God forgives those who need it.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 30, 2025
4 Lent, C
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Psalm 32
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Context matters. With Scripture, as with anything context matters for determining the meaning of something. Taking bits of scripture out of context, we can get scripture to say all sorts of things. For example:

“God loves nothing,” rather, “God hates.” If I had a hankering to make up an angry, frightening story with scripture, taking words out of context, I might just say that. “God loves nothing. God hates.” See, context really does matter, because those words really are in scripture. Deuteronomy 16:22 really has the words, “God hates” right there together, but the verse is actually at the end of descriptions of idolatry and injustice, “things that the Lord your God hates.” That’s what scripture says; God hates things like idolatry and injustice. Context matters. 

Here's another one. “God loves nothing.” Ooh, way harsh, “God loves nothing,” and yes, you can pluck those words right out of scripture, from Wisdom 7:28, but here’s what it actually says, “God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom.” Again, context matters.

I bring this up because today we have a passage about God’s forgiveness. In the story Jesus tells, a young man basically tells his dad, “I wish you were dead, now give me my inheritance.” When the young man spends all of his money and ends up penniless, he goes home, begging his father’s forgiveness, and his father runs out to him, embracing him, and throwing a party because he came back. From that story, God’s forgiveness seems pretty vast and unending. 

Last week, however, I heard in a Bible study someone say that if you are a Christian and you turn away from Jesus, you can’t be forgiven of that. There’s no way to come back to Jesus if you have ever turned away. 

That is not our belief in the church. If you turn away from Jesus, yes, you can come back. That’s the whole idea of repentance. That’s what Jesus was showing us in the story he told. So, where have we gotten this idea that you can’t come back to Jesus if you are a Christian who has rejected Jesus? Well, this idea comes from scripture, but it comes from scripture without context.

See, in Hebrews 6:4-6, the writer says, “it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, since on their own they are crucifying again the Son of God and are holding him up to contempt.” Well, that seems pretty clear. If you believe in Jesus, and then you stop believing in Jesus, you cannot return to a belief in Jesus, and you cannot be forgiven. 

What about the context, though? 

The writer of Hebrews is writing to a whole church, a large group of Jewish Christians, and it seems as though this church is beginning to lose their faith in Jesus, wanting to continue in their Jewish faith apart from Jesus. The writer is trying to convince them that Jesus really is the way to go, and he writes about Jesus in a very Jewish way. He compares Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross to the Jewish animal sacrifices on the altar. He talks about Jesus’ priesthood in the context of the Jewish priesthood. Additionally, he writes about turning away from Jesus in the context of the people of Israel turning away from God throughout the scriptures. 

Remember, he writes, how Israel would forsake God and God would forsake them until the next generation would return to God? So, he’s writing to them about Jesus in the same way, and yeah, he’s threatening them a little, but that threat is written to them for the purpose of keeping them from turning away from Jesus. The writer of Hebrews’ words aren’t a forever truth to Christians that if you believe in Jesus and then stop believing in Jesus, you can never be forgiven. 

Such a belief, that God can’t or won’t forgive you for turning away from Jesus, is in conflict with other parts of scripture, like James 5:19-20. “My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” James states very clearly that if you turn away from Jesus, you can turn back. 

The thought that you can’t be forgiven if you turn away from Jesus is also in conflict with the overall narrative of Scripture. The story of scripture is of God creating us, loving us, and constantly reaching out to us to heal us and guide us back to him. Grace, and love, repentance, and forgiveness are the themes of Scripture. 

Maybe that’s why Jesus taught about God’s forgiveness, over and over again. Jesus taught about God’s forgiveness in the story he told of the young man wanted his father dead, took and wasted his inheritance, and then came back penniless and filthy, begging for his father’s forgiveness. His father forgave him instantly, and then his older brother complained.

“He doesn’t deserve it,” the brother complained. “He turned away from you, while I’ve been here with you the whole time; he should never be forgiven.” When we start saying that folks can’t repent if they turn away from Jesus, we start sounding like the older brother in the story, complaining how unfair it is, that forgiveness should only be for those who deserve it.

Well, that definitely sounds like people claiming forgiveness for themselves, while also saying others are beyond God’s forgiveness. The religious leaders in Jesus’ day seemed to be claiming the same thing when they got upset with Jesus for hanging out with sinners. “Those are the wrong sorts of people. God doesn’t like them!” They seemed to think. So, Jesus told the story of forgiveness. 

God forgives, whether we want others to be forgiven or not. God forgives not just those who deserve it. God forgives those who need it. We all need the healing of forgiveness. So, God calls us to repent, because we need that too. 

How often do we hear repentance expressed as a threat, as if the point of repentance is to appease God’s anger. “Yeah, it’s time to repent. I gotta get God off my back again.” Such thoughts forget that the purpose of repentance is our healing and wholeness. We repent because we need it for our healing. Turn away from things that are causing harm. After all, we only repent of things that are harmful to ourselves and others. 

So, whatever else you’ve heard about repentance, whatever rules you’ve heard about God’s forgiveness, try setting aside those rules made by bits of scripture taken out of context, and remember instead the story Jesus told. A young man said, “Dad, I wish you were dead, because I want my inheritance now. Gimme my money. The dad did, and the kid left, only to return filthy and penniless, begging forgiveness, and his father ran to him, blessing him and forgiving him. 

God forgives. Over and over again. God forgives us. Whatever it is, however, many times it is, God keeps inviting us to repent, to turn away from ways that are causing harm and return to God’s will and God’s ways. Jesus invites all to return and receive God’s forgiveness, not just those who deserve it, but those who need it. 

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.