Let It Go, For We Are People of Resurrection

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 15, 2026
4 Lent
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23

John 9:1-41

Dang it, but I really don’t like when things go the way I don’t want them to go. I get that it’s not my world and I’m not in charge of everything, but if things in my life would go the way I want them to, and if things in other people’s lives would go the way I want them to, and if things in the world would go the way I want them to, I would be so much more pleased. Life would be perfect, right, if only God would listen to me and respond exactly as I want God to?

That would kind of make me God’s master which is a little bit problematic. Ok, that’s completely problematic. If I’m in charge of the way God runs the world, then I’ve really taken God’s place so I’m essentially God over everyone else, and yeah, that’s hugely problematic, because I don’t think anyone really wants me as God over them. I certainly don’t want anyone else to be God over me, and I also really don’t want to be God at all. I mean, I definitely want things to go the way I want them to go, but I really don’t want to be in charge of everything. 

We human-type people tend not to be particularly good at playing God. Dictators, tyrants, warlords, they all try to force the world to go how they want it to, and they usually end up killing a bunch of people and bringing a lot of misery into world. Captains of industry, and ultra-wealthy business leaders are others who tend to try to make far too much of the world bend to their will, and while there’s a lot of money to be made, there’s usually a lot of people suffering because of the vast wealth made by a few.

Addicts are another group of people that tend to try to force the world go as they want it to go, and it tends to work pretty terribly for them too. Then, since the world is so terribly disobedient to the addict’s desires, they drink or use drugs at the world. “You won’t do what I want, world? Well I’ll show you!”

Like I said, we human-type people tend not to be particularly good as playing God. Saul, the first king of Israel, tried playing God, and unsurprisingly, it worked out pretty badly for him. Saul was in a war against the Philistines, and when he and the people of Israel saw how huge the Philistine army was, they were terrified. 

God had told Saul that he was with him and not to worry about threats from others, but when Saul saw the people of Israel retreating in fear, he decided to make a sacrifice to God, rather than waiting for Samuel to do it. That wasn’t good. Saul wasn’t the one who was supposed to make sacrifices. Samuel was. So, this meant that Saul was trusting in the sacrifice, rather than trusting in God. Saul was putting himself in God’s place, trying to force things to go how he wanted them to go, rather than letting go of things he couldn’t control. He couldn’t control when Samuel arrived, so a faithful response would have been to offer prayers to God, placing the outcome in God’s hands, rather than trying to force God to give them victory through sacrifice. 

Saul was trying to control God, therefore trying to put himself in God’s place, so after a few more incidences like that, God rejected Saul as king. 

Then, it was Samuel’s time to be tempted to play God. Samuel was grieving over the rejection of Saul as king, grieving over the many ways Saul had failed as king. God grieved for a time as well, sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel. Before long, though, God was ready to move on. God wanted Samuel to go anoint the new king of Israel, and Samuel was still grieving. “How long will you grieve over Saul?” God asked. “I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil, and set out” to anoint the one I will show you to be the new king over Israel.

In other words, God was saying to Samuel, ‘Let it go, man. I’ve got other plans. New life will spring up from this death. Don’t fight it. Go with it into an unknown future, trusting that I am with you in this.’

It is a bit much to say Samuel was trying to play God in his grief over Saul, and at the same time, God did need to remind him to let the past go and move forward into an uncertain future. Saul was mourning for an imagined future with Saul as king. Whatever he thought that future was, it was suddenly gone. 

I’m guessing most of us have mourned the loss of many imagined futures throughout our lives. We lose a job, and the future we thought we had is suddenly gone. A family member or friend dies, and a future of life with them is gone. We get attacked or beaten, and the future we thought we had is now darkened with fear and trauma. Our nation goes to war, and any number of possible futures are all thrown into chaos. 

Any time those things happen, we’re going to mourn the loss of those possible and imagined futures. Of course we do, and I figure God mourns with us, loving us as God does. Our challenge is not to stay there, grieving the loss of the future we thought we might have. When we stay forever in that place of grief and will not let go of that imagined future, we are in that place like Samuel where we’re not exactly playing God, but we kinda are because we refuse to let go of what we have lost, longing for something that cannot be. “If only this had happened or that had happened. If only God had done what I wish he had done, things would have gone differently.” That’s when we do get into the, “I could have done this better,” territory, and we are kind of longing to take God’s place. 

So, God says to us what God said to Samuel, “Let it go. I’ve got other plans now. We are people of resurrection, so new life will spring up from this death. You don’t need to fight it. Go with me into an unknown future, trusting that I am with you.’

Another way that we want to play God is when we sorrow at the loss of a longed for past. “In my day, we didn’t do things like…” whatever old people complain about, and yes, I am sometimes one of the old people who complains about how things are nowadays. Sometimes we lament that we just don’t this new generation, or that people aren’t doing things right. Kids are too noisy. Kids are too quiet. They should go outside and play more. What are all these kids doing running around outside, don’t they have parents? The schools aren’t right. The music isn’t right. People didn’t used to do things like that, or at least they’d be decent enough to be ashamed about it. 

Jesus healed a blind man, and that seems like it’s obviously a good thing, right? Unless you were some of the religious folks back in the day when Jesus healed that blind man, and then you had complaints. Jesus shouldn’t have healed you, they said. For one thing, this is the wrong day to heal people, and for another thing, we’ve never heard of anything like this before. That’s startlingly close to, “In my day, we didn’t heal people on Saturday. We’d rest and let ‘em suffer it out till Sunday, like good God-fearing people. And another thing, any decent person would know you can’t have your sight restored if you’re born blind. I just don’t understand you kids these days. You must be a really terrible person for Jesus to have restored your sight.”

The religious leaders wanted the past that they knew and understood to continue on, unchanged. God seemed nice and orderly in that past. The rules made sense, and they were on the right side of those rules. Now with this new stuff that this carpenter’s kid was doing, performing miracles like they hadn’t seen before and even healing on the Sabbath, their comfortable past was turned upside down. 

We’ve continued with challenges like this in the church, and very often when some seemingly new thing is happening in the church, groups of folks don’t like it, and there’s a split as one group stays with the ways things were and one group goes with this seemingly new thing God is doing. In the Episcopal Church, we’ve had changes such as the new prayer book: it’s 47 years old, almost half a century, but there are some folks who still won’t use it because it’s the new prayer book.

We’ve had changes about things like allowing for a person to get married again after that person has been divorced; it’s only been 53 years since that change was made. A year after that change, we began ordaining women as bishops, priests, and deacons, and more recently, we have allowed homosexual people fully to participate in the life of the church.

Each of these changes has turned the church upside down for some and been a moment of Jesus healing the blind man for others. Each of these changes has left people mourning an imagined future in which things hadn’t changed, and each of these changes has left people mourning the loss of a longed-for past. 

Through these and a thousand other changes throughout the life of the church, we have always sought to remain faithful to Jesus, and through people’s upset and struggle, longing for the past or mourning the loss of an imagined future, Jesus has been with us saying, “Let it go. I’ve got other plans now. We are people of resurrection, and new life will spring up from this death. So you don’t need to fight it. Go with me into an unknown future, trusting that I am with you.”

For each of us personally as well, our futures often die, and our pasts cease to be. As much as we may want it at the time, none of us are God to force our way onto the world, and so God tells us, “Let it go. Mourn for a time, but let it go. We are people of resurrection, and I have other plans now. New life will spring up from this death, so stop fighting it. Go with me into an unknown future, trusting that I am with you.”

Echoes Through Generations

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

February 8, 2026

5 Epiphany

Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]

Psalm 112:1-9, [10]

Matthew 5:13-20

Jesus said, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Let your light so shine, that others may see your good works and give glory to God. This is more than getting someone to say, “Yay, God is good,” because they see your good works.

Giving glory to God is not the same as giving a “like” to someone’s good works. That person was kind; they were a light in the darkness. “Like,” and God is glorified. That’s not exactly giving glory to God. Seeing goodness and kindness in others and then giving glory to God comes through following in those same ways of life. When we see goodness and kindness in others, giving glory to God means loving others and showing kindness as well, living as God hopes for us to live.

The way God hopes for us to live, is to live in ways that minimize harm to each other and give the greatest healing and love that we can. We’re all God’s children, and God looks at us all with love, care, and concern. So when we talk about God’s way and God’s will for us, we’re talking about God desiring peace, community, and love for our lives. God desires healing and reconciliation for us so that we can love even our enemies. 

That’s no small task, living as God desires for us to live. Following God’s will and God’s ways requires work on our parts. Daily, hourly, giving glory to God through our actions, through treating others with honor and love, respecting the dignity of every human being.  

Glorifying God is not through words and religious practice, but through actions. Those words and religious practices are good, so long as they help guide our actions, to love and honor others, and respect this dignity of every human being. So, when Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them, that’s what he was talking about, how we live our lives.

We heard what the prophets had to say about the law and how we live our lives in our reading from Isaiah. He said that following religious practices just to get you right with God isn’t the deal. When Isaiah spoke to the people, they were fasting, praying, making sacrifices…doing all the right things to make God pleased with them. 

If we were to translate these practices into our life as Christians, you could say they were going to church every Sunday, giving to the church, studying the Bible, praying and turning their lives over to Jesus, doing everything they were supposed to do. Unfortunately, none of that was translating into how they lived their lives minute by minute, day by day. They were doing all the right religious stuff, but actually caring about other people enough to be a light for them, to heal them, to be healed together, that’s the part they were missing. Actually caring about other people enough to be a light for the, to heal them, to be healed together, that’s at the heart of the Gospel.

I came to fulfill the law and the prophets, Jesus said. The law and the prophets’ interpretation of the law were given by God for our sake, out of care and concern for us. The law and the prophets were given to help us learn how to walk in the light. The law and the prophets were given to help to minimize the damage we cause from generation to generation and to heal the damage we cause from generation to generation, because the damage and the healing we cause echoes throughout generations.

We know the harm we cause one another echoes throughout generations because we live that harm every day. We are still living to this day the echoes of the harm caused when the first human being was chained and sold as a slave in this nation. We are living the echoes of the generational trauma that came as hundreds of thousands of people were stolen from their homes in Africa, chained, and sold as slaves here in America, as the slavers used up and discarded the bodies of human beings as nothing more things to make them money.

Slavers used the law, or rather misused the law, to justify their captivity, beating, killing, raping, and terrorizing Africans who were taken from their lands and sold into slavery. The slavers would say, “There were slaves in scripture, therefore we can have slaves now,” but they could only say that by misunderstanding the scriptures and using the scriptures selfishly, rather than seeking to fulfill the law and prophets like Jesus did.

Those slavers built a nation on torture, rape, and murder of human beings. Those slavers built an economy on torture, rape, and murder of human beings. Those slavers built an economy on treating human beings as disposable things, used to make money and then discarded. Generations and generations later, our economy still works that way. Billionaires have luxury surpassing kings and pharaohs of legend, while the lowest of their workers don’t make enough even to afford a one-bedroom apartment. 

Sure, we don’t have slavery anymore, but the grossly wealthy, like the slavers of yore, still create their great wealth by using up and discarding the bodies of the human beings as nothing more than things to make them money. The way our economy was built is the way our economy still is. The echoes of the harm done to even one person reverberate throughout generations. 

If only the slavers had understood that, had understood what Jesus meant when he said that he came to fulfill the law and the prophets. To do that, you have to care deeply about people and then look at scripture deeply through that lens of caring deeply about people. 

For example, Genesis 4:10 says, “For anybody who destroys a single life it is counted as if he destroyed an entire world, and for anybody who preserves a single life it is counted as if he preserved an entire world.”

- https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.4.10?lang=bi&with=Jerusalem%20Talmud%20Sanhedrin&lang2=en

Now, those words may not sound like anything you’ve ever read in the Bible, because they’re not. The actual words of Genesis 4:10 are, “And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” That was God speaking to Cain after he had killed Abel. What have you done, Cain, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground? 

I said that Genesis 4:10 says, “Anybody who destroys a single life is counted as if he destroyed an entire world,” because that is a rabbinic teaching about Genesis 4:10 in the Talmud. The Talmud is called the oral Torah, teachings of rabbis on the first five books of the Bible over centuries. In Genesis 4:10, rabbis teach that the word for blood was not singular, but plural. Your brother’s bloods are crying to me from the ground. The life-bloods of Abel were crying to God from the ground, meaning that all of Abel’s descendants who would never now be born, were crying to God from the ground. 

Cain had not just killed his brother Abel. He had killed the countless generations of people, the world of people, who could have come from him. “Anybody who destroys a single life is counted as if he destroyed an entire world.” 

Fulfilling the law and the prophets requires caring about people enough and looking deeply at scripture enough to realize that the harm we do to one another echoes through centuries and millennia. Jesus understood this when he taught that it isn’t enough simply not to murder someone else. Even if you hate someone, it brings generational harm, like slavery did. When you traumatize a single life, you traumatize an entire world. The hurt we inflict on one another is passed down to our children, and to their children, and to their children’s children, spreading and echoing for countless generations…and so does healing.

Remember, the full teaching from Genesis 4:10 is “Anybody who destroys a single life is counted as if he destroyed an entire world, and anybody who preserves a single life is counted as if he preserved an entire world.”

Jesus came to heal the wounds we inflict on one another, and Jesus came to lead us into healing those same wounds and hopefully causing fewer and fewer of those wounds. We are the light of the world, Jesus said, and that means we are hoping to help cause less harm and to heal others in this life so that healing and light will follow for generations.

 

That is the work of the church. You are light, Jesus said, so let that light shine before others. Show them, teach them, offer the light of the ways of God. We don’t do that with condemnation and threats, telling people how sinful we think they are. Jesus didn’t you are a light to burn people with or to set them on fire till they finally listen to you. That doesn’t glorify God. That just causes more harm.

Jesus said to be the light by how you live, and offer that way to others. That will glorify God. When we help one another heal from the hurts of our lives, and from the generational hurts of the world, that will glorify God. When we look upon one another and choose to see each person as beloved, that glorifies God. 

As far as religious practice goes, that’s what we do to keep kindling the light within us. We keep connecting to God. We keep giving over fears and anxieties to God. We keep turning every day over to God’s guidance. Then we live that nearness and peace, loving others, honoring others, and respecting the dignity of every human being, even our enemies. When we glorify God in those ways, then the hurt that is echoing throughout generations is soothed and lessened as the healing we bring echoes throughout generations as well.

Remember Who You Are: God's Beloved People

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
December 14, 2025
3 Advent, A
James 5:7-10
The Song of Mary Magnificat - Luke 1:46-55
Matthew 11:2-11

So, John the Baptist doesn’t seem to have been overly happy when he had his disciples go to Jesus and ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jahn was in prison because Israel’s tiny, authoritarian, narcissistic king, Herod, had put John in prison for telling him the truth. Herod had married someone whom it was against the Jewish law for him to marry. When John told him that, Herod found John treasonous, and he wanted to have John killed immediately, but he chickened out and simply had him imprisoned instead. John was a political prisoner of a small and morally bankrupt king who even wanted to have sex with his stepdaughter, we find out later. 

John was understandably pretty upset at this point. It was hard times for Israel under Roman occupation. There was trauma, constant stress and fear, and it seemed like the whole world was against them. In that time of trauma, stress, and fear, John had given everything, his whole life to the idea that Israel’s messiah was coming and that Jesus was this savior who would rescue Israel from Rome, who would rescue Israel from their terrible and corrupt king. Then, as it turned out, John was imprisoned by this terrible and corrupt king, Rome still ruled over Israel, and Jesus didn’t seem to be doing anything about it. 

So, John wondered, “Have I been backing the wrong horse?” Is Jesus really the Messiah I have been claiming him to be? Have I been a fool, and am I here in prison for nothing? “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John had his disciples ask Jesus. Behind that question was another question. “Are you gonna get me out of jail or not?” 

Jesus answered by telling John’s disciples to tell John what they saw. In short, people were being healed, and behind Jesus’ answer was, “No, John. I am not going to break you out of prison.” The messiah has come, and you are not going to see some world altering, monumental shift in the balance of power and world order. In fact, if you’re not concerned with the lives of the people around you, you may not notice much at all that the messiah has come.

Jesus helped, he served, he saved people, but he didn’t rule over the earth as a good-natured tyrant. He didn’t kill. He didn’t destroy. He didn’t force others follow his way and his will. That wasn’t the way of the people of Israel. God didn’t force the people to follow his way and his will. God offered his way and his will to Israel and told them that things would be better for them if they followed.

Sometimes they did, and things were generally better. Sometimes they didn’t, and things tended to be worse. In the dark times, those who stayed true to who they were as God’s people were the ones who found the light. 

So, when Jesus assured John that he wasn’t going to break him out of prison, and when Jesus told John that he was the messiah because people were being healed and the poor had good news brought to them, he was also telling John, remember who you are. 

John didn’t spend his life training people to become merciless killers so they could destroy Rome and kill king Herod. John spent his life reminding people of who they were: God’s people. John ministered to people in the desert, reminding them to follow God’s will and God’s way. That was how he prepared for the messiah to come, helping the people of Israel walk faithfully with God. John prepared for the messiah to come by guiding people to love God, to love others, and to let all of their actions flow from those two great loves. 

It should not have been a terribly great surprise then, that when the messiah did come, the way that he saved people was pretty darn similar. Love God. Love people. “What do you see, John? You see me loving God and loving people. With all the mighty power of God within me, you see me loving God and loving people. That’s how you know I’m the messiah.” 

So, I can imagine John being disappointed. Perhaps he was expecting something different: fires and earthquakes, floods and wars, and other apocalyptic craziness. Jesus didn’t bring that. Instead, he assured John that he was the messiah because he was healing people and giving them the good news that God is with them, even in the bad times, and that was Jesus’ message for John as well. “God is still with you, John. So do not despair, and do not lose sight of who you are.”

When we are in the midst of despair, we can lose sight of who we are. During hard times, with trauma, constant stress and fear, during times when it seems like everything is going wrong in the world, like everything is against us, Jesus is reminding us not to lose sight of who we are. We are beloved. We are God’s beloved, and we are made to be loved by God and one another, and we are made to love God and to love one another. We are made to join together in healing the hurts of the world. That’s who the people of Israel are.

When Jesus told John’s disciples that he was healing people and bringing them the good news that they are God’s beloved, he was reminding John of exactly what John had been reminding others of when he baptized them in the wilderness. We are God’s people made to heal the hurts of the world. So no, John, don’t wait for another. Remember who you are. 

Like the people of Israel, we too, as Jesus’ disciples, have been formed to help heal the hurts of the world. That’s hard to do in times of trauma, stress, and fear, feeling like everything is going wrong in the world or that the world is against us, and during those dark times, Jesus reminds us even more strongly to remember who we are: God’s beloved, made to love, made to heal the hurts of the world. During those dark times, we are reminded to seek help from Jesus, to stay true to who we are, trusting that we will find the light.

Even in the current darkness, our way is lit by love God and love people. That’s how we know where we’re going. That’s how we know Jesus is the messiah. We don’t need fires, earthquakes, wars, floods, or other apocalyptic craziness; we have quite enough craziness right now, thank you very much. 

So no, we don’t need to wait for another. We can follow Jesus and do what he did.

We may not get what we’re hoping for. John died in prison, but he died being the light. He died remembering who he was, God’s beloved, formed to help heal the hurts of the world. Whenever and wherever that healing happens, the messiah is here, and the savior reigns. Even in the darkness, whenever and wherever healing happens, the messiah is here, and the savior reigns.

K Pop Jesus - Driving Out Hate with Love (& Fantastic Singing, Dancing, and Outfits)

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 24, 2025
Proper 16, C
Isaiah 58:9b-14
Psalm 103:1-8
Luke 13:10-17

So, being the father of an 11-year-old daughter, I sometimes end up reading books and watching shows that I wouldn’t necessarily watch on my own. The latest example of this was on Friday night, watching the Netflix animated movie, K-Pop Demon Hunters. The story is about a 3-member, girl K-Pop group who, as the title suggests, also hunts demons. When they’re not killing demons, they are using their music to fight against the darkness of demonic influence. 

The songs are really catchy and fun, and I really enjoyed watching K-Pop Demon Hunters with my daughter. Welcome to your glimpse into the Sullivan household. As interesting as that may be, however, I bring it up because of how they work to overcome the demonic influence in the world. 

Of course, they use magical swords and things like that to attack the demons, but they also use their music to stop the influence of the demons over everyone else. At one point, however, they are also coming under the demonic influence. They’ve let their hatred of demons eclipse their desire to help others, and they begin fighting with each other. They’d been trying to hide all their faults from one another, so when their struggles come to the fore, they turn against each other, and the darkness spreads even further.

Then, after coming together again, they sing a new song, admitting their pain and brokenness, admitting everything the demons had been using to drive them apart. They sing:

We’re shattering the silence, rising, defiant

Shouting in the quiet, “You’re not alone”
We listened to the demons, we let them get between us

But none of us are out here on our own 

 

So we were cowards, so we were liars
So we’re not heroes, we’re still survivors
The dreamers, the fighters, no lying, I’m tired

But dive in the fire, and I’ll be right here by your side

 

I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back
But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass
The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony

My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like

As they sing their new song, the light spreads and the demonic influence is driven out. Their light spreads, not because of how much they hate the demons. Their light spreads because of how they love each other and connect to all the people around them through that love. 

Now, I’m pretty sure none of us have superpowers to hunt and kill demons, none of us have visible light that emanates from us as we sings, I’m guessing most of us aren’t K-Pop stars, or animated. 

Even without magic, glowing swords; energetic dancing; and aggressively cheerful music, however, we do have a way, to overcome the demonic forces in our lives that keep us separated, that keep us down. We have a way to be freed from the demonic influences that bind us and keep us alone and angry, fearful and contemptuous of others. That way is Jesus. 

While the K-Pop Demon Hunters didn’t exactly ask Jesus for help (it wasn’t that kind of film), they still found the truth Jesus taught, that Satan cannot drive out Satan. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”

We heard in our story today from Luke 13:10-17, that Jesus freed a woman who had been bound by Satan for 18 years. We don’t know what had happened to her, only that a spirit had crippled her and she couldn’t stand up straight. Whatever it was, we know from Jesus’ previous teaching that she hadn’t been crippled by the spirit because of being particularly awful. 

Despite a lot of the beliefs of people at the time that any tragedy in your life was because you had angered God, Jesus had made clear in the first part of Luke 13 that this woman wasn’t a worse person than anyone else. So, when he saw her in need of healing, he healed her. He freed her from her bondage to Satan. Now, we’re not talking eternal damnation here. We’re talking about a woman who had been crippled by the devil. 

Most of the people, when the saw her healed and heard Jesus proclaim that she had been set free from the Adversary’s bondage, most of the people began rejoicing. Her being set free set them free as well. The influence Satan had on all of their lives was lessened when Jesus freed this one woman. 

That was true for most people, but it wasn’t true for the leader of the Synagogue. The leader didn’t like seeing this woman freed, and he immediately began telling the people Jesus was wrong for healing her because he did so on the Sabbath, the day of rest. He saw a miracle. He saw a woman healed after 18 years of suffering, freed after 18 years of bondage, and all he could say was, you should have waited till tomorrow. 

There was no love there, only fear. There was no freedom there, only continued bondage. The leader of the Synagogue was so caught up in doing things in just the right way and believing things in just the right way, that when God performed a miracle right in front of him, he didn’t even recognize it. He was also trying to free people from bondage, but he was so bound up in being right, that he turned against God, thinking that he was speaking for God. 

‘Behave, y’all. Don’t you dare mess up with any bit of the laws of Israel, or you’re gonna be in a world of trouble,’ or maybe he was more forgiving towards others, and he just really had a problem with Jesus. It’s hard to say exactly, but any way you slice it, the leader of the Synagogue was very upset when Jesus freed this woman from bondage, and it’s hard to see how he could have been walking in the love of God with a heart so bound against a woman being made well.

So, what about us? How are we bound, and what might freedom from that bondage look like? Thinking eternally, we are freed from Satan’s bondage, Jesus has freed us, and nothing can separate us from God. Still, in this life, there are many ways we end up bound or influenced by dark forces. As Paul writes about in Ephesians 6:12, we can end up bound by “the cosmic powers of this present darkness…the spiritual forces of evil...” 

What is it like to be bound by these forces? We have an idea from Jeremiah what it is like to be bound by spiritual forces of darkness and evil. It looks like pointing the finger and speaking evil, being constantly at odds with others. Being bound by forces of darkness looks like being so full of fear and anger that we don’t care about others. 

Being bound by spiritual forces of darkness looks like a nation, and state, and city that criminalizes being homeless, without putting up the money needed actually to house people. Look at what Jeremiah said.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

As individuals, we can be bound. As a nation, we can be bound. As individuals, we can’t force a nation to unbind itself to injustice and oppression of the poor, but we can show others what freedom looks like. Being freed, ourselves, from the darkness of constantly being at odds with those around us, we can let the light and love of God shine from within us and into the lives of those around us. We can call on the Holy Spirit to grant us peace and patience, gentleness and self-control, peace and joy, faith and love. We can offer a little dose of kindness and let that light shine, freeing others from little bits of bondage, just as we are freed from the little bits of bondage in our lives. 

Most of us probably aren’t K-Pop Demon Hunters, but we do get to be freed from the forces of darkness, we get to be freed by Jesus, and as we are freed, the light of that freedom shines into the lives of others, as love spreads, as kindness spreads, as faithfulness spreads, calling on Jesus to set us free.

A Squadron of Inner Demons

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
St. Mark’s, Houston
June 22, 2025
Proper 7, C
Luke 8:26-39

When Jesus cast the legion of demons out of the man in Gerasa, his healing was far reaching. The man was back in his right mind, no longer a danger to himself, no longer a danger to those around him. His community was healed because they no longer had the crazy demon-man just outside of town, afraid he may come and harm them at any moment. His community was then further healed because the man told everyone what Jesus had done for him.

This is the kind of healing I’d say all of us and everyone we know can experience, because all of us are struggling with our own inner demons. Now, I don’t mean full-on Exorcist kind of demon possession. I do believe that sometimes people are full-on possessed by demons, like the man who had a legion of demons in him, which Jesus cast into the pigs, and I believe Jesus has the power to cast out those demons. Powerful as they may be, Jesus is God, but what I’m talking about here is not that kind of demon possession. Please, no one go out from here saying, “the preacher said I’m possessed by demons.”

I’m talking about what we call our inner demons, our lesser angels. Think about things within us that keep us isolated, harming others and ourselves. Ways that we choose to be right and angry, rather than in love and charity with others. How we hold on to grudges and let that poison eat away at us, slowing harming those around us too. Think about the contempt we have for others, the fear we let lead our lives, and the huge amounts of time and money we spend numbing and trying to feel better.

We may not have a legion of full-on demons possessing us, but I’d guess most of us at least have a decent sized gang or a small squadron of inner demons messing with our lives. I can hear our lesser angels shouting, “What have you to do with us, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Don’t torment us. Just leave us alone so we can torment people.”

I see a lot of people who as far as I know aren’t possessed by demons, but their lesser angels, their inner demons are going strong. Fear from past hurts cause us to lash out in all kinds of ways. Where I work, I see a lot of this among Houstonians who are experiencing homelessness. Past trauma, combined with the trauma of being homeless and a profound lack of sleep and safety. Some folks have the additional challenges of mental health struggles and addiction.

There’s a crud ton of inner demons I see every day, and whether the inner demons are cause by trauma, homelessness, mental illness, or even the daily stress of a regular, working, with a home kind of life, our inner demons tend to do the same things to us that the legion was doing to the man in Garasa. We’re not exactly living among tombs, but metaphorically, sometimes we are, our inner demons keeping us from good relationships and community, leaving us in darkness.

Well, as we heard in our Gospel reading today, Jesus brings light into our darkness. For the man with the legion of demons, the first thing that happened was that Jesus was there with the man. Then, Jesus had a conversation, not just with the man, but with the demons; he knew exactly what he was dealing with. Then, he cast them out and brought light into the man’s darkness.

For us and our inner demons, the first thing to do is invite Jesus in. Ask for Jesus’ help in healing us and bringing light into our darkness. Then, have a conversation with Jesus, telling him everything that’s going on. We call this confession, being totally honest with God about ourselves. God knows all of it anyway, so we might as well tell the truth, trusting in God’s compassion and love for us. Then, offer to God all of your inner crud, handing all of your inner demons over to Jesus. Ask Jesus to hold them and heal them, to hold and heal you.

Then, commit or recommit to walk in Jesus’ ways. Like the man with the legion of demons, our healing goes far beyond ourselves as we bring greater light into the world. We bring healing to others as we are healed. Our anger turns to peace and forgiveness, our fear turns to trust and acceptance, our desires to be right turn to love and charity. Then, do it again, over and over, every day, continually seeking healing from Jesus.

The world could use more of that: peace and forgiveness, trust and acceptance, love and charity. That’s living out Jesus’ mission for the church, for us to be healed that we may help bring healing to others, to a world full of inner demons, bringing love and light.

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. 

Jesus Has United to That Pain Too

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
April 18, 2025
Good Friday, C
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 22
John 18:1-19:42

So, if I were to say, “Cry Night,” does anyone know what in the world I’m talking about? I’m guessing not. See, Cry Night is a term (not coined by me) that is used to describe the last night of many a youth trip or retreat. 

Cry night is where you’re on a youth trip, and at the end of the trip, when everyone is exhausted and worn out, you talk with the kids about Jesus and how Jesus took their sins upon himself, and you pull every emotionally manipulative trick you have in order to get the kids to really feel their culpability in Jesus’ death so they will then feel gratitude and love for Jesus. 

Cry Night. It’s great. I don’t really do Cry Night, and I’m guessing most folks here don’t, but it has been a part of quite a few youth trips I’ve been on. It’s a bit much.

I suppose our liturgy does something similar, as we go through the last days and minutes of Jesus’ life, there is an emotional pull to our liturgy. Heck, one of my favorite hymns, “Ah Holy Jesus,” is very emotional, even having the line, “I crucified thee.”

So, I suppose I’m not against emotional appeals to our culpability in Jesus’ death. I suppose my challenge is really the potential theology behind such emotional appeals. 

In my experience, your typical Cry Night theology tends to be that we are all terrible sinners from birth, and we were all of us justly destined to an eternity of torment, God’s just punishment for our sins. Because Jesus loves us, however, he took the penalty upon himself, suffering all of the torment we should suffer so that we don’t have to. So now, realizing that, look upon the one you made suffer. Look at what you did to him.

Feel bad because of what you did. Now, love Jesus because of what he did. 

Ok, that’s fine. There’s some truth there, but that story, by itself, with the emotional manipulation, can also be a bit harmful when some folks get overwhelmed by the guilt and the horror of what “they’ve” done. 

“I had no idea I was so awful. I mean, I knew I’ve  messed up, but I didn’t think I was that terrible.” 

“Oh, you are, and worse even, but Jesus loves you, and you’re forgiven.” 

“Ok, great that I’m forgiven, but now I hate myself.”

The story of Jesus’ passion and death, and the meaning of what his passion and death were, are only partially understood with the idea that Jesus took the penalty of our sins upon himself, and the story is perhaps misunderstood with the idea that God was going to torture us all for eternity until he realized, “Oh, maybe I’ll do the Jesus thing instead.”

See, the problem with those stories is, they forget who Jesus is. Jesus is the Word of God which spoke creation into existence. Jesus is the Word of God which is God. So, when we say, “Jesus did this,” what we’re saying is, “God did this.” God took the penalty for our sins upon Godself.

What is the penalty? In a word, the penalty is isolation. We are harmed, and we pull away. We cause harm, and others pull away, and we pull away even further. Isolation, the hells we make for ourselves because we are not united to others, or we feel and fear that we aren’t united to others. That’s simply part of what it is to be human. 

So, when we say, Jesus took the penalty of our sins upon himself, we mean that even when we experience that penalty, we aren’t truly alone. Nothing can separate us from God, not even our separation from God. 

God became human, and as that human being, Jesus of Nazareth, God united fully with humanity. On the cross, God united even with our sins and the penalty for our sins. God united with our disunity. God united with the pain and misery that disunity causes us. God united with all of the hells we put ourselves in, all the hells we put ourselves through. 

Then, finally, God united even with our death, as Jesus said, “It is finished,” and breathed his last. “It is finished.” There is no more separation from God. Our separation from God has been united to God even in our death.

Why? Because God sees us hurting and alone, and God knows we need healing. 

So yes, Jesus took our sins and the penalty of our sins upon himself on the cross, and he did so because he was God, uniting with all of our lives. 

With that in mind, let’s steer away from, “Look at what you did to Jesus.” God chose that death on the cross, because God sees all that we go through, and God wants healing for us, and God knows that unity with God in every aspect of our lives, unity with God and one another is how we are healed. 

So, when we say, Jesus took our pain upon the cross, see your pain there, and see that Jesus has united himself to your pain. When we say, Jesus took our pain upon the cross, see the pain you’ve caused others; see that Jesus has united that pain to himself as well. When we say, Jesus took our pain upon the cross, see the pain of others that in your indifference, you haven’t done a whole lot to heal; see that Jesus has united that pain to himself as well. 

When you look at the cross, see all of our pain, everyone’s pain; see that is has been united to God by Jesus. Then, ask yourself, what am I going to do about it? How am I going to live? 

Not to get too emotionally appealy, not to get to a Cry Night level, but might we trust that Jesus has our pain united to God, and therefore, might could we spend a little less time constantly trying to soothe our pain, and our fears, and our worries? Instead, might we be able to strive to soothe other peoples’ pain, trusting that all that we are is already fully united with God. Might we trust Jesus’ healing for ourselves enough that we could live that healing for others?

Might each of us give up some of the ways we self-soothe and spend some of that time and money in the service of others? Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, Easter isn’t for a couple days yet, but when we spend some of our time and money in the service of others, rumor has it that we might just see Jesus on the way.

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.

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.