Giving Thanks: Topsoil, Rain, Bread of Life

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

November 26, 2025

Thanksgiving

Deuteronomy 6:1-11

Psalm 100

John 6:25-35

When the people of Israel came into the promised land after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt, God commanded them to take the first fruits of the food they were growing, and bring them to the altar of God to be given as an offering of thanksgiving. This offering was a reminder that God had been with the people from the beginning and that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt so that they could be a light to the nations. The offering also reminded the people that God gave the growth to their crops, so they were to give thanks to God from whom all life flows. The people planted and tended their crops, and God gave the soil and brought the rain so the crops could grow.

Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey once noted that “despite all our many accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” If there were no plants on the earth, there would be no animals. If humans could not grow fruits, and vegetables, and grains, we would all die. So, we do indeed owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. 

Giving thanks for the simple fact of food helps ground us because when we don’t give thanks, we tend to take things for granted. We don’t notice any of the blessings around us, and when we no longer notice blessings, we tend to fall into despair. If there’s nothing for which to be grateful, well then there’s nothing good in the world, and if there’s nothing good, well then everything is bad. 

What do we do with the bad stuff in our lives? We tend not to like it that much, and we end up contemptuous and resentful of all the bad things in our lives. So, when we stop giving thanks, we tend to become contemptuous and resentful of everything in our life, even the good things. 

It seems God really knew what he was doing when he told the people of Israel to give thanks for the first fruits of the harvest each year. Remain grateful so that you can remain joyful. Remain grateful so that you notice the blessings around you and don’t fall into despair.

There is also something particularly healing about being grateful for food, and I think it is this: food comes from the ground, from the earth, which is where we come from. We are connected to our food because we are connected to the earth. 

When the people of Israel were wandering in the desert, God gave them manna to eat. It rained down from the heavens and the people gathered it every morning. It was described as the bread of angels. That’s pretty fantastic that God gave the people angelic food, and they didn’t even have to work for it. Every morning it just appeared, and the people quickly came to hate it.

Ok, on the one hand, guys, just be grateful. On the other hand, I think they grew to hate the bread of angels because it wasn’t from this world. They weren’t as connected to the manna as they were to the fruits of the ground. 

There is something about real food that connects us to the earth and to each other. Meals eaten together connect our families and communities. Those meals, that food, connects us back to the earth, that six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. Those meals then, that food, helps remind us of our connection to God from whom all life flows and from whom all love flows.

God loves us so much that he thought becoming human sounded like a pretty neat idea, so that God is connected physically to us, just as we are connected physically to the earth. Our sustenance, our food, is not only the physical food that comes from the earth, but also the physical connection to God which comes from Jesus.

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Never be hungry and never be thirsty, Jesus said, even when we mess up, even when we turn away from Jesus, because we always get to turn back. 

Jesus said that our work, the work which will bring us the bread of life, is to believe in Jesus. Well, that work that Jesus would have us do means believing in all of his life, and his teachings, and his death, and his resurrection. 

Last Sunday, we heard about Jesus’ death in his crucifixion, calling out “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Forgive them for killing the bread of life. That’s love, right there, God’s great love for us. Not only did God give us six inches of topsoil and rain so that we can eat the physical food of this earth, God gave us the bread of life, the physical connection between us and God. In Jesus, God gave us a physical connection with God’s own eternal life, and when humanity tried to kill that physical connection between us and God, Jesus said, “Father forgive them.”

We can’t do enough bad to sever God’s connection with us in Jesus, and we know this because of Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection tells us that God doesn’t give up on us, even when we give up on God. As a friend of mine, the Reverend Pete Nunnally said, “Even though we tried to kill God, God came back to us.”

That is the bread of everlasting life which we eat by believing, and we let that belief be real enough to change our lives. 

“Do not work for the food that perishes,” Jesus said. Do not work, and strive, and fight just for things that’ll help you feel better for a moment or two. The next bit of cush will make you feel better for a short while, but it will also drain you of life. The next drunk will help you not care for a time, but it will also drive people away from you and make them push you away. 

The police are making the rounds more and more on the streets of midtown, moving people off the sidewalks, removing people’s belongings, and forcing people to leave the area. On the one hand, it kinda sucks to take someone who has no place to live and force them to go away to somewhere else. On the other hand, when folks are using drugs, getting drunk and high, threatening men and harassing women so they no longer feel safe coming to church here, who could blame the police for making people move on?

I don’t say this to condemn, because as a recovering alcoholic myself, I truly do understand the pull and the chains of addiction. I understand using something to feel better and feeling like that thing will fill the hunger. I also understand how addiction harms one’s behavior, and I understand how addiction leads to anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness. 

I understand trying to fill a hunger with food that doesn’t satisfy, “food that perishes,” Jesus said, and I understand how dark life can be. I also believe that the true hunger we feel is not just to feel better. The true hunger we feel is for eternal life. The true hunger we feel is for connection with God and one another. The true hunger we feel is for love and belonging. 

So, today I offer again what God has given us to fill our hunger, the bread of life which is Jesus. God became human to connect us physically with God’s own eternal life, and not even death Jesus’ death on the cross could sever that connection. “Even though we tried to kill God, God came back to us.” 

No matter how often we turn away, God always invites us back. So for us, the antidote to our anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness is not numbing out with food that perishes. The healing for our anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness comes from the bread of life, and working for that bread, believing in Jesus. Our healing comes from believing in Jesus’ teaching and ways. Our healing comes from believing that Jesus is the eternal life of God joined physically, and our healing comes from letting that belief be real enough to change our lives. 

So, on this day of giving thanks, we remember God’s gifts, and we remember the gift of gratitude itself, because without gratitude, we stop noticing the blessings around us, and we fall into despair. We give thanks today for the food of the earth, for that six inches of top soil and the fact that it rains, connecting our lives physically to creation. We give thanks for the bread of life. We give thanks for that physical connection to God’s eternal life, Jesus, whom we tried to kill and who came back to let us know that nothing can separate us from God’s great love for us and God’s eternal life.

Wine Coolers? Really?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 18, 2024
Proper 15, B
Ephesians 5:15-20
Psalm 34:9-14
John 6:51-58

“Give thanks to God at all times,” Paul said. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” Jesus said. I wonder if those two things might be related. It’s a good bet, since I brought it up, that I believe they are. 

For weeks we’ve been talking about Jesus as the bread of life, and I’ve been talking about ways in which Jesus is that bread of life and ways that we receive that bread of life. So, today we get to add “giving thanks to God at all times” to the ways that we receive Jesus as the bread of life.

So, of course, that means we can’t get sad, or if we do, we have to give thanks about the fact that we’re really sad and miserable. I hope it’s obvious that I’m joking. Giving thanks to God at all times is not just a rule that needs to be followed. Jesus as the bread of life is not just some rule to be followed. 

Jesus as the bread of life is a way of life. If we’re looking at eating the bread that is Jesus’ body as a rule to be followed, then we’ve got plenty of systems and commands within the various parts of the church for how exactly we’re supposed to follow that rule. 

We share the sacrament of communion, we get baptized, we make an adult profession of faith, and on and on. If we follow these rules about Jesus, then we have life within us, so some teachings within some parts of the church would go. We get eternal life. We get to go to Heaven when we die. All of these rules for how we receive Jesus as the bread of life are fine, I suppose, but a lot of them tend to miss the point. The rules would say, receive Jesus as the bread of life in this particular way, and then you get to go to Heaven. The point of Jesus as the bread of life, however, is that the life of Jesus, the eternal life of God is what we get to live now in this world, following Jesus as a way of life, not just as a rule to be followed. 

Following Jesus, living the eternal life of God here and now, we live the truth that there is more beyond this life, so we needn’t fear death, nor be overcome by grief. Receiving Jesus’ bread of life as the way of letting go of our anger and desires for vengeance, we can let our anger turn to sadness, and our sadness to acceptance, trusting in God’s vengeance. Even though there are plenty of people whom we feel definitely deserve vengeance, and yet are obviously fat and happy in this life, we can trust in God’s justice, God’s vengeance, even as we trust in God’s mercy. That life of trust and acceptance, and the resulting peace that comes is the eternal life that Jesus gives as the bread of life.

If we look more at this way of life that Jesus is, we heard Paul say in Ephesians chapter four, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” Well, if we look at this simply as a rule, then if ever you get drunk with wine, then you’ve done wrong, and you must repent. “I’m never going to do that again,” you say the next morning. Then of course, you do get drunk on wine again, at some point, and it becomes this cycle, eventually figuring, “Eh, I’ll be forgiven; I don’t need to take that rule too seriously,” or we take the rule way too seriously and not only do we not drink, but we say all drinking wine is wrong and evil. 

Even further, if we look at not getting drunk off wine as a rule, well then we get to say, “Paul only mentioned wine, so getting drunk with beer and liquor is ok.” Wine coolers? They’re obviously not ok, but they don’t break the rule. Do we really have to make a rule for each type of alcohol? 

Then, we have other drugs that Paul didn’t mention. Do we have to make rules for each of them? Do we have to make individual rules about not getting high or stoned off weed, heroin, cocaine, crack? We’d have to keep making up rules forever, wouldn’t we, because even 20 years ago, Fentanyl wasn’t a thing, so, now we’ve got to make a new rule against that.

Hopefully, all of that is obviously ridiculous. The way of life Paul describes points to the problem not of one substance or one time of getting drunk. Paul telling us not to get drunk off wine addresses how we can use everything I just mentioned: drugs, alcohol, and so many other things. When we’re using these things to escape reality, to feel better regardless of the consequences, that’s when Paul is saying we’re having a problem. When we use alcohol, drugs, sex, money, whatever else to feel better and escape reality, and we lose control and do other harmful things, those are the problems Paul is talking about. Wanting to feel better, heedless of the cost and consequences.

Trying to escape reality, rather than living in reality, that’s the real problem. Becoming addicted to changing the way we feel, rather than working with those feelings and working with others in the world, that’s the real problem. 

Enjoying oneself with friends, while “getting drunk with wine,” as Paul said, but being safe, not driving, enjoy the evening, and yes, feeling a little more tired crummy in the morning than you otherwise would, I’m not sure that’s what Paul was talking about. Ok, you enjoyed time with friends; that’s a good thing.

When you start doing it every night? Doing it to numb your life? Doing it so you can make bad decisions and not really care? That’s where the “getting drunk off wine” becomes a problem. That’s where it becomes a way of life that brings death. 

So, “Do not get drunk with wine” is not just some rule to be followed, but a way of life in which we seek to deal with life and handle life with the help of others, not just numbing away our feelings to trying to feel good so we don’t ever have to feel. 

Part of life is pain and having to deal with that pain, and following Jesus as the bread of life helps us deal with that pain.  “Give thanks to God at all times,” Paul wrote. That’s part of how we deal with the pain of life, again, not as a rule, but as a way of life. 

Consider the way of gratitude. Following in this way, we work at finding things for which to be grateful, and then we give thanks. We practice living gratitude every day. That doesn’t mean we ignore the bad or push our sadness aside, saying “thank you,” to God just because we’re supposed to. Practicing gratitude means even in the midst of suffering, we look for something for which we can be legitimately grateful. Our sadness is still there, but there’s a little bit of hope too, a little bit of peace. 

Following the way of gratitude, we can choose, to some extent, what the world looks like. If we only focus on the negative, the problems, the complaints, then those things become our food.

If we practice gratitude, on the other hand, focusing on the good, giving thanks for blessings we see, then that becomes our food. Feeding off of gratitude, and the goodness in the world, and the blessings we see, that sounds like the bread of life which came down from Heaven. Feeding off that bread of life, we find Jesus is right there with us in our suffering, strengthening us, holding us, helping us join with others. We can practice gratitude, and let that be our food. Doing so, we can receive Jesus as the bread of life, and we can “be filled with the Spirit, as we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among ourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in our hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”