God Will Judge Them. Choose Life. Choose Mercy. Choose Love.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
February 6, 2025
6 Epiphany, C
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
Luke 6:17-26

I don’t tend to preach too much about God’s judgment of the wicked and the way of the wicked. Preaching about God’s judgment is really popular in Christianity. Bombastic preachers seem to love preaching about sin and wickedness, God’s judgment, and, I don’t know, trying to scare people straight? With such preaching, there are often very simple and clear rules given about who will be judged, the things for which we’ll be judged, and the formula for escaping judgment. Just believe in Jesus. Well, believing in Jesus is more than just one’s belief in who Jesus is. Truly believing means that belief changes our actions and our lives being transformed by God’s grace, mercy, and love.

So, a simple, “scare you straight” sermon about God’s judgment is not really my style or focus because, for one thing, it is so overdone, for another, it is often very harmful, and for another folks tend to be pretty darn beaten down by life already, we sure don’t need to be beaten down and bruised by a preacher’s words on Sunday as well.

So, you’ve heard me preaching a lot more about God’s love, God’s grace, the forgiveness and healing that God offers to all of us. You hear me preaching about God becoming human as Jesus, to unite humanity, all of us, with God in every way. God has united even with our sin and wickedness by taking all of that upon him on the cross. So I don’t preach too much about God’s judgment of sin because God has primarily judged us as beloved, as forgiven, and as worthy of God’s healing and mercy.

Then we get readings like the three we heard today which give God’s blessings and God’s woes for humanity, and it is rather hard for me not to preach about God’s judgment.

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses,” we are told in Deuteronomy. “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him;” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) Our choices, the way we treat others, the way we treat our children echoes on beyond just us.

So, God gave us choice to choose life.

As we’re told in Ecclesiasticus, God “created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given. (Ecclesiasticus 15:14-17)

“The way of the wicked is doomed,” we heard today in Psalm 1:6. The way of the wicked is doomed, so God offers us choice not to follow in the paths of wickedness. When we do follow the paths of wickedness, there is judgment. There is judgment for our anger and our hatred. There is judgment for our fighting and hurting each other. There is judgment for taking advantage of others, stealing from others, making sure I get mine even if someone else suffers for it. There is judgment for choosing paths of wickedness rather than choosing paths mercy and love.

“Choose life,” God says.

Well, that seems pretty simple and straightforward, doesn’t it. If you don’t choose life, you’ll be judged by God.

Well, maybe not so simple, because as much as we are given choice, God knows that our choosers are broken. Consider how brain chemistry works to affect our decision-making. Some of our brain chemistry really screws us up, with mental illness of various kinds, and one’s ability to choose life is limited. Consider trauma that happens to some of us early on in life, sometimes through over-stressed and underprepared parents, and one’s ability to choose life is limited. Then, add poverty and struggle, the enormous stress of nowhere to live, being scorned by others, constantly hungry, tired, and threatened, and one’s ability to choose life is limited.

So, we have God’s mercy. We have God becoming human to join with us in all of our pain, all of our hurt, even, on the cross, joining with all of the ways we have chosen death over life. God says I see you, and I see your struggle, and I judge you as beloved, forgiven, and worthy of healing and mercy.

Well, that seems pretty simple and straightforward, doesn’t it. Jesus died for our sins, so we’re all off the hook. Well, again, if we’re taking seriously God’s judgment and God’s mercy, then it’s not so simple. Lots of preachers will tell you that it is that simple, just believe in Jesus and you get God’s mercy instead of God’s judgment, but such simple math doesn’t really add up if we take scripture seriously and listen to Jesus’ teachings.

Jesus talked about divine judgment in the blessings and woes we heard him give today. Woe to you who are full and over full while others go hungry. Those who are hungry aren’t righteous for being hungry, but God sees the injustice and figures if humanity won’t care for those who are hungry, then God will. Woe to you who remained over-full while others went hungry. You will not be rewarded by God, rather, you will be shown the same indifference and contempt you showed others in life.

Jesus told a parable about a rich man who had far more than he needed. Food just went to waste as he feasted daily, and just outside of his home, there was a poor man named Lazarus, who begged for food, was diseased, had nothing. When they both died, Lazarus was cared for by God, the judgment being, since no one cared for you in life, I will care for you now. The rich man, however, was in Hell. He was shown the same indifference and contempt that he showed others.

Now, to be clear, being poor and beaten down by life is not a guarantee or God’s favor and mercy. One can be poor and beaten down by life and also be really terrible to others.

What I hope we see is that we are meant to take seriously God’s judgment and God’s mercy.

God has given us choice to choose life. God has taught us that when we choose death over life, those choices harm us for generations to come. So, when we choose death over life, when we choose wickedness over love, God judges us for that.

God also knows just how hard it can be for us to choose life. God knows that our choosers are broken, and so, God offers us mercy.

How exactly does God’s judgment and mercy work together? Well, they work together, and we can’t define exactly how. Trust and take seriously God’s judgment against all of the ways we hurt one another. Trust and take seriously God’s judgment against people and nations who ensure the wealthy stay wealthy while the poor stay poor. Trust in Jesus’ words against such people and nations. Woe to you who are rich and full and over-full while others go hungry. Rich people and nations choosing more for themselves while giving less to those in need is having contempt for God’s mercy while inviting God’s judgment.

Don’t be fooled by those who give simple answers to reassure you of God’s mercy towards you and God’s judgment toward others. Jesus was very clear that such judgments are not ours to give.

Rather, Jesus has taught us to trust in God. Trust in God’s judgment and God’s mercy. Trust, and do not be contemptuous of God’s mercy saying, “Well, I believe in Jesus, so whatever I do, I’m forgiven, and it doesn’t matter.” We’re forgiven, and that is meant to change our lives, to transform us to start choosing life, rather than death. So trust and take seriously God’s mercy and God’s judgment. Choose life. Choose mercy. Choose love. As for those who continue to choose their own wealth while ignoring and withdrawing help for those in need, God will judge them. Trust in God’s judgment. Choose life. Choose mercy. Choose love.

Crushed By God and Remade

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
October 8, 2023
Proper 22, Year A
Philippians 3:4b-14
Psalm 80:7-14
Matthew 21:33-46

Crushed By God and Remade

Happy Sunday everyone! The Astros won, it’s cooler outside, Jesus is talking about crushing people with stones. “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” Hurray! Jesus was saying this about the chief priests and Pharisees, those who were constantly critical of and at odds with Jesus. So, when we who are on team Jesus read Jesus saying that the stone will crush anyone on whom it falls, there’s a tendency to read that as, “someone else.” That feels pretty good. The stone will crush someone else. We’re on team Jesus, so we’re ok.

We’ve got to assume, however, that at least at some point in our lives, we’re going to be the ones on whom the stone falls. We’re going to be the ones crushed by the stone. At some point, we’re going to be tripped up by the stone and broken to pieces.

So, the first question I have is, what is the stone that Jesus is talking about?

Well, according to Isaiah 8:14-15, the stone is God. “[God] will become a sanctuary,” we’re told, “a stone one strikes against…a rock one stumbles over…many…shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken…”

Well, that sounds fun! Yea for God being a stone over which we stumble and get crushed. I realize I’m not really selling the whole, “love God” idea right now. God becomes a stone we strike against, a stone we stumble over, and a stone which breaks and crushes us. Can’t God just let us go our way and not hurt us? That sounds kinda nicer, or can’t we just go back to thinking the whole God Rock Stumble Crush Thing is about someone else?

No. We can’t. Deciding who those others are that God is going to make stumble is a pretty quick way to make sure God is going to trip us up. Do not judge others, Jesus said. Take a look at the log in your own eye, rather than the speck in someone else’s. When we’re focusing on everyone else’s faults and flaws, we’re ignoring our own, pretending that we’re just fine and everyone else is at fault. God loves us enough not to go along with our self-deception, so there will be times when all of us will be crushed and tripped up by the stone that is God.

We don’t want it, but because God loves us, God is going to trip us up and have us be crushed and broken to pieces by the stone that is God. So, why would God do this to us as an act of love?

Because we are so often going a thousand miles an hour completely and obliviously in the wrong direction? At that point, it might be kinda nice to have a stone to trip us up and stop us. 

 A stone of stumbling and crushing, well, yeah, at a thousand miles an hour, we’re going to get crushed by whatever stone we trip over.

That’s an act of love because when we’re going a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction, we need more than a slow down and some course correction. We need to be remade. God tripping us up when we’re going a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction crushes us and shatters us so that we can be remade.

 

On a societal level, think of times and ways we have been remade. Think about what it took to end slavery in this country. The Civil War crushed and shattered this country so that it could be remade. We didn’t do a great job of it, and so there was the Civil Rights Movement which shattered the country again so that we could be remade. Striving to end discrimination on the basis of sex has shattered many who believe they are righteous in their discrimination.

 

Stumbling over the rock that is God and being shattered is never pretty, but it is an act of love so that we can be remade, no longer going down a path of destruction. On an individual level, being crushed by the stone of God is often called hitting rock bottom.

 

I think of a man I know, a friend, who was successful and miserable, addicted to alcohol, cheating on his wife with multiple women. He was finally shattered when she left him and took their son with her. He also lost his job. Crushed and shattered. So then, recovery, sobriety, working on his resentments and fears with others’ help, starting to be of service to others rather than just taking from others. After he was crushed and shattered, he was remade. He has a job again. He gets to be with his son again, and his ex-wife trusts him to be with their son. Being shattered wasn’t pretty, but being remade was beautiful. All of it was an act of love by God.

 

St. Francis was another who stumbled and was crushed by the rock that is God. In his case, his family was hugely rich, and yet he couldn’t help be the poverty he saw all around him. After first stealing from his dad to try to help people out (that didn’t work out so well), he decided to give up his wealth and lived a life of love, prayer, and service. He led others in lives of prayer and service, some living a monastic life, supported by the church, others continuing with the jobs and families, while also devoting themselves to prayer and service of others.

 

What St. Francis and those who joined in his way of life found was peace in their lives. Love and service to others grounded in a life of prayer became a sanctuary for them, a life of blessing, having first been tripped up by the rock that is God, then shattered and remade.

In the same passage that calls God a stone to trip us up and shatter us, God is called a sanctuary. When we are stopped from going in the wrong direction, we then get to take refuge and recover in the sanctuary that is God. We can then find our way to be led by God in a direction that is whole and healing for us. That’s the idea behind God being a stumbling block that crushes us. God stops us from the harm we are living, we are crushed and remade, and then God becomes a sanctuary for us as we live a life of love and service, grounded in prayer.

So, when Jesus says, “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” I really do say, “Hurray!” Hurray for being remade in the sanctuary that is God. Hurray for the peace that comes with God as our refuge, living lives of prayer and of love and service to others.