Love, Hope, Faith, and Floaty, Water Walking Awesomeness

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.”

Rather than what the market demands, choose justice, mercy, love, and transformation.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

February 9, 2025

5 Epiphany, C

Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13]

Psalm 138

Luke 5:1-11

Title

“From now on, you’ll be fishing for people,” Jesus told his first disciples. This has been interpreted by many as Jesus’ call for his disciples to be evangelists, sharing the good news of Jesus and getting folks to become Jesus’ disciples. So, I’m supposed to preach about how we’re all supposed to go out and be good evangelists and get people to believe in Jesus. 

When I’ve heard people talk about this kind of fish for people evangelism, the message that I’ve heard that people are to share often has very little to do with this life and has a whole lot to do with life after we die. So, there are often thinly veiled threats of God’s punishment or not veiled at all threats of God’s punishment, along with a get out of punishment free, Jesus card. Believe in Jesus. You just gotta believe. The whole thing is often kind of confused and leads to believers whose faith may be in Jesus, but whose lives are not transformed. 

It kinda follows the movies I’ve seen about Jesus where his disciples get so excited about fishing for people that they go around talking about the good news, and how great it is because of the good news, and y’all should believe because of the good news. There’s never really any explanation as to what the good news is, and audience members who haven’t been raised in the church are left wondering what in the world they were talking about. 

I find that a lot of our “fish for people” evangelism is equally confused, people feeling like they have to tell folks about Jesus to get them saved, but in that conversation, the actual person with an actual life is irrelevant. “You gotta get saved.” “But what about what’s going on in my life right now?” “You gotta get saved.”

So, that’s definitely one interpretation of what Jesus meant by “you’ll be fishing for people,” but I read a different interpretation last week which is fantastic and actually makes sense with the rest of Luke’s Gospel and the prophets that came before. “Fish for people” was an image used in Jeremiah, and Amos, and other prophets calling for justice, for an end to oppression, and for turning back to God’s ways of loving and caring for one another. 

In Jeremiah 16:16-17 God says he is sending fishermen to catch those who are not following God’s ways, who are following idols and violence. In Amos 4:1-2, God says those who oppress the poor and crush the needy will be taken away with fish-hooks. In light of Jeremiah and Amos, it sounds like Jesus was sending his disciples to call out oppression and to serve and heal the needy who were being crushed by the powerful.

Jesus sending his disciples to fish for people by working to help the poor and needy, and striving against oppression, that follows all that had come before in Luke’s Gospel. What did Mary sing when she was pregnant with Jesus? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t, “My son is going to be a get out of Hell free card with little or no impact on this life.” Mary’s song said, “[God] scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Justice and mercy were the themes of Mary’s song. 

For centuries, the prophets had been preaching justice and mercy. “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8) “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6) “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17) Then, when John the Baptist was proclaiming his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, people asked him what they should do, and he told them to live lives of justice and mercy. 

So, when Jesus told his disciples, I’m going to have you fish for people, he was telling them, we are going to work for justice and mercy, and by working for justice and mercy, we are going to draw people closer to God and one another. We are going to live lives of love and transform people’s lives by how we care for them. We are going to transform people’s lives, and we teach others to do the same.

That work of justice and mercy, that work of love and transformation was for everyone, those who were wealthy and those who were poor. In one parable Jesus told, a wealthy man showed mercy, and a poor man did not, and the poor man was not let off the hook (or the fish-hook) just because he was poor. 

Justice and mercy, love and transformation, that’s God’s will for our lives. That’s always been God’s will for our lives. We see this in the earliest parts of scripture and when God formed the people of Israel and gave them the law. One law God gave was about gleaning. Gleaning was a practice in ancient Israel in which large landowners, farmers, would not take in all of the harvest. They would intentionally leave some of the grain, leave some of the fruits or vegetables out in the fields, so that the poor among them could come and take what had been left.

In other words, the wealthy intentionally took less than they could for themselves so that others might have enough.

If we look at modern-day gleaning, we could look at the owners of businesses and the executives of businesses. Owners are the shareholders, and they want to get as much as they can get from the profits of the company. Executives try to keep shareholders happy by earning as much profit as they can to give as much as possible to the shareholders. The executives also end up getting as much as they can in their salaries. The market demands that executives get huge salaries, because if one company didn’t pay as much, then another would pay more, and they’d get the best executives. So, salaries keep going up as companies compete for the best people.

Executives and shareholders get as much as they can out of the business, and folks on the bottom have not enough or barely enough to live on. That goes completely against the Biblical demands for justice and against the concept of gleaning. Modern-day gleaning would look like shareholders and executives intentionally giving themselves less than they could get so that those at the bottom could have more.

That’s the kind of thing Jesus and his disciples might preach when they went around fishing for people. For those at the top, you don’t need to take as much as you can for yourself, regardless of what the market demands. Choose to take less than you can, so that those at the bottom can have more and won’t be weeks away from eviction at any moment. 

Rather than choosing what the market demands, choose justice, mercy, love, and transformation. I think that’s what Jesus and his disciples would preach as they went fishing for people, and Jesus and his disciples would preach that message to all of us, not just to the wealthy. Even those with very little can oppress others. 

God, who created all that is, has been teaching us this for millennia. Choose justice, mercy, and love, rather than oppression. God knows how hard that can be for us, and so God became human. God became human to join with us in our oppression, both when we are oppressors and when we are being oppressed. God joined with us to strive with us and to help transform our lives. From lives of oppression to lives of justice, mercy, and love, God strives with us, joining us together with God and one another so that our lives might be transformed. That sounds like good news. Fish for people. Choose justice, mercy, and love, and allow Jesus to transform our lives.

If you want to sink, you first have to get out of the boat.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
August 13, 2023
Proper 14, Year A
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33

 If You Want to Sink, You First Have to Get Out of the Boat

So, when Peter saw Jesus walking on the water toward them, he stepped out of the boat, and he sank. I know he walked on the water for a time, first, but once he noticed the waves and storm all around him, he became distracted by all of that, took his eyes off Jesus, and he sank.

Back in Seminary, we loved to joke about Peter because of how often he failed. He kept trying at things. “I’ll do it. Hey, I can do that, Jesus. Ooh, let’s build three booths,” and time and again, Peter kinda just bungled it all up. So, we see Peter failing a lot in the scriptures, and he becomes an easy target for our poking fun.

To be fair to Peter, I wonder if the reason we kept pointing out his flaws in Seminary was because by doing that, we got to ignore our own flaws and pretend that we wouldn’t have failings like he did once we really got into our ministries. Oh, we were so cute.

What’s great about looking at Peter is that as many times as he screwed up, he kept trying. Peter kept getting out of the boat trying to walk on water, like he did in our story today. He kept failing, and Jesus kept picking him up and putting him back in the boat. Despite his failure, he kept striving in his discipleship of Jesus.

He could have just decided to play it safe and stay in the boat. He could have just waited for Jesus to arrive. It would certainly have been easier, less embarrassing, less wet. Instead, he kept trying and often he failed, and then Jesus was there to help him up. That wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gotten out of the boat.

If you want to sink, you first have to get out of the boat.  

A friend of mine, Erin Jean Warde wrote a book called, Sober Spirituality, in which she talks about getting sober and the joys sobriety has brought her. One of the chapters is called, “Reading the Big Book with a Box of Chardonnay.” The Big Book is the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. For years, Erin was wondering about getting sober, trying out some meetings, reading the Big Book, all while continuing to drink, even boxes of Chardonnay.

Some might say that she was failing at sobriety during those years, but that’s not really true. She was taking a page out of Peter’s book and stepping out of the boat. She kept sinking, over and over again, and Jesus kept pulling her back up and setting her back in the boat. Eventually, she didn’t sink. She stayed sober. If she hadn’t sunk all those previous times, however, if she’d stayed in the boat, she might still be drinking today. Instead, Erin got out of the boat and sank. She gave herself and her readers the freedom to fail.

That’s what Peter did. He gave us the freedom to fail. That’s what Jesus did when he picked Peter up and put him back in the boat. He gave him the freedom to fail. When Jesus picked Peter up, he said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” We’re not told how Jesus said this. Was it a rebuke? Was he scolding Peter? I like to think he was laughing with delight. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Peter had been so excited, “Hey man, I want to walk on water too, call me out there.” That had to have given Jesus some delight, more than the delight he was probably already feeling walking on the water himself.

I imagine Jesus, having created the Earth and that very sea he was walking on, I imagine him full of delight, walking on the water thinking, “This is so cool!” Then to have Peter want to join him, to actually start walking on the water too, and then when Peter sank, I can see Jesus laughing like a parent whose kid had just ridden their bike for the first time for 20 feet and then fallen over. The kid jumps up, laughing, shouting, “I did it! I did it! Did you see?” The parent, laughing and excited, smiling says, “Wow, that was great, kid, why’d you stop?” Fail. Fall down. Keep riding; you’re doing great.

Jesus gave Peter the freedom to fail, and when Peter sank, Jesus picked him back up, gave him some pointers, and set him back in the boat to try again.

Jesus gives us the freedom to fail too. He’s not Darth Vader, angry and murderous with every failure.

I often hear people say, “I’m not perfect; I’m never gonna be,” and they’re almost lamenting the fact. It’s like they’re saying to God, “I’m sorry, Lord Vader. I know I suck.” To which I figure God replies, “Didn’t you read about Peter?”

We’re not supposed to be perfect. God doesn’t expect us to be. It’s a pretty good bet when we step out of the boat, we’re going to sink. God knows this, and God gives us the freedom and even encourages us to step out of the boat anyway.

In our discipleship of Jesus, we’re going to fail a lot. Jesus delights in our continuing to try, our continuing to sink, and his continuing to pick us back up and put us back in the boat to try again. In our discipleship, as we continue to follow Jesus and live his ways, we get to risk failure.

If you want to sink, you first have to get out of the boat.