonderful that when you see it, you want to change your life in order to have it. I think of people who have been suffering addiction for years, people who may be around others, but they’re still lonely and isolated. Then they go to recovery meetings and they find joy. They find people who are healthy, and loving, and healed. After years of addiction and misery, they find a treasure in the recovery community greater than any treasure they could imagine, and they will go to any length to get that treasure: sobriety and true relationships of love and support.
I think of folks who have only really known relationships of fighting and shouting. Love, sure, but constantly annoyed, tired, and upset with one another, putting one another down rather than building one another up. Then, you see people loving and sharing with one another, glad to be with each other, and you decide you’ll do anything to have friendships and relationships like that. People trusting one another and living up to that trust, people honoring one another and actually caring if they hurt one another.
What do I have to do to live that way? What do I have to give up or change to live that way with others? Well, not much, according to Jesus’ parables, just, kinda everything.
Like I said a few weeks ago, quoting Guy Forsyth, “If you want to be who you want to be, you have to give up who you are.” If you want to be a person of bravery, compassion, and love (and make no mistake, compassion and love are brave), then you have to give up everything that gets in the way. That’s selling all you have to buy the field with the treasure.
It turns out, the kingdom of God isn’t about tricking God into giving us more stuff. The kingdom of God is about getting rid of the stuff that harms us in order to see and live the kingdom life all around us. The kingdom of God is hidden from us when we are stuck in our ways of anger or assuming it’s always someone else’s fault. The kingdom of God can be hidden by our past trauma, all the hurt done to us and all the hurt we’ve done because of it. The kingdom of God can be hidden by our lack of forgiveness, even of ourselves, stuck in the past of what we did and who we were.
With the treasure of the kingdom of God, though, we don’t have to be stuck as who we were. With God’s help in God’s kingdom, we can be who we want to be. Accepting God’s forgiveness, letting go of our shame and our self-hatred, that is part of the cost of the treasure of God’s kingdom, too.
Accepting God’s forgiveness and living a new life in God’s kingdom takes all we have and all we are, just like the treasure in the field. If we’re truly living God’s kingdom as the church, we find the cost is nothing compared to the life we find. We learn to live without anger, hatred, and fear as our constant companions. We learn to draw on God’s strength because our own is not sufficient. We learn to pray together and support one another. We learn that all the stuff life tried to sell us isn’t actually what we need after all. We learn that asking for wisdom to lead his people well, Solomon really did make a better ask that just wanting a bunch of money.
Give me a million dollars, or give me family and friends full of love and support? I’ll take the family and friends every time. I mean, to be clear, I’d love the million dollars, but if it’s between that and loving, supportive family and friends, I’ll take the family and friends. That’s life in the kingdom of God. Life where we see the love and community, the faith and the faithfulness, the hope and the peace that we’ve always wanted, and we’ll do anything to get it.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston July 19, 2026 Proper 11, A Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19 Psalm 86:11-17 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Did you notice that in Jesus’ parable of God’s kingdom here on earth, there was no separation between the righteous and the unrighteous? The church wasn’t separated from the world. The people of the church didn’t isolate themselves from those they thought were too sinful, or not good enough, or impure. When churches do try to isolate themselves from everyone else outside the church, they miss an essential piece of God’s kingdom here on earth. God’s kingdom is lived out among all of us together, the wheat and the weeds, the good and the bad, the righteous and the unrighteous. Welcome to Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat.
Of course, you’ve also got to notice that the wheat and the weeds weren’t the ones separating each other out declaring who was righteous and who was unrighteous. That was done by angels at the end of the ages, and we know from other teachings of Jesus that Jesus will be the one who judges us as righteous or unrighteous.
So, to anyone who has ever been told you aren’t good enough to belong to a church, or anyone who has been told you are too sinful to be able to be a part of a church, I present to you Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat. We aren’t meant to separate out the unrighteous from the church and leave only the righteous people in the church.
When we do, we end up with things like the Salem Witch Trials and the Spanish Inquisition; people die when we end up declaring “only the righteous may stay and the unrighteous must leave.”
I think in modern times of so many gay kids who have been kicked out of their churches for being gay, and then kicked out of their families for being gay, and then ended up killing themselves because everyone they loved had rejected them and told them they were weeds, good for nothing but destruction, and of course there are countless others who have been rejected by various parts of the church for not being righteous enough. Jesus said that people’s lives were on the line when they tried to pull the weeds out from among the wheat, and we know from our lived experiences in the church that Jesus was right.
In addition to the sometimes life or death decisions of telling people they don’t belong in the church, we have the little problem that if you want to uproot someone and have them gone from the church, remember, there is probably someone else who feels the same way about you. So, as the church, we are meant to be the wheat and the weeds living together, and even though we do try to help each other in living in loving ways, in not harming each other so much, even though we may say things like, “No, you can’t shout and fight with people in the church,” we don’t declare who are the weeds and who are the wheat. We do get to say things like, “You need to go away for a while because of your behavior,” but we also get to say, “You can come back.”
Monty Python - No One Expects ths Spanish Inquisition
Of course, it is certainly easier to feel safe when we get to declare who’s in and who’s out. I’m safe from God’s judgement so long as I’m in, and I know I get to be in so long as they’re out. When we start making these determinations, however, we end up turning God into ourselves. So, let’s look at what scripture says about the God who judges us as wheat and weeds.
In the Wisdom of Solomon, we’ve got this image of God who judges justly and mildly, who gives hope through repentance for sins. We’ve also got this image in Matthew of God burning all evildoers and causes of sin in a furnace of fire. How do we reconcile these images of justice and mild justice, with repentance of sins, and burning fire? How can God have justice and mercy? How can God have judgment and forgiveness?
Usually in the church, we’ve come up with very clear, easily definable answers to these questions. Some have said God’s justice is for those who aren’t Christian (or the right kind of Christian), and God’s mercy is for those who are Christian (or the right kind of Christian). That’s kinda lovely, I guess. It certainly makes the math really easy. Unfortunately, if God’s justice is only for those other people, then we aren’t taking God’s justice seriously. If God’s mercy is only for us and those who believe just like us, then we aren’t taking God’s mercy seriously. This has been our challenge for around 1,700 years.
Around that time, around 1700 years ago, much of the church fearfully decided to follow certainty in their beliefs about who gets God’s judgment and who gets God’s mercy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the church decided that people who were a part of the church got the mercy and people who weren’t a part of the church got the judgment. They used grand theological concepts to support their fearful assurance of God’s mercy towards them, concepts like election and predestination, and none of that took God’s justice or mercy seriously because all of those things gave us assurance of salvation and gave them, those outside the church, assurance of damnation.
What we hear from Jesus is more complicated. What if instead of easy answers with bows tied around them, we took seriously both God’s justice and God’s mercy for all people?
We all have sin, and we all do evil. So that puts us on the burned up side the Jesus’ parable. We also all have righteousness and love, so that puts us on the shining in God’s kingdom side of Jesus’ parable. So, rather that fearfully deciding who gets God’s punishment and who gets God’s mercy, how about we put our trust in the one who judges?
Jesus will be our judge, the one who welcomes sinners and guides them into a new life. Jesus will be our judge, the one who has no time for our self-righteous judgments of others. Jesus will be our judge, the one who said, let not your sin keep you from approaching God, but rather come humbly before God and be healed.
If any think that because they believe in Jesus, they are now wheat, and any who do not believe in Jesus are pure weed, people who think that need to stop fooling themselves. We’re told in the Wisdom of Solomon that, “God’s strength is the source of righteousness.” That means we all have plenty of righteousness in us, of course we do. Sorry to Augustine and Calvin, who really liked the who’s in/who’s out theological systems, but we are not totally depraved with no goodness within us.
Of course we have goodness within us! God made us and declared us very good! Sure, we screw up, but that doesn’t destroy all goodness within us. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden didn’t destroy all goodness within us, and passages of scripture which indicate that they did are misunderstood and read out of context. There is plenty that is good in all humans. There is lots of good in non-Christians, and as much as Augustine or Calvin may say that non-Christians’ good works are hated by God because they don’t believe in Jesus, scripture tells a different story. Heck, just not being an idiot tells a different story.
Jesus said that at the end of the age, he’ll talk to all the people throughout the earth, folks who believe in him and folks who don’t, and he’ll say to some of them, thanks y’all for being kind and loving towards others, when you did that them, you did it to me; welcome into God’s eternal kingdom. That’s in Matthew 25. The love they showed to others is greater even than whatever faith they may or may not have had. So it’s great if we believe in Jesus, but if we don’t have love of others, our faith is meaningless. That’s in 1 Corinthians 13. So, what does God really want from us? Justice. Mercy. Kindness. Caring for others. Walking humbly with God in our lives, and we all have that ability in us. That’s in pretty much all of the prophets.
So yeah, there’s a huge amount of goodness in all humans.
There is also plenty that is pretty darn broken and harmful in all humans. Of course there is. We get hurt. We get traumatized, and our brains react in ways that harm others, who then get hurt and traumatized, and the whole cycle just keeps on going. We have goodness within us, and we have evil within us. Welcome to Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat.
So, what are we to do? We are to grow together. We are to love one another as best we can and seek to help one another heal. We are to trust in Jesus and seek strength and healing from him.
Sometimes we do have to have someone go away for a while, but that is always meant for healing, with an invitation to return. What we don’t get to do is declare who are the weeds and who are the wheat. We don’t get to kick out those evil ones, assuming that we’re the righteous ones. The folks who did those things never had Jesus’ backing. In fact, what we find over and over in scripture is that the weeds the righteous kicked out were the one Jesus had mercy on. Welcome to Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston July 12, 2026 Proper 10, A Isaiah 55:10-13 Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14 Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
What is the soil of your heart like? Can it receive and live the Kingdom of God here on earth? Jesus told a parable of the one who scatters seeds of the Kingdom of God. Depending on the condition of people’s hearts, they would receive and live the Kingdom of God here on earth, or they would not.
The Kingdom of God here on earth is a life of faith and hope, trusting in God’s grace and love for us, trusting in God’s grace and love for every single person, ever. We believe that we are loved by God. We believe that we are forgiven by God. We believe that even after we die, will continue to live forever with God in God’s eternal Kingdom.
So, with that faith and hope, Jesus teaches us to live the Kingdom of God in our lives on earth. Forgive people who wrong you, even if they don’t deserve it. Work to heal any damage you’ve done to others. Love those who love you, and love those who hate you. Rather than fight against a world that is full of problems, accept the things you cannot change, and lovingly live to help heal the things you can. Faith and hope build up the Kingdom of God, and they are built on the foundation of love.
In the parable Jesus told, he is constantly scattering the seed of that kingdom of faith and hope, built on the foundation of love, and as he scatters that seed, some people really don’t get it, just don’t understand. Their hearts don’t understand. Their hearts just can’t grasp the idea of a life of love, forgiveness, and service to others built with faith and hope. So, the idea of living God’s Kingdom of faith, hope, and love, is gone almost as soon as they hear it.
As Jesus scatters the seed of God’s Kingdom, some love the idea, and they really want to start living a life of faith and hope. Other people they know, however think it sounds stupid and weak, and they mock them for such soft beliefs. So, they give up on the Kingdom of God because their hearts weren’t ready to live it without the total support of others around them.
Then, Jesus said there are some who receive the seed of the Kingdom of God, but they want power, wealth, and stuff instead. They put their trust in their own power; they want control over the world and the lives of the people around them. They don’t want to serve and heal the world, rather they want to force the world to be the way they want it to be. They may have a lot of money and power, or they only have a little bit of money and power, but either way, they want they everything to go their way, and so they reject the Kingdom of God to make the kingdom of themselves. They cause harm, so much harm to those around them, near and far.
Then, Jesus said there are some who receive the seeds of the Kingdom of God and they truly accept it. They choose to live a life of faith and hope, built on the foundation of love. These are the peacemakers, the merciful. These are the pure in heart, the meek, the poor in spirit. These are the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the ones who mourn, the ones who may even be rejected and ridiculed for their way of faith, hope, and love.
When rejected and ridiculed, the ones who truly live the Kingdom of God don’t turn to their own power. They don’t turn to anger or rage. They offer their difficulties up to God, they accept what they cannot change, and they seek God’s strength to continue living a life of faith and hope as part of something bigger than themselves.
When we see people shot on the Metro right beside us, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.
When we hear of people being chased in ordinary looking cars and then shot by people claiming to be police, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.
When we feel like we keep getting knocked down over and over again, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.
When we have given up and decide to do whatever we can to numb and feel better, we turn back again, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.
The seeds of God’s Kingdom are scattered over and over throughout our lives, and sometimes the conditions of our hearts aren’t able to receive them. So, we work on the condition of our hearts. We work to make the soil of our hearts ready to receive and live God’s Kingdom of faith, hope, and love.
So, I’m going to sing a song by Guy Forsyth called, “Leave Me Alone.” It’s about a guy who wants to just be left alone, except that he actually desperately wants not to be alone. Maybe he’s been overcome by pain and hurt in his life, we don’t know, but we find in the end that he desperately desires to change so that he won’t always be alone.
Leave Me Alone - Words and Music by Guy Forsyth
https://www.guyforsyth.com/(Sung with permission)
I’m all alone now, they’ve all gone upstairs.
I’m on my own now, except for the tables and the chairs.
Guess that’s what I wanted, you know I tried hard enough,
To make them leave me alone.
It used to scare me, now I crave it.
I keep joking about taking off to London.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
If I could, I would. I want to go, to go away,
To make them leave me alone.
They all danced so well tonight,
Spinning cartwheels ‘round the moon.
I didn’t even have the strength to move my legs.
I didn’t even catch the tune.
If you want to be who you want to be,
You have to give up who you are.
Lie with your love, love with a laugh,
Laugh with a lie, life to your love.
Don’t let them see which one is me,
Or they will leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
When we find we want God’s kingdom and we just can’t seem to live it, we just can’t seem to receive the seeds of God’s kingdom, then we find we must give up who we are in order to be who we want to be. That’s resurrection. That’s Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:25, that, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
“If you want to be who you want to be, you have to give up who you are.” If you want to live God’s kingdom, but you just can’t seem to receive the seeds of God’s kingdom, then it’s time to turn around, to give up who you are and ask God to take control and guide you into who God wants you to be, and like in the song, that work is not done alone. We can’t become who we want to be, living God’s kingdom of faith, hope, and love, and be left alone. We join with our church and others in our church to live the life of God’s kingdom together, becoming merciful peacemakers, pure in heart, meek, poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, even as we mourn, even if we are rejected or ridiculed for our way of faith, hope, and love. We live the kingdom of God with others, dancing so well together, spinning cartwheels ‘round the moon.
The Rev. Brad Sullivan Lord of the Streets, Houston June 21, 2026 Proper 7, A Jeremiah 20:7-13 Psalm 69: 8-11, (12-17), 18-20 Matthew 10:24-39
So, my family and I were watching the movie “Wake Up Dead Man” last weekend. It is the third of the “Knives Out” movies, murder mysteries with the Holmesian detective Benoit Blanc. In this one, the mystery revolved around a very angry priest who was constantly preaching fire and brimstone sermons about the sheep and the wolves. He believed the church were the sheep, the world were the wolves, and the church had to fight like hell to overcome all of the wolves out there. He saw sin all over the place; he saw it infecting the church, saw wolves infecting the church, and so his approach was to call out the sins and drive out the wolves, and fight. Always fight. Things may not have turned out overly well for him; I can’t say for sure.
The idea is cute, though, sheep verses wolves, with the sheep fighting like hell against the evils of the wolves in the world. I think it would make a good cartoon movie, maybe, but sheep don’t actually fight wolves. The shepherd keeps the sheep safe from the wolves. I think that’s part of why Jesus called us sheep. We’re not supposed to fight the world.
The Gospel is not the church against the world. The Gospel is Christ for the world. Jesus is for the world, and Jesus proclaimed good news for the world, the good news that “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Then again, we get our reading from today in which Jesus said,
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
So, how is that good news, and what does family members being against one another have to do with the kingdom of heaven that has come near? Well, the kingdom of heaven is God’s way of love, lived out among us, and yet Jesus said he came to bring a sword. Ah crud, I guess no more love. No, obviously not. God is love, and God became human as Jesus, so Jesus was the very love of God living God’s way of love in the world, and God’s love for us is absolute.
That is good news for the world that desperately needs to hear good news. Sadly, like with the priest in the movie, there is a lot of anger and hatred coming from the church to the world. There are a lot of people in the church thinking they need to fight the world because Jesus said he came to bring the sword, and so there is anger and hatred being dressed up as if it were the love of God. Sheep being told to fight the world, family members being told to fight one another, rather than love one another and show the healing love of God.
That was so much of Jesus’ proclamation, showing people love. He healed folks, ate with folks, cast out demons, and raised up the lowly. Jesus shared the good news of the kingdom of heaven by living the kingdom of heaven, then he told folks about the kingdom of heaven and that they could live it too.
Then, Jesus also promised that even as we live the love of the kingdom of God, we will still be harmed in this world. When he said family would rise up against family, son against father, mother against daughter, mother-in-law against son-in-law (no surprise there), everybody against everybody in a family, he wasn’t telling his disciples, “You must reject your family.” Jesus was warning his disciples that when they went out and started proclaiming the kingdom of God, their family members reject them because they were going to think them heretics. So, be ready for that, Jesus was telling them, and don’t turn against them. Just be ready for the fact that they might turn against you, and when they do, continue to offer them love.
That may have meant leaving home, in the disciples’ case. Whoever loves their family more than me is not worthy of me, he said, so if the disciples’ families said to them, “If you walk out of this house following that Jesus fella, then you just keep on walking,” then, Jesus was saying, you may have to say goodbye.
People may reject you for following Jesus’ ways and teachings, and if they do? Go out and shout on a street corner, “Y’all are all sinners, and you’re going to…’”. No, he just said, if people reject you, go to someone else.
People today may want nothing to do with the way of love or a Gospel that preaches and lives the way of love. Ok, they don’t have to. Our job is not to treat them as wolves, and fight them, and force them to accept Jesus. Sheep tend not to stand up against wolves. They tend to walk the other way, which is what Jesus said go on to somewhere else if they won’t accept you.
Even so, we…no, I won’t say we. I often become a wolf, particularly when something has just really upset me, and I’m really angry. In traffic, I’m almost always a wolf. My daughter actually said she’s afraid when I drive (ok, sorry sweety, I’ll do better). I will say that after 48 years of life, being a wolf has thus far never been really helpful for me, getting so angry that I’m against whoever it is.
Just a couple weeks ago, Monday morning, my coffee mug got stolen from Lord of the Streets, when we were inside, just before a meeting, someone stole my coffee mug. I don’t know who did it, but whoever it was, my gut instinct, my natural way of doing things was to get really angry with the person and hold on to that grudge and become Captain Resentment. I’m really good at that, which is basically a way of becoming a wolf. Instead, I thought to myself, “What am I going to do if I find out who took it? Am I going to go punch the guy? Am I going to do anything about this to try to get my coffee mug back? No, I’m not. Well then, it’s not worth harboring a resentment over.”
So, I just let it go. I mean sure, it still bothers me, but alright, I’m out a handy way to hold my coffee. I’ll live. My gosh, I was close to becoming a wolf over something as simple as a coffee mug, but then I chose a different way. That’s the way of Jesus and the way of love in the world. That’s the way of being a sheep in the world.
Now, if we look at the church and how we do things in the church, we have a really good history of becoming wolves, and we have a really good history of being sheep. Our challenge is to continue to strive to be sheep, and what that means is first and foremost we stick to Jesus and we follow in his ways.
We daily reflect, daily look back. “Am I following in Jesus’ ways? Am I being a sheep, or am I turning against people and insisting that they follow Jesus’ ways? Do I become a wolf about how I want them to?” That’s not being a good sheep to our shepherd.
If we really want to proclaim the kingdom of heaven, then we’re often going to lay aside our desires for how we want the world to work, and we’re simply going to sit at Jesus’ feet and try to follow him, try to find that peace and that love that he gives so that we can offer it to others.
We live out the kingdom of heaven, then, by bringing others in, and welcoming others in, finding out who they are and sharing love with them that they may share love with us too. This is something the Episcopal church has done pretty darn well in the last, well, often, but particularly in the last 50 years or so.
Women used not to be able to preach, teach, or be priests or bishops. You could polish the silver, but otherwise…Then the Episcopal Church realized we don’t really see that as the way of the Gospel. We don’t see that as a way of sharing love, and so women became priests and bishops in the church and became fully members of the church.
More recently, our LGBTQ brothers and sisters became fully members of the church. They have been able to be married and to become priests and bishops in the church. This has been not without contention. Some parts of the church want nothing to do with that, and others fully embrace it. What we’ve done a really good job of, as the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Texas is say, “Groovy cool. We don’t all have to embrace that.”
We don’t all have to live out our way of life in exactly the same way. So, the communities within the church that have felt that full inclusion of LGBTQ members is their way, they’ve gotten to do that. Those who have not, have not had to.
The problem still, is that so often these different groups within the church have still become wolves, as family rising up against family. “Those are the wrong ones, and they are just horrible, hateful, awful people.” “Those are the wrong ones, and they don’t care at all about doing things right or following scripture.” “Bring the sword of Jesus and turn against them!” We become wolves and fight with one another in the church, when we’re called to be sheep, when we’re called to do our darnedest to follow Jesus as our shepherd and offer that way of love to others.
We offer the way of Jesus, the way of love to others as best we see it and understand it, and sometimes those others don’t see it the way we do, and so we’re just told to wipe our feet as we leave. If they’re wrong, God’s gonna deal with it. We get to show them the way of love because we’re not wolves. We’re sheep, and Jesus is our shepherd.
With other churches who do things differently, ok. I don’t have to be right. They don’t have to be wrong. They’re following the way of love the best they can in a way that works for them, as are we. The church is pretty darn big, and there are a lot of different ways that we can live together. We don’t have to force each other to live the way of love exactly the same way.
Jesus said to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, Jesus told his disciples. Go, and proclaim the kingdom of heaven by healing people, by loving people. Let that way of healing and love be your proclamation.
So, we today in the church, we often want to become wolves towards those other ones, whoever they are, for doing things wrong and sometimes terribly wrong, but we aren’t called to become wolves. We aren’t commanded to rise up as family member against family member. We’re warned that those conflicts may happen, and when they do, we’re called to love. We’re sometimes called to walk away. We’re called to seek to heal others, with Jesus as our shepherd, not our own wants, desires, angers, and fears. We cast those upon Jesus and ask that he will lead us as his flock, as his family, sharing the way of love.
