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.

“This Is the Way” (sorry, but it fits)

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
St. Mark’s, Bellaire
August 27, 2023
Proper 16, Year A
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20 

“This Is the Way” (sorry, but it fits)

So, I’ve been a huge Star Wars fan since I was a little kid. 

When I moved into my office at Lord of the Streets, I brought my Mandalorian Naboo Starfighter LEGO set and the rest of my LEGO Star Wars sets first. The Darth Vader helmet looking over me on the wall. Then I eventually brought in the crosses for the walls and my ordination certificate. 

So, right now is a really good time to be a Star Wars nerd. We've got the new Ahsoka show on right now, the Mandalorian before that. Baby Yoda, or as dorks like me know him, Din Grogu is from the Mandalorian show, and a catch phrase of the show is, “This is the Way.” That means the Way of the Mandalorian, a group of warriors and protectors, and the Way they follow is their code, their Way of life.

So, being a huge Star Wars nerd, I’ve been trying not to use “This is the Way” in a sermon or even in everyday conversations, and until today, I’ve been mostly successful.

Today, however, it just fits as Jesus told Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Looking at the ideas of the keys and the binding and loosing, Jesus was talking about how we live out God’s kingdom on Earth. For the people of Israel, living out God’s kingdom was and is tied to how they live out and follow God’s laws. Following God’s laws is often referred to as walking in the way of the law.

Over the centuries, Rabbis have determined how the laws will be binding on people, and even which laws are binding on people’s lives and which are not. For Orthodox Jews, there are more laws that are binding on them than for Reform Jews. Their leaders have determined which laws are binding and how the laws are binding.

In Jesus’ day too, the religious leaders determined how the laws were to be lived out, and we know Jesus often disagreed with them, even saying in Luke that some were locking people out of the Kingdom because of how they were enforcing God’s laws. Think of last week, when the Pharisees insisted that Jesus’ disciples were doing things wrong by not washing their hands before eating, and Jesus was having none of it, saying that the point of the laws was not to follow them for the sake of following arbitrary rules, but the point of the laws was to heal us so that we would live in the way of love, the way of mercy, and the way of justice.

Justice, mercy, love…this is the Way of Jesus.

So, disagreeing with the religious leaders of the time over how and which laws were to be binding on people, Jesus told Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” In other words, Peter and the apostles were given the authority to determine which laws were to be binding on the people and how they were to be binding. Peter and the apostles were to determine how people were going to walk in the Way of Jesus.

Very early on, in the book of Acts, we see the apostles determine that for the non-Jewish followers of Jesus, the laws of Israel were mostly not binding. Gentiles didn’t have to become Jewish in order to walk in the Way of Jesus.

Over the centuries, we’ve continued to have leaders determine what ways of life are binding on us in order to walk in the way of Jesus. We have our church councils, our prayer book, our church constitution, and our bishops who determine our Way in the Episcopal Church.

Our way is to walk in justice, mercy, and love. Our way is to spend time daily in prayer, to spend time daily in the scriptures. Our way is sacramental, having ordinary things become ways that God is being encountered in our world in countless ways. Our way is to forgive, to serve, to make do with less so that others may have what they need. Justice, mercy, and love.

 Of course, for any of us to truly walk in the Way of Jesus, the Way becomes something that is internalized by us. Why do we pray and read scripture every day? “Because the priest said I had to.” No, we pray and read scripture every day because that’s our Way. Sometimes we may be doing it simply because it is our Way and we’re walking in that Way, but we keep daily prayer and scripture reading as our Way because that Way of life brings healing.

The way of Jesus is ultimately the way of healing. Why would any of us do with less so that others may have what they need? Because we see our brothers and sisters working and not making enough to pay rent. We see our sisters and our brothers getting sick for two weeks and then being evicted because those two weeks without wages kept them from being able to pay that month’s rent. These are the folks I minister with every day, and once folks end up on the streets, it is frightfully hard to get back.

When you don’t have daily access to a shower and don’t have a place to launder your clothes, getting a job is almost impossible. If you have any mental illness and don’t have a job that pays enough to have good medical insurance, and then enough for co-pays and prescriptions on top of that, then keeping a job can be frightfully difficult. There is a lot of suffering in our world, in our city, and our Way, the Way of Jesus, is to help soothe that suffering.

When we do, we also find that our own suffering is soothed as well. Times when we don’t quite see it, all we can do is trust. Trust in the Way of Jesus, trust in how Jesus’ way has been handed down to us in the Episcopal Church. Then there are times when we recognize the healing that has been brought by walking in the Way, and it becomes internalized by us. The Way of Jesus becomes our Way, the Way of healing, the Way of justice, mercy, and love.