More Wine! Drinks All Around! & the Homelessness Crisis

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
January 19, 2025
2 Epiphany, C
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Psalm 36:5-10
John 2:1-11

Jesus and his mother, Mary, were guests at a wedding, and when the wine ran out, Mary instructed her son to get them all more wine. Then, in a rather surprising move from a devoted son to his loving mother, Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come,” so then, after giving Jesus a stern look which said, “Son of God or not, you do not talk to your mother that way,” Mary said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

So, Jesus turned a huge amount of water into a huge amount of wine, like a twelve kegger of wine. That was his very first sign and miracle, which revealed his glory, keeping the party going, like Robert Earl Keen sings, “The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.” That sounds kinda like the party in heaven: feasting and joy united with God and one another
forever.

When the wine ran out, Jesus saved the day for the everyone there, and Jesus gave us a taste of what the forever party will be like with God and one another. More wine! Drinks all around!

Now, at the same time, we know this story may cause some challenges for some within the church like the Baptist denomination who believe drinking wine, beer, or any alcohol is the wrong thing to do. I heard a joke, told to me by a Baptist preacher about a Baptist preacher talking about how folks shouldn’t drink, and someone said, “Well, you know, Jesus drank wine.” “I know,” said the preacher, “and I’d think a lot better of him if he hadn’t.”

We’ve got groups in the church that think drinking is ok and groups that think it isn’t, and that ok. We can believe differently from one another and still be united in Jesus. We might even learn something from each other. There’s no need to look down on people who do drink alcohol, and we can realize that the freedom to drink comes with potential dangers and a need to be careful not to be overcome by it. The two different groups, the drinkers and the non-drinkers, can help temper each other to a healthy place within the church. They don’t need to fight over who’s right and who’s wrong.

They may just be inspired by the same Holy Spirit. That’s what Paul was getting at in his letter to the Corinthians which we heard today, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. Paul wrote that wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in various tongues, interpreting those tongues, all of these gifts were given by the same Holy Spirit. The folks in the church seemed to think that different spirits were giving different gifts different people. You can see where that would be a problem. Folks who had previously worshipped various idols thinking that perhaps these different idols were leading some to prophecy and knowledge while others were being led to working of miracles by the Holy Spirit.

No, Paul was saying, it is not by different spirits or idols that you have all these spiritual gifts. The one Holy Spirit is granting all of these different gifts to you. There is one Jesus, one Spirit, one Body of Christ which we all are, and God gives different gifts and understandings as we have need.

So, looking again at the drinking question, Baptists have a way of life in which they don’t drink. Great. Others have a way of life in which they do. Great. Each group has something to offer the Body of Christ, and fighting over which is right breaks the unity of the Body of Christ.

Looking at another case of possible disunity within the church, I was talking recently with a pastor of a different church who has very different beliefs than I do about homelessness, about folks who are experiencing homelessness, and about how to help. The very short version is that he is advocating for homeowners and business owners who properties and businesses are harmed by challenges often associated with homelessness.

He's right that there are challenges, which I know from things that I’ve seen. When you see people fighting in the middle of the street and cars have to stop to avoid running them over, that’s a problem. When people won’t go to a business because there is drug use on the sidewalk just outside the business, along with aggressiveness and shouting. That’s a problem. Shouting, and fighting, and drug use aren’t ok, and businesses end up going out of business because of it. When that happens, you have even more people possibly living on the streets.

So, this other pastor has some good points which need to be listened to and taken to heart. At the same time, the fighting and the drug use, while certainly a noticeable aspect of some homelessness, is not the majority of homelessness. This other pastor has a lot of incorrect assumptions, overly broad generalizations, and a downright harmful ignorance of the realities of being homeless. When the solutions are things like, “They should get a job,” or “They should just go somewhere else,” or “Stop feeding them and you won’t enable them anymore,” those are dangerously harmful, ignorant statements.

Hearing this pastor hurts my soul. I want to simply silence him and somehow just make him understand. When I’m in that mindset, though, I tend to be in an adversarial, him against me kind of mindset, and that isn’t following the way of the Holy Spirit. Being against this other pastor is following the way of the adversary, whose name is Satan. As difficult as it is for me to listen to this guy, and as much as he is dangerously ignorant, the people for whom he is advocating do need his advocacy.

In fact, if we put his and my approaches together, we’ll probably find a better way to help everyone than just taking one side over the other. That’s the 1 Corinthians way, realizing that sometimes when parts of the church seem opposed to one another, it just may be the Holy Spirit helping to unite us into one body, into a greater middle way, than we might take on our own.

Division stops us. When we stop listening to one another, simply go with we’re right and they’re wrong; when we stop caring about the harm we do to one another, then the wine stops flowing, and the party does end. Unity instead, brings us forward together. When we strive together, when we trust that the Holy Spirit is working through the other side as well, then we might just temper each other into greater healing than we find on our own. We might just find something of that heavenly banquet, where the wine keeps flowing, where “the road goes on forever, and the party never ends.”

Acceptance, and The Advocate

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
February 25, 2024
2 Lent, Year B
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Psalm 50:1-6
Mark 9:2-9 

Acceptance, and The Advocate

Peter was rather less than pleased with Jesus when Jesus told them all that he would be arrested and killed. Peter wanted Jesus’ rise fame and power to be meteoric and unending, and it seems that he wanted to be right there at the top of the heap with Jesus in Peter’s world conquering fantasy. Jesus assured Peter and the rest of his disciples that Peter’s desires for greatness and his denial of suffering was not the way of the Gospel nor of the kingdom of God. Peter was setting his mind on human things, flights of fancy, rather than on divine things.

So, nowadays if a preacher wants to preach that everything is going to be great, and you’re going to be wealthy and successful, name it and claim it, manifesting whatever it is in your life that you want, that preacher is officially setting his mind on human things, flights of fancy, and not on divine things. Such preaching feels good for a time. Name it and claim it preaching gives us a shot in the arm, and we’re happier, for a few hours or maybe for a few days, imagining the great stuff that’s going to come our way, if only we believe, and pay the preacher his due. Pay a little to the preacher now, and you’ll get a lot in the future. Such preachers are often pretty damn wealthy, and as to the return on people’s manifest riches investments, it seems to work out about as well as the lottery.

In short, such name it and claim it preaching is a bunch of hooey, a way for some preachers to sell momentary happiness with false future dreams of easy street.

Peter wanted a “manifest only good things” kind of preaching from Jesus. Peter wanted easy street, and Jesus was having none of it. “Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus said. It’s just like back in Genesis in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were pretty happy with things. The trees, and fruits, and animals were all great. Everything was wonderful, except they wouldn’t choose acceptance over that one thing God said not to do.

“Gee, God, thanks so much for everything. All our needs are cared for, we especially love each other. I mean, damn, you done well. It’s just that, I mean, we appreciate everything we’ve done, but we really want that one particular piece of fruit you said not to eat. We need it. We want it. We won’t be satisfied with life until we have it.

So, God let them take it. They got what they wanted, but they lost the life they had. Shamed and disconnected from one another, disconnected from God, everything in life was harder. Wanting to deny and overcome any limitations on their lives, they ended up with enormously more limitations than they’d had before. Wanting to be masters over the world, supplanting God’s place in some ways, they ended up with a world that would not bend to their whims, but would fight against them and resist them.

The more we seek to control everything and everyone around us, the more we find the world and all around us fighting and resisting our efforts. Some gain power enough to force others to their will for a time, but at the cost of love, at the cost of trust, at the cost of darkness and despair flourishing in a world that should be filled with light. Easy street is paved on the backs of other people’s hardships. Such was Peter’s desire for greatness and power, a life free of suffering and sadness.

Suffering and sadness are part of life; we can’t escape them. That’s what Jesus was saying. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Jesus accepted what was going to happen to him, his arrest, crucifixion, and death. In the face of suffering and sadness, Jesus didn’t pray to some preacher to manifest power and riches. No, Jesus prayed for acceptance. He accepted his death, and he also accepted his resurrection. Death was not the end for Jesus, nor is it the end for us. Jesus’ acceptance of his death and resurrection brought light and life into the world. Jesus’ acceptance of his death and resurrection brought hope into the world, not the false hope of riches and easy street paved on the backs of others. Jesus’ acceptance of his death and resurrection brought true hope of life in unity with God and one another.

Remembering that hope is not always easy. In the face of real challenge and tragedy, holding on the hope of Jesus’ resurrection can be elusive for us. We rage against the problems of the world. We don’t want to accept the suffering of the world, and we certainly don’t want to accept our own suffering. Things aren’t right. How could accepting them possibly be right?

Suffering and sadness are part of life; we can’t escape them. Acceptance doesn’t mean, however, that we do nothing. Jesus’ acceptance and love means we strive to help alleviate each other’s suffering and sadness. That’s being advocates for each other, guided by the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. We also set our egos aside so that we’re not raging against all of the problems we face and the problems we see in the world.

To rage against everything that is wrong is to be an adversary, guided by Satan, whose name literally means Adversary. That’s what Peter was doing. He rebuked Jesus because he didn’t want the suffering and sadness to happen. He raged, guided by the Adversary, and so Jesus responded, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Last week, I was at the City Council meeting to comment on the expansion of the Sidewalk Ordinance which allows people to be ticketed for laying down, sitting, or putting their things on the sidewalk during the day. I went there to speak against the ordinance, as an adversary. Before I spoke, however, I listened members of council raise issues of how the ordinance hurt folks who are homeless, and I heard Mayor Whitmire encourage the members to look into Haven for Hope in San Antonio for helping folks who are homeless further in Houston.

So, rather than speak against the ordinance, I spoke as an advocate for all who are homeless, basically reiterating the points council already made, sharing a story of someone who had been harmed by the ordinance, and urging them to make working on homelessness one of their top priorities, noting that the city has done tremendous work, and homelessness is far from solved.

Seeing the suffering and sadness of so many, I wanted to rage against the ordinance, telling them they were wrong for having it, but that wouldn’t have done a lick of good. Being an adversary, following the way of Satan, all I’d have done would have been to make enemies and add darkness to the world. There was no manifesting my desires, no naming and claiming.

Instead, accepting the sadness and suffering of the ordinance, I spoke as an advocate, following the Holy Spirit. That’ll bring better and more lasting help in the long run. “Be still before the LORD,” Psalm 37:7-9 tells us. “Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him. Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, the one who succeeds in evil schemes. Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.”

Manifesting one’s desires of glory and riches over and against everyone else in the world, is the flip side of the coin of fretting ourselves over the ones who prosper. I do it every day. That’s something I continually need to give up, choosing instead to follow the way of Jesus, the way of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. Accepting that suffering and sadness are part of life, we can choose to pray for love, striving with one another, just as we were created to do.

Like Jesus, we can pray for acceptance both of death of resurrection, for the light and life of Jesus. That’s not the false hope of glory and riches, easy street paved on the backs of others. Acceptance of death and resurrection is the true hope of life in love and unity with God and one another.