It Isn't Just a Flesh Wound

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
June 8, 2025
Pentecost, C
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
John 14:8-17 (25-27)

 

Our bishop has said, “God has a mission, and God’s mission has a church.” Well, God’s mission is to unify humanity with God and with one another, and we are God’s church. God has formed us to live out God’s mission of unity and reconciliation. More accurately, we are part of God’s worldwide, one church, which God has formed to live out God’s mission of unity.

Anglican, Episcopal, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Mennonite, Church of Christ, and countless other church groups, we may argue amongst ourselves, and some of us may say others of us aren’t really Christian, but despite our objections, we are one church throughout the world. We are one Body of Christ, all formed to live out God’s mission of unity and reconciliation.

Of course, we believe that the unity of God and humanity happened a couple thousand years ago when God became human with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. God united physically with every aspect of our lives, so that we are fully united with God, and nothing can change that. Nothing can separate us from God because God has become human in Jesus Christ.

So, since that mission unity with God is done, accomplished, and finished, what is left for the church to do? Well, as I said before, God has formed the church to live out that mission of unity. God has formed the church to live the truth that we are one with one another and with God.

When we don’t live into that truth, when we don’t live as though we are one, we are deceiving ourselves.

In the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur is on a quest to search for the Holy Grail, and in his travels, he comes across a fearsome knight who picks a fight with Arthur. It wasn’t the best idea, Arthur makes quick work of him and when the knight won’t yield, Arthur cuts off the knight’s arm. Then, when the knight claims it’s just a scratch, Arthur cuts his other arm off. Then the knight starts kicking Arthur, and Arthur says, “You’ve got no arms left.” “Yes, I have,” the knight replies. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

Eventually, Arthur cuts off both of the knight’s legs as well (because he still kept trying to fight Arthur), and the knight says, “Alright, we’ll call it a draw.”

So, the knight saying that his arms being cut off was just a flesh wound, that was nuts. Even more nuts was that he seemed to actually be trying to convince Arthur that he still had arms. He seemed to actually believe his own lie, but alas, saying that he still had arms didn’t change the fact that they had both just been cut off.

In a similar way, when we deny that we are one with one another, we are lying to ourselves. When we say this part of the church or that part of the church isn’t really the church, then like the knights, we’re cutting off our arms and legs and claiming it’s just a flesh wound. This goes beyond the church as well. When we harm or dismiss any human and claim that it doesn’t hurt us, we’re like that crazy knight. 

We can think that we can harm others without harming ourselves, but those lies we tell ourselves don’t make the harm any less true. The arm being cut off will never just be a flesh wound.

We are meant to live and acknowledge the truth that we are one. Anything else is a lie.

So, how does the church live out God’s mission? Well, we stop lying to ourselves. We stop pretending that we aren’t unified. We may not like other parts of the church, but as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 12, that’s like a human body where the mouth tells the eyeballs they don’t belong. That’s a pretty stupid thing for the mouth to say, almost as stupid as one denomination telling another they aren’t really a part of the church.

I mean, I get the mouth not liking the eyeballs. To a mouth, eyeballs are just really weird. No teeth, no tongue, strangely spherical, and to eyeballs, I’m sure the mouth is equally strange. Wet without being sad, smelly, can’t see a damn thing. It’s like the Baptists and the Catholics; the two could hardly be more different, but either one saying the other doesn’t belong, well, that’s just dumb.

And, one part of the church telling another part it doesn’t belong is a lie, denying God’s mission of unity, rather than doing the hard work of living out God’s mission of unity.

Now, why do I think God’s mission of unity is hard? Well, a cross, three nails, and a crown of thorns. God’s mission of unity ain’t easy. Easy is seeing the people we don’t like and just giving in to our disgust. Easy is letting anger turn to hate. Easy is saying, they’re weird, they’re different, they’re sinners, and they’re going to hell. The lie that we aren’t one is easy. The lie that God is angry with them but not at us is easy. The lie that we follow Jesus, each one of us for our own personal salvation, and not as a part of one another, that lie is easy, as easy as saying my arm is still here when it has clearly been cut off.

Realizing and trusting that our own personal salvation has already been accomplished and that we are now meant to live out that salvation in and through one another, that truth is harder than the lie, but that truth also gives life. Just like Jesus dying on the cross was hard, but his death gave life.

So, to help us with the hard work of living out God’s mission of unity and reconciliation, God sent the Holy Spirit to unite us, to guide us, and to strengthen us so that when we don’t have enough to live God’s mission, God’s Holy Spirit can work for us, strengthening, guiding, and uniting us as one, because that is what we are. That is the work Jesus accomplished. That is the mission of God’s church which we are invited every day to live.

A Place Where People are Honored, Respected, and Loved

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
May 18, 2025
5 Easter, C
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
John 13:31-35

Love God, and love people. It’s just that easy, right? Love God, and love people. All of the commandments and all of the laws and ways of God really boil down to those two simple things. Simple, easy, until we actually try to start living it. 

Anyone ever felt like, “I love God, and because of that, I just can’t stand people”? Yeah, me to sometimes. People can be hard to love. That’s why it’s not easy.  Of course, the book of James points out that we can’t love God if we don’t love people. So…yeah, it might be that loving God isn’t always easy either. 

It takes work and commitment, loving someone. That means loving them when you don’t like them and staying committed to them at the times when you’d rather just turn tails and run. To make it even tougher, Jesus tells us to love even our enemies, and let’s face it, I have a hard time loving my friends sometimes, much less people I consider enemy, but there it is. Jesus tells us to love, like, everybody. By doing that, we show that we actually love God.

In the commandment we heard from Jesus today, however, he gives us a starting point with that love, making things potentially a little easier. “Love one another,” he said. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love your fellow disciples; love your fellow followers of Jesus. Realizing there are disciples of Jesus all over the world, let’s keep it really simple. Love the people in your church.

That doesn’t mean don’t love everyone else, but particularly, as a start, focus on loving your fellow disciples in your church. Make sure your church is a community of love, a place and a people where others would see the love we have for one another and recognize that as the love of God. 

We’ve been hearing about the decline of church for decades now. More and more people are not going to church, more and more people are saying they don’t believe in any religion, and even among those who believe in Jesus, more and more are believing privately, choosing not to be a part of a church community. 

I wonder if part of that might be because the church hasn’t been a place where people truly love one another. I mentioned a couple weeks ago about things like people being shunned for backsliding. Think about the fighting we have in the Church over whose Baptism is the right kind of Baptism. We fight over how exactly salvation works, and we tend to divide over which groups disagree too much. We have some denominations claiming that other denominations aren’t really Christians. 

On a congregational level, I know people who have been gossiped about until they left their church, then came back and gossiped about others. I know churches that have divided and then fought over who got to keep the building. Hell, I even know folks who have fought over things like which flowers were the right ones to put in the church. 

Is it really that surprising that people see that and think, “Yeah, maybe not so much”? 

I don’t mean that people within churches should never fight. That’s not possible. People fight over things. Also, not fighting doesn’t equal love. Love is not just the absence of conflict. Love is striving together to work through conflict and come out stronger and even more committed to one another on the other side. 

Marriages that last 50 and 60 years don’t last because of a lack of conflict. Those marriages last because the couples are committed to staying together and working through the difficult times, sometimes the difficult years. Marriages last because couples are willing to let some things die in the marriage and see what is resurrected on the other side. It’s the same with the church.

A church where people love one another is not a place of fake love, of surface level pretending, and just being politely nice to one another. A church in which people love one another means actual love. That means when we don’t like each other, we choose to look for what is lovable about each other. When we disagree and harm one another, we work to be reconciled; we work to mend the harm done to the other and to heal our broken relationships. 

If anything, that’s what the church is meant to be known for. They will know you are my disciples, Jesus said, they will know you are my church because of how you love one another. Now, what if people saw and heard about churches being places like that? 

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people weren’t shunned, but embraced? 

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people honored and cared for one another?

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people knew that if they did fight with someone, they would do the hard and beautiful work of making things right and healing any harm done?

What if people saw and heard about churches being places where people believed they would be respected and loved?

Anyone else feel a need for a place like that, a place where you know you will be honored, respected, and loved? I get the feeling there’s not a whole lot of that going around nowadays. Honor. Respect. Love. I get the feeling the world could use a lot more honor, respect, and love.

That’s why Jesus commanded us to love one another. Make your church a place where people are honored, respected, and loved. Make your church a place of healing. You need it, and those around you need it.

When we love one another inside the church, even loving the ones we don’t like, then we have a place we can invite others to for peace and healing. When people see they are being invited into a community of honor, respect, and love (love without conditions), then folks just might want to join that community of peace and healing. 

Everyone here needs peace and healing. Everyone here needs to be honored. Everyone here needs to be shown respect. Everyone here needs to be loved. That’s why Jesus made his church, that we might be a place where we choose, and strive, and commit to love one another every day. 

Faith, not a Formula: Following the Advocate

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 9, 2025
1 Lent, C
Romans 10:8b-13
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Luke 4:1-13

In Bible study this week, we talked about following the ways of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, rather than following the ways of the Adversary, whose name is Satan. During our disagreements in Bible study over what we thought a passage meant, we’d sometimes respond by telling another person they are wrong, and our way of believing is right. Oddly enough, arguments would ensue, some back and forth variation of I’m right and you’re wrong. Now, if one of the two people was right, then then other one may well have been wrong, but when we get into those arguments, we’re working against one another, following the way of the Adversary, Satan. 

We could simply offer our own beliefs, not against the other person, not declaring them wrong, but simply offering what we believe. That’d be more of a Holy Spirit kind of way, not speaking against you, just advocating for what I believe. That way, we remain united, even in our differences, as opposed to a church that is fractured and torn apart.

A fractured church is what we see in Paul’s letter to the Romans. The church in Rome was made up of both Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile, non-Jewish, followers of Jesus, and those two different groups seem to have been at odds with each other, both telling the other that they were wrong. “You have to be Jewish if you really want to follow Jesus,” the Jewish Christians said, and the Gentile Christians responded, “We don’t do all of that law of Moses stuff that you do, because we just believe in Jesus, so our faith is better.”

Well, Paul was having none of it. “Ain’t none of you got a leg up on the other, guys.” To the Jewish followers of Jesus, Paul was pointing out that the law was fine, but why would they demand it of anyone, when they still needed Jesus in addition to the Law. Then, to the Gentile Christians, Paul was pointing out that they were no better than the Jews, if anything, maybe a little worse off, because everything to know about God was right there to be understood in creation all around them, and yet they had made idols to worship instead of God. 

So, Paul’s basic argument is, “Y’all are both doing fine, and you don’t need to follow Jesus in the exact same way.” The different ways we all follow Jesus in the church now are all pretty good because we are all so very different. With all of our differences, we all still share this idea that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. That’s what Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome to let them know that even though they were very different, what united them was Jesus. Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead.

With Paul’s writing of unity within the church, there has been a temptation whittle his writings down to a simple formula. One, “confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord,” and two, “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” Then, “you will be saved.”

I’ve heard these words talked about as the right way to believe in Jesus and that anything those words will lead you to destruction. So, we’ve got fighting within the church as people take Paul’s words and turn them into something he didn’t intend. We use Paul’s words to say to different kinds of Christians, “I’m right, and you’re wrong,” and we let the Adversary tear the church apart. 

We don’t quite go to war with different parts of the church the way we used to. Christians killing Christians over which type of Christian you were. Heck, there were even times in some parts of the church where making the sign of the cross over yourself in the wrong way could get you killed. 

Nowadays, our attacks tend to be more verbal, Facebook, shaming, and maybe that’s not as destructive as killing people, but we’re still harming one another terribly out of this feeling that “I’m right and you’re damned.” 

This all comes out of fear and a resulting need for certainty. What if they’re right? Does that mean I’m wrong, and if I’m wrong, is my salvation in question? So, we give into the temptation for certainty, rather than faith, and the opposite of faith is certainty. Doubt goes along with faith, because we don’t know with faith. We choose to believe. Certainty, on the other hand, leave no doubt, and therefore no faith. So, in our quest to alleviate fear, we choose certainty over faith. We fight with one another, because nothing helps certainty more than an out group (I must be saved because they aren’t), and we end up following the ways of the Adversary, Satan, rather than the Holy Spirit.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, we like to think that it was easy for Jesus not to be tempted, thinking about Jesus being God, but we gotta remember, Jesus was human. You bet Jesus was tempted. He’d been out there for 40 days. He was hungry, so when Satan said to turn bread into stone, you bet Jesus wanted to do it. One, he could have, just used his God-powers and poof, magic bread, but The Adversary was the one challenging him to do so. Giving into that temptation, Jesus would have been following the way of the Adversary, telling God, “I no longer trust you. You’ve kept me here, safe, for 40 days, and now, I no longer trust you.” 

Then, when Satan told Jesus he’d give him power and authority over all the kingdoms of the world, you bet that was tempting. Think of what Jesus could do with all the people of the world under his control. He could make the nations and the people do as he wanted. ‘You want to seek injustice? Too bad, you’re not allowed. You want to oppress your workers and ignore the needs of the poor among you, well, I won’t let you, because I’m in charge now.’ 

Everything Jesus preached and taught, he could make people do, except, of course, he’d have to worship the Adversary first, and then he’d have to follow the way of the Adversary. He’d be fighting against anyone and everyone who didn’t want to do as he said. What would happen when people said, “no.” Would he drive them out of town? Take all of their money? Just kill them? Yea, that wouldn’t have worked out so well, Jesus following the way of the Adversary.

So, Jesus resisted the temptations of the devil, choosing instead to trust in God, knowing that God was absolutely for him. 

That is the trust Jesus offers for us to have as well because Jesus is absolutely for us, and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, the Advocate to be for us as well. God is 100% for us, not like Satan, the Adversary, who is against us and leads us to be against one another.

God gives us the Holy Spirit to be our Advocate, that we may be each other’s advocate as well. Rather than fear leading us to the temptation of certainty, God’s love for us can lead us to the trust of faith. With that trust, trusting that God is for us, we don’t need others to be wrong for us to be right. We can let other Christian groups and denomination believe and practice their faith as they do without having to prove them wrong. 

That even goes for the weird denominations (and I think we all know which denominations we all think are weird). I know which ones I think are weird and wrong, and that’s for me not to share, but to give over to God, and say, “Here you go, Lord. I think they’re weird, but that’s my problem, not theirs, and I’m going to give that to you and ask that you grant me your Spirit, that I may be for them and not against them.”

That’s what Paul was encouraging the Christians in Rome to do. The Jewish Christians thinking the Gentile Christians were weird and the Gentile Christians thinking the Jewish Christians were utterly baffling, Paul was writing them to let them know that their unity was in Jesus, and Jesus was for them both. Weird, crazy: groovy. God is for us, and so we can be for one another. In our fears and our temptations for certainty, we can trust God’s love and be for one another, following in the ways of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.

We Don’t Have to Live That Way

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
July 14, 2024
Proper 10, B
Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Mark 6:14-29

King Herod had a right rough time of it, didn’t he? He was king of an occupied nation; semi-autonomous, kinda; and he was supposed to be leading his people according to the ways of God, even as he was trying to keep Rome happy and the people from rising up against Rome. He of course, then had his courtiers and officials to placate, his influence to maintain, all of which was meant to help him lead his people well according to the ways of God…giving Herod the benefit of the doubt.

With the pressure of all of those forces upon him, Herod seemed to be straying a bit from the ways of God. He wasn’t supposed to have married his brother’s wife, but hey, he was king. He had a lot of pressures on him. He had to be given some slack with such a big job. Then, when his wife wanted John imprisoned, well, he had to go along with what she wanted. He couldn’t have a split in his royal household, could he? How would that look to Rome and to his courtiers and officials? So then finally, when he gave his oath to Herodias’ daughter for anything she wanted and she asked for John’s head, how could he refuse? He had the pressures of all of these forces weighing on him, and John was, after all, just one weirdo, poor-boy prophet with no power or stature to compete with the powerful people of influence all around Herod. 

So, he had John executed for peacefully speaking out against the crown, beheaded on the whim of a young alluring girl and her mom. Trying to lead his people well, amidst so many powerful forces and the pressure of everything weighing on him, he led his people further down the path of destruction, going ever further from the ways of God in order to keep his people free to follow the ways of God. Oddly enough, God wasn’t particularly fond of that approach.

As with kings hundreds of years before him, God wasn’t overly fond of the powerful oppressing the week for the sake of some perceived greater good. If only Herod could keep the powerful and influential happy with him, then he’d have power enough to do the right things for Israel. Rather than be a light to those powerful and influential people, showing them a better way, and maybe disappointing them, however, Herod chose injustice and oppression. 

In the days of the prophet Amos, kings of Israel had been doing the same thing, and God had had enough of it then too. Amos starts with God’s indictments against. The nations around Israel, followed by an indictment against Israel herself, for the injustice and oppression she had been living. We heard part of God’s words against Israel for her injustice through the prophet Amos today. “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

The king and the priest weren’t real thrilled with hearing that, and they threatened Amos. John wasn’t the first prophet who was condemned for speaking out against the injustices and atrocities of people in power, and Herod wasn’t the first leader to bow to the pressure upon him and do terrible things. He certainly wasn’t the last.

So, what about us and our lives? I think most of us could find plenty of leaders and rulers nowadays and apply this lesson to them. We could find all sorts of Herods doing all sorts of terrible things, turning away from the ways of God and following the ways of injustice, oppression, and bowing to pressures all around. I’d further guess that folks all along the political spectrum could hear my words thus far and think I’m preaching against the particular politicians or candidates they don’t like. 

I’m not. 

I’m not preaching for or against our governmental powers. They all have their place in seeking justice and wellbeing for all, but when I look for how to heal damage from the Herods in our world beheading the John the Baptists in our world, I don’t look to our government because Jesus didn’t set up our government to live out God’s mission in the world. Jesus set up his church to live out God’s mission. 

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us and to all of God’s church to live out God’s mission of justice, peace, reconciliation, and love. 

The work is ours to do with God’s help. Our challenges in doing the work are many. The pressures on us all are many. Families to care for. Jobs. Places to live. Much to lose. Friends and co-workers, family, neighbors, whom we want to keep good relationships with, and living out the work of God’s mission of justice, peace, reconciliation, and love can have challenges for all of that.

Heck, I offered a prayer on Facebook last night, which I almost never do. At this point, I tend to reserve Facebook for the proverbial cat videos, just offering something lighthearted and fun. After the assassination attempt on former president Trump last night, I offered prayers for him, giving thanks that he was ok, prayers for all who were keeping people safe, prayers for those who had died, and even prayers for the shooter. Prayers for peace, for love, and for healing. 

I got one comment on the prayer, which noted that I hadn’t offered prayers after the hurricane and other recent events, and so I was turning Trump into an idol. Now, I understand what he was saying. There’s a lot of folks who seem to think that if their candidate doesn’t win, the world will crumble. That’s not why I was offering that prayer. It was not about supporting Trump or not supporting Trump. I offered the prayer because I wanted to help lead people in prayer, particularly with so much anger and animosity in the nation today.

When I offered that prayer, I wasn’t turning Trump into an idol. In fact, the man who tried to kill Trump turned himself into an idol. The gunman had pressure on him. He apparently thought a Trump presidency wouldn’t be good, and he felt the pressure of that so intensely, that he went Herod’s route. He felt the world would be terrible if it didn’t go the way he knew was right, and so he decided to force his way on the world. It's not his world. It wasn’t Herod’s world. It’s not any of our world.

Whoever wins the presidency, I’m pretty sure it’s still gonna be God’s world. Our faith is in God, not in any presidential candidate, not in any government, and certainly not in ourselves to force our will and our way onto the world. That would be to turn ourselves into idols, which is what Herod did.

Faced with pressures from Rome, pressures from his own people, pressures from his family, pressures from his officers and courtiers, Herod decided to kill a man so that he could keep his own power and influence to try to make as much of the world go the way he wanted as possible. 

Where do we find good news in this story of Herod’s self-idolatry? We find good news in Herod being a dark, opposite reflection of the good news. We realize, we don’t have to live as Herod lived. 

We look to Jesus who chose not to force his will on the world. With the pressure of Rome threatening Israel, Jesus chose not to start an insurrection. He knew Rome was going to destroy the nation of Israel, and he let it happen. He’d been offered power over all of the nations of the world in his temptation by Satan in the wilderness, and Jesus turned that power down. He wasn’t going to force his way on the world through violence, and destruction, injustice, and oppression. 

Jesus chose instead to live the way of love, the way of justice, mercy, peace, and reconciliation. Jesus worked to invite and influence as many people as he could to join him in living the way of love, in living the way of justice, mercy, peace, and reconciliation. His faith wasn’t in Rome or any governmental power. His faith was in God and the ways of love that are God.

For us, our faith is not in any governmental power. Fearful as many are, fearful as some of us may be, that the country is going to hell in a handbasket or that if one person or another gets elected that the country will go to hell in a handbasket, we don’t have to bow to that fear and those pressures as Herod did. We don’t have to make ourselves into idols.

We can instead follow the way of Jesus. We can accept that the wrong people just may get elected. We can accept that terrible things may happen to institutions that we love. Our faith in not in those institutions, and it isn’t our world to force our will upon. We are not God. Our faith is not in ourselves and our own power. Our faith is in God, and we get to live the ways of God, the way of love, of justice, mercy, peace, and reconciliation. 

May God Keep for Us that which We Do Not Need.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
June 2, 2024
Proper 4, Year B
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Psalm 81:1-10
Mark 2:23-3:6

Creator of the planets and their courses, you created the Sabbath as one day in seven for all. Having invited us to rest, to breath, to pause; now, encourage us to rest our demands on others, listen in the place of speaking, and pause our impact upon the cosmos. You make the sabbath to universally benefit humanity and all creation. We give thanks for this benevolent provision that enables us to experience a life with you that is well lived in the shadow of your wing. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

That’s a prayer from our bishop, Andy Doyle. “God makes the sabbath to universally benefit humanity and all creation.” We are invited to rest, to give rest to others, and to give rest to creation itself. 

We need rest, and yet in today’s world, we seem to pride ourselves on how much we work and how little we rest. New York is called “the city that never sleeps.” The same could be said for Houston. In fact, you could say we live in a world that never sleeps.” Businesses are interconnected across the globe, so while some sleep, others in the same company are busy at work. The company itself, the business itself, never stops. The work never stops. 

Even in the same city, some work while other sleep. We’re grateful for this when hospitals are open in the middle of the night, and we also notice that when we are trying to sleep, there are always cars going by, planes overhead. Our society doesn’t rest. 

Nature, our nature, our bodies, the world itself needs rest. We need sabbath, a true letting go of all of our work, laying down our burdens and truly resting in God’s embrace. 

God’s commandment that we keep the sabbath is given for our healing. Isaiah 30:15 tells us, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”

In Deuteronomy 5:15 God told the people of Israel, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” “Keep the sabbath,” God commands, because we are not meant to work constantly to amass great wealth for our overlords, like Israel did as slaves in Egypt. We are meant to work, and to rest. We are meant to work for all of our benefit, not just for some, and we are meant to rest for all of our benefit, to live together in unity and love.

Sabbath is more than a rule to be followed. Sabbath is a way of life. Rather than the way of death, the way of constant work and business, sabbath is a way of life, a way of healing. So, it makes sense that Jesus healed on the sabbath. 

When Jesus and his disciples were making their way through the grain fields, they ate some of the grain, and the religious leaders cautioned that they were breaking the sabbath. There were very specific rules about how the sabbath was to be observed, rules about what constituted work and what didn’t, rules about how far from home one could walk. Rules, to make sure people kept the sabbath appropriately. 

Jesus’ basic response to the religious leaders was, “Guys, y’all are missing the point.” See, sabbath rest can’t be lived out the exact same way for all people at all times. Situations come up in life where the sabbath must be broken in order to fulfill the purpose of the sabbath, healing and rest. The sabbath is a blessing given to humanity, not just one more rule that we have to follow.

So, when a man needing healing on the sabbath, Jesus didn’t turn him away. He healed the man, which is the point of the sabbath. Jesus broke the religious leaders’ rules of the sabbath, and yet he was keeping the sabbath. Holy rest for healing. Allowing others to rest and be healed. Allowing creation itself to rest and be healed.

In our world today, many of us simply can’t take one whole day as a sabbath rest, much less can we all take the same sabbath day. Our society simply doesn’t work that way anymore. We give thanks for those who work while others sleep, and we pray that they may find sabbath rest as well.

See, Jesus didn’t make his church so that we each follow all the right rules all the time. Founding the perfect community with the perfect system of rules has never worked in the history of the world. Jesus wasn’t silly enough to think it was going to work just because he said so. No, the church isn’t a bunch of people meant to follow all the right rules to constantly stay on God’s and each other’s good sides. 

The church is a people trusting in Jesus, following in his way as best and imperfectly as we can. The church is a people trusting in Jesus’ grace and forgiveness for all the times when we don’t. The church is a people who offer that same grace and forgiveness to one another. The church is a people of healing, a people who seek and offer sabbath rest.

The church is a people who have decided to lay our burdens down weekly, daily, so that our bodies, our minds, our souls can receive the rest we need. In our sabbath rest, we lay our burdens down, not just anywhere. We lay our burdens down into God’s hands so that God can carry our burdens for us while we rest in God’s healing love. 

Then, when we take our burdens back up, some we might just leave with God entirely, because some burdens aren’t truly ours to bear. There’s a prayer I pray some nights in which I thank God for the day that is past and then offer to God all of the day that is past. The good and the bad, my successes and failures, I offer to God that I may rest that night in peace. Then, I pray that when morning comes, God will give back to me that which I need and hold on for me that which I do not. 

For our strength and salvation is not given through our own might and power, nor for ourselves alone. We are granted sabbath rest as a gift both to receive and as a gift to grant to others. We are granted sabbath rest as a gift for creation itself for we are all united together, and as each of us rests, so does creation rest as well. “In returning and rest we shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be our strength.”

So, I offer to us all the sabbath prayer that I pray some nights as a prayer that can be prayed not only at night, but at any time. Any time we need to rest from our burdens, we can offer all of our lives to God, for God to hold them for a time, and then when that time of sabbath rest has ended, we can ask God to give back to us that which we need and hold on for us that which we do not. 

Jesus Isn't Anyone's Personal Savior

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
May 19, 2024
Pentecost, Year B
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

“When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together…All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.”

They were all sorts of different people, a large, disparate group of people from all different backgrounds, different cultures, different norms and ways of life. They were gathered together already, and the Holy Spirit united them even further.

That was Jesus’ prayer for his disciples fulfilled, that they would be one, as Jesus and the Father are one. Remember, that God, by God’s very nature, is a community of relationship, three persons bound together so perfectly in love that they are one. When Jesus prayed that we would be one as God is one, Jesus was praying that we would live into the image of God in which we were made. 

We are made for community, for loving and supportive relationships. So, when Jesus formed the Church, Jesus formed us as a community of people, a bunch of different and odd collection of people who were made one with one another through the Holy Spirit. 

What that means, among other things, is there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. 

We hear a lot about personal salvation, but that’s not really a thing. Jesus isn’t anyone’s personal savior. Jesus is our savior, all of our savior. We have a challenge in understanding this partly because the people who translate the Bible into English mostly seem not to be from Texas. What I mean by that is, they don’t use the word “y’all.” 

Most of the time, when Jesus said, “you,” he was actually saying y’all. It’s a plural form of you that he used. In our passage today, Jesus said, “[The Advocate will come], whom I will send to y’all…” In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are y’all when people revile y’all and persecute y’all and utter all kinds of evil against y’all falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for y’all’s reward is great in heaven.”

Jesus does talk about God repaying each one of us according to our individual deeds. What each person does, really does matter. At the same time, salvation is not a solitary affair because the kingdom of God dwells in community.

How are we doing as a community? How do we each act towards others? Last week, there was a man sitting on the sidewalk as cars were driving quickly by. Another man was worried about him and wanted him to be safe. “Get up! Get up!” He shouted. “Stop sitting there! What are you doing? Get up!” Well, the guy got up, but he thought he was being attacked. I asked what was going on and found out that the guy who was shouting was just concerned for him, so I suggested that next time, he kneel down and gently ask the guy to get up for his safety. He realized how his shouting seemed like an attack, rather than a help, and he apologized. The two went away good with each other instead of at odds. The kingdom of God was the result, rather than two people angry at each other. Our individual actions help bring about or break apart community.

What each one of us does matters, not for our individual salvation, but for all of our salvation. Jesus formed the Church not to make a bunch of individuals personally saved, but to save a bunch of individuals by making us one.

This is the church, and I don’t mean a location. I don’t mean a building. This is Jesus’ gathering of his disciples. Not all who are here may be disciples of Jesus, and all are welcome here, even if not a disciple of Jesus, and this gathering of people is Jesus’ church.

That means we have some ways of life we follow so that we may be one. When we’re here gathered for worship, we follow the way of love and respect. This time and gathering for prayer and worship is meant to be a time of peace and unity. We’re not here as a bunch of individuals out for ourselves. We’re here as the church, made one by the Holy Spirit. 

Then, we carry that unity with us as we go. We continue to pray for the Holy Spirit to make us one. Unity and community is what we are made for and a big part of how we are healed through Jesus. 

A big challenge we find with our brothers and sisters experiencing homelessness is the lack of supportive community. Life on the streets is tough, and even once someone gets an apartment through The Way Home housing programs, life can be tough due to isolation. Imagine living on the streets with a group of people who have become your friends, and then you have an apartment, which is great, but it’s also over an hour bus ride from everyone and everything you know. You no longer have any community, a difficult time getting a job due to transportation issues, and so you have a roof over your head, but you are an island, isolated and alone. 

We see this with some, not all, but some of our parishioners who get housed. Saved from the streets, but saved in isolation, and that isolation simply doesn’t work. Like with Jesus, personal salvation isn’t really a thing. 

Being saved from God who is angry at us for breaking rules isn’t really what Christianity is about. When we sin, we do things that isolate ourselves. We hurt others and push them away. We care about ourselves to the exclusion of others, climbing ladders and leaving others beneath us. We isolate in addiction, desperately trying to cope with the problems in our lives and in our world, and we are left, once again, alone, even if surrounded by people. 

Loneliness and isolation are hells from which Jesus saves us. His prayer for us was that we would be one, just as he and the Father are one. Then, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to continue to form us as one. As disparate people from all over with different cultures and backgrounds were formed into one body at the birth of the church, so are we continually being formed as one body through the same Holy Spirit. Such is our salvation, no longer individuals tossed to and fro by the changes and chances of this life. We are made one body to live together in unity, raising each other up when we fall, and living not only for our sakes alone but for Jesus who died for us and rose again, whose body we have become.