We follow Jesus because we know the alternatives.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

June 29, 2025

Proper 8, C

Galatians 5:1,13-25

Psalm 16

Luke 9:51-62

  

So, discipleship of Jesus determines how we live our lives. It means giving up some of our desires for something even greater. It can take us time and practice, fits and starts to really start following Jesus well as his disciples, and like anything worth doing, we keep at it, even when we mess up on the way.

Look at Jesus’ disciples in the story we heard from Luke 9. Back in Luke 6, Jesus had told his disciples to love their enemies and bless those who curse them. Then, we heard today that when some folks rejected Jesus and his teachings, two of his disciples, James and John, were very zealous, and they wanted to call down fire from Heaven and kill them all. “Lord, those people rejected you. They’re our enemies now, right? We don’t like them. Let’s kill them all” No, guys, Jesus said. That’s not the way.

James and John were Jesus’ disciples, but they really weren’t understanding what his way of life truly meant. “Love your enemies.” Ok, sure, but we should also kill all our enemies, right?

See, they wanted to gratify their desires for revenge and their feelings of self-righteousness. “Those guys rejected Jesus. Now we’re angry. We’ll feel better if we destroy them.” They probably would have felt better, too, more powerful, less afraid, like nothing could stop them or harm them, but that’s not the way of Jesus. Power, revenge, killing, seeking what we want for our sake, regardless of the cost to others…that’s the way of Satan, the adversary, and those who live according to such ways, Jesus said, aren’t fit or ready for the kingdom of God.

After Jesus rebuked James and John, we heard three stories of people who wanted to be Jesus’ disciples, but they didn’t want to change; they didn’t want to give up their own desires. They weren’t ready to let go of some of their own power and control for the sake of others.

“Lord, I want to follow you,” one guy said. Ok, sounds good, but realize your true home will be the kingdom of God, so all other homes you make in this world will be secondary.

See, if we follow Jesus, then our allegiance is first to Jesus, and our home will not be a nation, nor a flag, nor a political party. Our home will not be a gang, nor a family, nor even ourselves. Now, we don’t have to divorce ourselves of our families. We get to still love and live with them. We get to care about our nation. We get to and should care about ourselves.

When any of these come into conflict with following Jesus, however, we don’t get to rest in those things and chose those ways over the ways of Jesus. Our homes aren’t in our nation, our flag, our political party. Our homes aren’t in a gang, our family, or even in ourselves. Our homes are in Jesus, the ways he taught, and the faith he kept.

“Lord, I want to follow you,” another man said, “but first I want to bury my parents.” Ok, his parents probably weren’t dead yet. He was likely worried that following Jesus was just going to be too messy. His parents may not've liked the idea of him following this weird upstart preacher from Nazareth. "Just give me 20, 30 years tops, Jesus, and then I'll absolutely follow you."

Jesus’ response to him is basically, “Why wait?” Do you think your parents won’t want you to follow Jesus? Do you fear your friends or others around you will think you are soft or weak if you follow Jesus’ ways instead of their ways? Would it be difficult or uncomfortable to let people know that you’re no longer into vengeance, that you truly believe Jesus’ teachings about love your enemies and bless those who curse you?

Finally, there’s they guy who said, “Lord, I want to follow you, but let me say goodbye to my family first.” Hold up, guys. You can’t look backwards if you’re going to plow a field. The plow would go all over the place instead of in a straight line, and you’d mess everything up. Besides, you don’t need to say goodbye. You don’t need to sever ties with your family, or your friends. You can follow Jesus and still love your family and friends. If they reject you, so be it, but you needn’t leave them forever. You don’t need to say “to hell with them” or ask fire to come down from heaven and consume them just because they’re not following Jesus.

Jesus was letting folks know that the world is pretty screwed up, and the time to follow him is right now. You may not be ready, but at least start; at least try. James and John and the rest of the disciples, they all screwed up. They weren’t exactly ready, but they tried. They kept at it. Why? Why follow Jesus? Well, we know the alternatives.

We know what happens when we ask fire to come down from heaven. We drop bombs. We make enemies. We simply can’t kill enough people to make ourselves safe. There are always people who care about the folks who are killed, and they’re always going to want revenge. We’re not really making ourselves safe when we drop bombs. We’re just passing the danger on to future generations. Love your enemies doesn’t sound so stupid when we really think about it.

We follow Jesus because we know the alternatives. We know what happens when we have several thousand billionaires in our country with more wealth than 99% of all other people in the nation. We end up with 40% of everyone in our nation struggling to get by, living in poverty, and weeks away from homelessness at any time.

We know what happens when we do all we can to increase the wealth of the rich while doing less and less to bring the poor out of poverty. We end up with the kind of economy we have now, with a shrinking middle class, thousands of billionaires, and 40% of Americans being weeks away from homelessness at any moment.

That’s what happens when allegiance to nation, party, economic ideals, and desires for more come before following Jesus. Several thousand billionaires with 40% of Americans at risk of homelessness every day. 40% of Americans struggling to get by, struggling in school, constantly stressed, worried, fighting, angry. That’s the result of placing wealth, and party, and even some conception of our nation ahead of following Jesus.

Following Jesus means giving up our selfish goals, our selfish desires, and even our self, Jesus said, in order to live in a way that serves others. Geddy Lee, Canadian singer and bassist for the band, Rush had something to say about living in a way that serves others. In his recent book, "My Effing Life," he said of Canada, “Sure, we pay more taxes than many others do, but I prefer to live in a world that gives a shit, even for people I don't know.” A wealthy man happy to pay a large percentage in taxes because he understands and cares about how much that helps others. He’s not even a disciple of Jesus, but he’s certainly following Jesus’ ways in that.

Following Jesus determines how we live our lives. It means giving up some of our selfish goals, our selfish desires, and even our self, for something even greater: the kingdom of God in which we do give a shit about others, even people we don’t know; the kingdom of God in which we love and follow Jesus by loving and caring for others. Following Jesus can take time and practice, in fits and starts, and like anything worth doing, we keep at it, even when we mess up on the way.

Of Journeys and Justice: Staying the Course In Discipleship

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church
August 16, 2023
Proper 10, Year A
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Of Journeys and Justice: Staying the Course In Discipleship

Twelve years before being arrested for sitting in the whites only section of a bus, Rosa Parks was already working for civil rights. After she was arrested, it would then be another nine years before most racial segregation was made illegal with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Another year for the Voting Rights Act, and then three more years before the Fair Housing Act.

For 25 years and more, Rosa Parks was striving for civil rights, and it was over 20 years before she saw large-scale, national results. The same is true for countless civil rights leaders and workers who still continue on to this day. They were and have been committed to the cause, and they changed the world.

Imagine if Rosa parks had given up after 12 years, finally deciding, “To heck with it. Bus driver tells me to move, I’ll move.” The world would not have changed the way it did. She was committed to the cause, and despite setbacks and discouragement along the way, she stayed committed to the cause of civil rights. She didn’t get excited for a while and then quit. She didn’t get distracted or give in because it was difficult. She stayed and changed the world for the better.

That’s the kind of discipleship Jesus is talking about in the parable he told in our Gospel reading today.

Jesus’ parable was about a guy spreading seeds to get plants to grow, and he was just tossing the seed about, and when it landed on good soil, it grew and produced a huge harvest. Jesus said that the seed was the word. If we think of that as the Word of God, then the seed is Jesus. The seed of Jesus has been cast, and when it lands on good soil, it produces a huge harvest.

Now, I’ve often heard and thought of this parable as being about how each individual receives Jesus. If our hearts are in the right condition, meaning the soil is good, then we receive Jesus and we gain great faith in him.

I think there is truth in that understanding, and another understanding is that the growth of the seeds is about our discipleship. When our hearts are in a good place, when the soil is good, then we become committed in our discipleship, and from that discipleship, even more disciples are grown or raised up. As the group of committed disciples grows, then the ways of Jesus grow stronger in the world. As the group of committed disciples grows, the way of healing grows. The way of peace grows. As the group of committed disciples grows, the way of love and compassion grows.

Of course, as Jesus told the parable, a lot of the seed falls on poor soil, or is snatched away, or is choaked out by other things. Think about starting to grow as a disciple of Jesus, and the ways of Jesus start conflicting with ways of life we’re used to. Jesus said bless you enemies, and we’re often used to cursing our enemies and trying to get back at them. Think about when that conflict comes, and we just go with what we’re used to. We strike back at our enemies, and our discipleship of Jesus is diminished. Our commitment to Jesus’ ways starts to fade.

What about when we are following in Jesus’ ways, and things don’t get better all that quickly? Our lives haven’t changed dramatically for the better right away, and the world around us certainly hasn’t gotten miraculously better just because we’ve started following as a disciple of Jesus. Think about when things don’t get noticeably better fast enough, and so we quit. Nothing really changes, there is no great harvest, and even 20 years later, there is still no huge, societal change for the better. That’s like the seed that falls on the rocky path. We get excited about Jesus and the gospel, but that excitement doesn’t last long, and we’re quickly back to just how we were before.

That’s how things would have been for the Civil Rights Movement, if Rosa Parks and others had quit even several years into their work because they just weren’t seeing changes come fast enough. Remember, it was twenty years of work by Mrs. Parks before she saw change on a national scale.

Twenty years of staying the course with only modest gains to show for it. At the same time, those twenty years brought forth a huge harvest of other people who became fully committed to the cause of Civil Rights. If Mrs. Parks had been lukewarm in her commitment and work, the movement wouldn’t have grown. Others would not have joined. There would have been no great harvest.

When Jesus told his parable of the sower and the seeds, he was encouraging his disciples to stay committed to their discipleship, to stay committed to their faith, to stay committed to the ways and teachings of Jesus. He was telling his disciples that if they stayed committed to their discipleship, then they would help grow more disciples, and amazing, world-altering things would happen.

What are our hopes and dreams for our lives and for the world around us? How about less violence and theft? How about justice in economic practices so that people aren’t forced out of their housing, just so investors can make some easy money? How about people loving and caring for one another, more than just looking out for self-interest?

I’d say we’ve got a ways to go on those things, those kinds of changes for the better can happen. Our part is to stay committed to the ways of Jesus, to stay committed as his disciples. When we do that, God brings forth growth far more than we can imagine. As we stay fully committed disciples of Jesus, changing our lives to live as he taught, God brings forth growth of even more fully committed disciples, and the changes for the better start to happen.

Like with the Civil Rights Movement, it takes time, decades, even, and lukewarm discipleship or giving up when it is difficult or it isn’t going fast enough isn’t going to make and change or grow any fruit. Changing our lives to follow Jesus’ teachings and way, and then fully committing, with God’s help, God can bring forth God’s kingdom on earth. Fully committing as disciples of Jesus can produce world-altering fruit in our lives and in all of society around us. So, despite hardships, discouragement, temptations all around, we stay the course as Jesus’ disciples, and God brings forth an enormous harvest.