...Because We Don't Have to Be Perfect

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
July 6, 2025
Proper 9, C
Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16
Psalm 66:1-8
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

People tend to really like the idea of perfection, and at the same time, we have terrible problems with perfection. Perfection is not really for us, and we’re not particularly good at perfection. We just can’t really achieve it, and yet we often try to strive for perfection, and it often leads us off the rails. 

Perfection is unrealistic. It’s unobtainable.

Our desires for perfection do tend to make us fight amongst each other, though. Whoever is closer to perfection gets more money. Whoever is closer to perfection is seen as not only worth more, but also more worthy of anything and everything good in life. Look at the latest bill brought by President Trump. Those with the greatest economic output get the greatest benefit by his bill, while those with the least economic output get harmed the most by his bill. The president’s bill follows the lie of perfectionism, that the best are worth the most and the worst are worth the least. 

That runs completely counter to Jesus’ teaching and completely counter to God’s view of human worth. All are worthy, not for being more or less perfect; all are worthy simply for being. We are all God’s children, and we are all equally worthy of love and belonging, honor and respect. We are all worth the same human dignity, regardless of how nearly perfect or drastically imperfect we may seem. 

How do I know this? Two things: Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ death on the cross.

Look at Jesus’ teaching. In Matthew 20, Jesus told a parable of a landowner who had a vineyard and went out to get laborers to work in his vineyard. Early on, he found some folks who worked all day, and he told them he’d pay them a living wage. Later in the morning, he found some others to work part of the day. Again he found others to work starting at noon, then mid-afternoon, and then he finally found folks who were still looking for work and hadn’t been hired. He hired them to work just for an hour.

At the end of the day, he paid everyone the same. All received the same living wage, which is what they all needed to survive. Those who had worked the full, perfect day were outraged that they hadn’t received more than those who had only worked the woefully insufficient one hour. They weren’t perfect; they don’t deserve as much. 

Not so, the landowner said. They were only able to work an hour, but they had to live a full 24 hours each day. They were just as worthy of getting to live as those who had been able to work all day. Our ideas of perfection and worth based on productivity run totally counter to Jesus’ teachings.

What about Jesus’ death on the cross? Did Jesus die for the worthy or for the unworthy? He died for all: worthy, unworthy, greater, lesser, middling. Jesus died to join all of humanity’s sins and mistakes with God. We’re told in Hebrews that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice to atone for humanity’s sins, and we’re told that Jesus made the perfect sacrifice because we couldn’t make the perfect sacrifice. 

If we look at the prophets, though, we also find that God didn’t really want all these sacrifices. God wanted us to treat one another like the landowner did in Jesus’ parable. God wanted us to bear one another’s burdens and to live the law of love for one another. We were never going to be perfect at it, and God never expected perfection from us. We’re human. We’re screwed up. We can’t be perfect, and God knows that. 

So, God became the perfect sacrifice for us, essentially telling us, “Y’all, the perfect sacrifice has been done, it’s finished, once for all, so you don’t need to do any more of this sacrifice things on an altar type stuff. The sacrifice is done, and it was perfect. Y’all don’t need to be. So, stop worrying about being perfect, and get on with loving one another. Get on with bearing one another’s burdens. Get on with treating one another as equally worthy of love and belonging, honor and respect.” 

Jesus was that perfect sacrifice for us not because God needed it, but because we did. We thought we had to be perfect. We couldn’t be, and God finally said, “Guys, I’ll just do it for you because you can’t be perfect, and you don’t need to be.” God stepped in to help us because our self-sufficiency was not enough.

That continues in all of our lives, Jesus joining with us to help us when our power and our self-sufficiency is not enough. We’re not meant to be in this life alone, and we’re not meant to be perfect. We’re meant to share this life with others, and we’re meant to seek help from God. 

With that help, we can then accomplish what we can’t do on our own. With God’s help, we can be in greater unity and love with one another and do together what we can’t do on our own. Then, for all those times when we hurt one another and screw up, God has already made amends for that so we can make amends with each other. 

We don’t have to become right with God. We are, so we can get on with the business of loving one another. 

That’s a lot of the message that Jesus told his disciples to go and preach to others because the world was pretty messed up, and the world is still pretty messed up. People still need that message that we don’t need to be perfect, that it’s not the great who are worthy and the not great who aren’t worthy. We’re all worthy, and any law or supposed gospel that preaches that only those who produce a lot, or work a lot, or are worth a lot of money, are the ones who are worthy…any gospel or law like that is completely anti the Gospel of Jesus. 

So, we get to go out and proclaim this message to others. What did Jesus say about those who didn’t want to hear it? We heard last week that his disciples wanted to rain fire down upon them, and Jesus said, “no.” When people don’t hear it, we say, “ok,” and we go. We leave them, hopefully, in peace. We don’t lose ourselves in rejection and get upset. We let our peace remain. We take our peace with us, and we go on to bring peace to others, and if they don’t accept it, that’s ok. We don’t force them. We just say, “peace be upon you,” and we go, because even our sharing of the Gospel doesn’t have to be perfect.

I’d love to say I have a good ending to this sermon, but I don’t, and it’s actually not even finished, but I figure that’s ok, because it doesn’t have to be perfect. 

The Armalite Rifle Won’t Save You

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
May 11, 2025
4 Easter, C
Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm 23
John 10:22-30

“Come on, Jesus, tell us if you’re the Messiah or not!?” That’s what the people wanted to know. “Are you the Messiah, or aren’t you, Jesus?” Jesus responded that he had already told them, and they did not believe. Part of why they didn’t believe is because they were looking for a different Messiah.

When the people asked Jesus about being the Messiah, it was during the festival of Dedication, in other words, Chanukah. Chanukah is the feast of the consecration of the altar, over 100 years before Jesus, after the Israelites drove out the Syrians who had desecrated the temple. Having in mind Israel’s military victory over the Syrians, people wanted to know if Jesus was going to drive out the Romans. 

Folks in Israel had been looking for a revolutionary leader who would overthrow the Roman Empire ever since they took over Israel. Jesus just wasn’t their guy. When Jesus was on trial, the crowd told Pilate to release Barabbas, the revolutionary leader, rather than Jesus. Then, a few decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Jewish people actually had a revolution against Rome, and that revolution ended poorly for Israel and in fact destroyed Israel.

“Are you the Messiah?” The people asked. Yes, Jesus was telling them, but you won’t see me as the Messiah because you’re looking for the wrong Messiah. You’re looking for someone to lead you into war and bloodshed. You’re looking for someone to kill your enemies and rule over others in a kingdom of power and might, and that’s just not the Messiah I am.

If you want a warlord as your messiah, that’s fine, and you’ll have a warlord’s salvation. Death, destruction, violence, anger, strife, and fighting forevermore.

That is not the salvation Jesus brings.

Jesus’ salvation comes through love and justice, mercy and forgiveness. Jesus taught that we don’t need to fight and kill to wrest our peace and security from others. Instead, we can seek peace though our unity with God, and then work with God to save and shepherd the lives of those we love (and the lives of those we don’t love). With Jesus as our Messiah, we seek to live God’s kingdom of love and peace, knowing that we won’t fully achieve the love and peace we desire. We strive for justice, knowing that justice will not be complete in this life. We recognize that the peace of God means others will see us as enemy, and we will not seek to dominate or kill them. The peace we fully seek will only happen one day, in that time and place of God’s making where we all “will hunger no more, and thirst no more,” where the “Lamb…will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

We won’t get that full peace in this life, but we strive for it anyway, and we get glimpses of that peace throughout our lives. We get glimpses of the peace of God’s kingdom as we trust in Jesus and love and serve others as he loved and served us, following the voice of Jesus, our shepherd Messiah.

That’s a very different voice than the voice of the warlord Messiah. If, like some of the people talking to Jesus in our Gospel reading today, if we are listening for a warlord Messiah, then we won’t recognize the voice of Jesus. Listening for a warlord Messiah, we’ll want to conquer, rather than comfort; to subdue, rather than serve; to lecture, rather than love.

Listening for a warlord Messiah, you won’t hear my voice, Jesus tells us, because you’re looking for the wrong Messiah.

I think of churches full of people who brought their Armalite Rifles, AR-15s, to church so they could have a service of blessing for their rifles. Ok, so that’s kinda nuts, and it makes me ask, who is the Messiah for such people? I suppose to be fair, just before Jesus was arrested, Jesus did tell his disciples to gather up some swords. I’ve even heard that said as a reason why Christians should be armed and ready to kill.

Of course that’s a misreading of scripture and ignoring half of the story. In Luke 22, Jesus did tell his disciples to get some swords. Then he told them why. It was so the scripture would be fulfilled, that he would be counted among transgressors. Jesus had no intention for his disciples to use the swords. Peter tried to when Jesus was arrested, and Jesus immediately told him and the rest of them to put their swords down.

I like to think that people who read Luke 22 and think we are supposed to get guns and be ready to kill are not intentionally misreading scripture, but that they are faithfully misreading scripture. I like to think that their reading is simply tainted by nationalistic fervor and a strong gun culture in America. When having a gun becomes synonymous with being a Christian, and being a red-blooded, gun-loving American becomes part of what it means to be a Christian, then we have mistaken Jesus for Barabbas, replaced the shepherd with the warlord.

Even without bringing guns to church for God to bless them, we still may end up following a warrior, rather than a shepherd. In the small, everyday battles of our lives, who do we follow, the warlord or the shepherd? When we come to church seeking blessing, do we intend to change our ways so that we may be blessed in order to bless others? In the words of one of our Eucharistic prayers, do we come to church “for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal?”

Looking to Jesus and hearing his voice, we get to follow Jesus as our shepherd, and we are called, as his sheep, to serve as fellow shepherds. We are called to care for others, and not just those we think are worthy, not just those we think are part of Jesus’ flock. See, the warlord tells us to create and ingroup and an outgroup. The warlord tells us to care for the ingroup and to keep the outgroup away.

The shepherd says, “Feed my sheep,” and the shepherd also says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this flock.” We may think someone doesn’t belong, but that’s thinking like the warlord. Jesus said, “one shepherd and one flock.”

As Jesus’ sheep, called to live as shepherds, we are called to seek and serve Christ in all persons. We are called to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. The warlord doesn’t do that, and the warlord’s salvation comes in this life only, a salvation of death, destruction, violence, anger, strife, and fighting forevermore.

Jesus is the Messiah, because Jesus is a shepherd, calling us to live as shepherds, bearing one another’s burdens and caring for one another. Jesus’ salvation comes in this life and the next, in this life because we help to save each other from hell on earth, and in the next life because we will live with Jesus in that place where “we will hunger no more, and thirst no more; where the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

When God Became Human, He Didn’t Find Things to be Beneath His Dignity to Do.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

January 12, 2025

1 Epiphany, C

Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Today, after the service, I have to leave to get to another church where I’ll be talking with them about Lord of the Streets, recruiting volunteers, and continuing to grow our connections with our supporting congregations. So, unfortunately, I won’t be here for breakfast, which I love, not just the food, but being with everybody. Usually, after breakfast, I join with our parishioners to help clean up, put tables and chairs away.

One morning about a year ago, I was cleaning up after breakfast with several parishioners, and someone else said, “You shouldn’t be doing this. You’ve got more important things to do.” I said, “Not really, cause for one, I like getting to be with our parishioners doing this work, and two, if I’m too good for cleaning tables and sweeping floors, then I’m not good enough to be preaching and serving at the altar.”

I bring that up because I think it has something to do with why Jesus got baptized. In seminary, this was a popular question.  Why did Jesus get baptized? He was without sin, right, so he had no need for baptism. We’re told in Matthew’s version that Jesus chose to be baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.” So then, of course, there were debates about what exactly that means. Jesus was already righteous. He was God. Nothing he did separated him from God, and he needed no reconciliation to be reunited with God. He was righteous. He had no need for forgiveness of sin. You could say he was too good for baptism, and you’d be right.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism-of-Christ.jpg

So, what righteousness was Jesus fulfilling? Perhaps the righteousness of being human. The righteousness Jesus fulfilled was the righteousness of joining with humanity in every way. Jesus got baptized because we get baptized. While he was too good to need baptism, he wasn’t too good to be baptized. Jesus didn’t “regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” (Philippians 2:6) Baptism marks our repentance and our desire to be washed clean of everything that separates us from God and one another. Baptism is a physical and spiritual way that we choose to accept and live into our unity with God through Jesus.

We are baptized to embody our unity with God and the love, forgiveness, and grace God has for us, so when God became human, rather than claim to be above all of that, God joined with humanity even in humanity’s ways of joining with God. Even if he didn’t need baptism, Jesus wasn’t too good to be baptized. He wasn’t above that.

Perhaps, as followers of Jesus, there is a lesson there for us. When God became human, he didn’t find things to be beneath his dignity to do. Rather, God joined with us in all of our lives. Perhaps then, nothing is beneath any of our dignity to do as well.

Even forgiving others, which is part of what baptism is all about, the forgiveness of the harm we do. For us to forgive, we have to swallow our pride, to set aside the fact that forgiveness may not be deserved, and then choose to forgive anyway. That’s what God does, forgiving us, not necessarily because we deserve it, but because we need it. We need healing, and forgiveness brings healing, both for the one being forgiven and for the one doing the forgiving.

If God can forgive us and even be baptized with a baptism for forgiveness of sins, then, as hard as it may be, forgiving others is certainly not beneath our dignity. If being God didn’t put Jesus above forgiving others, then being human certainly doesn’t put any of us above forgiving others.

Now, in Luke’s version of Jesus’ baptism which we heard today, John talked about Jesus gathering the wheat of humanity into his granary and burning the chaff of humanity with unquenchable fire. That’s God’s job to do, not ours, and it is a job that we don’t fully understand. How exactly does God’s judgement work? Who or what is the chaff? Who or what is the wheat? We’ve got lots of answers, but if we’re being honest, we don’t fully know or understand. That’s because it’s God’s job to do, not ours.

What we do know is, God is unmistakably for us, and so we are meant to be for one another as well. When we judge one another, and we do judge one another, our judgments should be meant for healing, for reconciliation, for helping one another in this life. We can judge our behaviors as harmful or helpful, as loving or hateful.

Our judgments are not meant for determining who is the wheat and who is the chaff to be burned with unquenchable fire. When we make those determinations, we’re making ourselves equal with God, and not even God made himself equal to God when God became human.

So, when we judge, for example, we can judge that violence and settling our conflicts with our fists and weapons is harmful and terrible for us. Last week at breakfast a man felt disrespected when another asked him to quiet down during the prayer. Feeling disrespected, he became angry and attacked the other man, physically, rather than just taking a breath or using his words. That unquestionably the wrong thing to do. His violence at feeling disrespected didn’t help him. It just hurt everyone, and he had to leave over it.

At the same time, that man may have been doing the best he could do at that point. He seems to have been under far too much stress to condemn him simply as bad. He’d obviously been hurt in his life and dealing with so much that when he felt disrespected, he couldn’t do much of anything other than attack. He still had to go, but that doesn’t mean we condemn him. Hopefully he can come back.

Now, some might say that man is like the chaff which will be burned with unquenchable fire. Maybe, but again, if we make that determination, we make ourselves equal with God. Perhaps, instead of the man being the chaff to be burned, the brokenness and hurt within the man is the chaff to be burned with unquenchable fire, and the healed, beloved, forgiven man is the wheat that will be gathered into God’s granary.

We don’t know, but that certainly seems possible, considering how even God chose to be baptized for forgiveness of sins, not because he needed the baptism, but because we do, and God didn’t find joining with us in our baptism to be beneath him. Rather, God chose to be with us and for us, showing us that we can be with and for one another as well. Even if being for one another means we walk into water that is dirty as sin, we can be for one another, knowing Jesus is there with us to gather us together with God.