Walking In the Glory of God

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 2, 2025
Last Epiphany, C
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
Luke 9:28-43a

If you’ve ever had a “mountain top” experience or been astounded at the greatness of God, then you may have some idea of what Peter, James, and John felt up on the mountain with Jesus or what the crowds felt after witnessing Jesus heal the boy with the demon. Awe, wonder, hope, joy, peace? Sometimes people have these blow your socks of kinds of experiences of some great encounter with God where they feel or see something miraculous in the world. Sometimes it’s a sudden spiritual awakening, a massive awareness of God’s presence and the guidance of God’s Spirit. 

Now, I say sometimes because these experiences of God don’t happen all the time, and they don’t happen for everyone. Peter, James, and John were up on the mountain witnessing the full divinity of Jesus shining through. It was a massive encounter with God, and it only happened to those three guys. None of Jesus’ other disciples ever saw that, and even for Peter, James, and John, it was only once, and it was very brief. Once the encounter was over, they went back down the mountain to continue their lives. They couldn’t stay on the mountain forever basking in the glory of God. 

So, what did they do when they went back down the mountain? They went about their daily lives, probably not basking in the glory of God, but they certainly were living in the glory of God.

See, Peter, James, and John were thoroughly Jewish, as were Jesus and all of Jesus’ disciples. So, when they went back down the mountain, they continued living the Torah. Torah is the first five books of the Bible, and Torah is the written law given to the people of Israel through Moses. So, when I say that Peter, James, and John lived the Torah after they came down the mountain, I mean they lived the way of life given to them by God.

Torah is more than just a bunch of laws. Torah is the way the people of Israel came to know God and to walk alongside God. Torah is understood by some rabbis to be created by God before all else and that creation itself was made through Torah. So, when Jews live according to the ways of Torah, they are coming to know God through that way of life, quite literally living in the glory of God throughout their daily lives. That’s what Peter, and James, and John did when they came back down from the mountain. While no longer basking in God’s glory, they were living in God’s glory every day as they lived and walked in the way of Torah.

Now for us who are not Jewish, who are followers of Jesus, we don’t live according to Torah. Many of us have heard of the 10 Commandments, and we follow them more or less; I’d recommend more than less. Instead of following all of the laws of Torah, however, we follow Jesus and seek to walk in his ways. When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, with Moses and Elijah next to him, God’s glory shone through Jesus himself, as the living embodiment of Torah, the living embodiment of the Law and the Prophets. What some rabbis say of Torah, Paul wrote of Jesus. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created…”(Colossians 1:15-16)

So for us, when we walk with Jesus, seeking to live according to Jesus’ teachings and ways, we are walking in the glory of God as well. Very few of us may have mountain top experiences, grand encounters of God’s miraculous presence, and yet we can still walk daily in the glory of God. When we trust in Jesus and follow in his ways we come to know God more and more. Like the Jewish people coming to know God through Torah, we come to know God through Jesus, through his life and teachings.

For an example, Jesus taught not to seek revenge, but rather to pray for our enemies and bless those who curse us. When we do so, we can find peace, giving our anger over to God. We also find life in Jesus’ teaching because when we don’t seek revenge, we have a better chance of not being killed. Last week, a 17-year-old was shot and killed by some fellow students in a pickup truck. The groups of teens had gotten into an argument the day before, and then, rather than letting it go, praying for his enemies, and giving his anger over to God, the teen and his friends began the fight again, and the young man was killed. When we say Jesus’ ways are ways of life, sometimes we mean that very literally.

Refrain from anger, leave rage alone, and instead, pray for your enemies and bless those who curse you. Following in those ways of Jesus, we come to know God, and we find life. Jesus said we find our lives by losing our lives, and this is part of what Jesus meant. Letting go of anger, forgiving others is a way of letting go of our life, letting go of our desires and trusting not in ourselves, but in Jesus and in Jesus’ resurrection. Letting go of our lives also means literally letting go of our lives believing that life continues on even after death. Letting go of our lives doesn’t mean that we seek death, but that we accept death and no longer fear death. Accepting and losing our fear of death, we may find forgiveness and blessing our enemies to be easier too. In all of this, we walk daily in God’s glory, coming to know God through Jesus.

Now, following in Jesus’ ways is not an automatic thing. Like most things in life, we can’t just say we’re gonna follow Jesus and then, poof, it happens. We gotta train, and practice to daily follow in Jesus ways.

So, we have the season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday. Lent is a season of prayer, a season of turning our lives back around towards God’s ways, and a season of giving things up in order to strengthen ourselves. We give things up for Lent to train ourselves to tame the desires of the flesh. By giving something up during the 40 days of Lent, we learn to master our desires, seeking God’s help in little things so that we become stronger to follow in God’s ways when it really matters. 

When temptations come for us to fight or get revenge. When temptations come for us to feel better or numb out in harmful ways: drugs; casual sex; drinking to oblivion. We practice resisting temptation during Lent so we become used to giving our harmful desires over to God and taming our flesh. The trust comes that if we give up those ways, if we give up always satisfying the desires of the flesh, then we can be strengthened for greater love and peace, walking with God, and knowing God. Note that giving into our desires doesn’t make us terrible people, giving into our desires usually does harm us and harm others, and then we find we’re walking in darkness, rather than God’s glory.

So, what are the ways of Jesus in which we want to walk? I’d say the baptismal covenant pretty well tells us how to walk in Jesus’ ways. We promise, with God’s help, to join with others in learning and following Jesus’ teachings, to pray together, and to enjoy life together. We promise, with God’s help, to turn away from ways of harm and destruction, and to return to God when we realize we’ve gone down those destructive paths. We promise, with God’s help, to live and talk about the life we have found in Jesus and the way of love which we follow. We promise, with God’s help, to love all people, realizing God dwells in all of us, and so we will seek justice and peace, honor and respect.

We don’t exactly need a mountain top, massive encounter with God to realize that walking in the ways of our baptismal covenant, walking in the ways of Jesus, we will find greater life and love than when we follow in the ways of our anger and our desires for vengeance. Following in the ways of Jesus will bring greater life and love than when we follow the desires of our flesh with no regard to the harm it may cause ourselves or others. 

That may sound good here, but the challenge is to trust in Jesus’ ways beyond here, in the moment, when we really want revenge or the desires of our flesh. That’s when the true trust comes that we will find greater light and life denying the desires of our flesh, denying ourselves and following instead the teachings and way of Jesus. That trust and will bring us life, walking daily in God’s glory. That trust and faith also brings peace amidst our fears as we believe that even death is not the end, but that life continues on in Jesus’ resurrection, living forever in the glory of love of God.

Laying Down Our Burdens: Not a Religious Quest; Just Let Love Rule in Your Hearts

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
December 15, 2024
3 Advent, C
Philippians 1:3-11
Canticle 16
Luke 3:1-6

Lay down your burdens. That was at the heart of John’s call for people to repent and be baptized. Now, I know it didn’t sound that way with all of the “brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come” business, but laying down our burdens is ultimately what we are doing when we follow John’s call to repent and begin again.

Folks were coming to John from all around, and they were journeying far. This was not just a stop by your local curb mart a few blocks away. This was for some a days-long journey, a holy pilgrimage almost, and as they traveled, they carried heavy burdens with them. I don’t just mean the food and shelter they had brought for the journey.

Each person making that journey out into the wilderness to see John was carrying with them the burdens of their whole lives. All the things that were weighing on their hearts. Their sorrows. Their worries. Their fears. They carried all of these heavy burdens with them on the way.

Of course they were also carrying burdens they knew little or nothing about. Their selfishness. Their lack of concern for others. Their blindness to their own faults. Those were the burdens John was talking about when he called them, “vipers.”

You gotta love John. These people had traveled out into the wilderness to see him, and when they arrived, John didn’t welcome them and invite them to rest their weary souls. No, John called them a “brood of vipers.”

“Brood of vipers?” They thought, “But, but, but we’re the special people. We’re children of Abraham. We’re God’s wonderful, happy favorites. This baptism is just reaffirming how great we are, right? We’ve come to you for baptism to show how fantastic we are, right John?”

Nope, that was not John’s message. In fact, John asked everyone, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I’m sure the one guy piped up, “Um, nobody? God’s wrath is supposed to be for everyone else?” John let them know in no uncertain terms that they too are liable to God’s wrath for all of those burdens they knew nothing about.

“Well, then what are we supposed to do?” They asked.

I love this question and answer, because you can see the wheels turning in their minds. They were probably thinking they needed to do some big religious gesture, like Baptism followed by some super prayer, fasting, altar sacrifice thing for the next six months. The people were like Naaman, the Assyrian, centuries before, who had leprosy and had heard there was a prophet, Elisha, in Israel who could heal him. When he went to Elisha to be healed, he expected he’d be given some grand and glorious quest, and instead, Elisha sent a servant and said, “Just tell him to go wash in the Jordan river.”

Naaman was angry because the healing process was so simple. “That’s not even a good river,” he said. “Ours are much better,” but folks convinced him to wash, and he was healed of his leprosy. Such a simple thing, wash and be clean.

For the people of Israel seeking John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, it was also really simple. “What are we supposed to do?” They asked. “Stop cheating people,” John said. “Stop stealing from others. A lot of you have more than you need; try giving some of what you have to others who don’t have enough. If you’re jealous of what others have, groovy, but threatening folks to get more out of them ain’t the way to go.”

What John had to say to people was very, very simple. You don’t need a religious quest. Just be kind to others, stop seeing them as your enemy, and let love rule in your hearts.

That’s the laying down of our burdens. We get so stressed out and worried about life that we forget very basic things like be kind to others and let love rule in your hearts. Like the folks who came to see John, when we get stressed, worried, and fearful, we get kinda dumb, and we have to be taught or retaught simple things like, “Don’t cheat people out of their money.” “Stop stealing from folks.”

Starting with that reminder, not to treat others badly, and taking note of how we have been, that is the beginning of laying down our burdens. When we lay down our self-reliance and care about others again, then begin to rely on God again, casting our worries upon God, rather than feeding our fears.

“Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” John said. That call is not just to come be baptized. Baths are great, don’t get me wrong. Ritual baths, also wonderful. Whether you just get some water sprinkled on your head or you get fully submerged in a pool or ocean of water, Baptism is wonderful. It marks a new beginning.

The call, however, is not just to mark that new beginning, ask for Jesus’ help, and then go on with life just as you had before. If we’re thinking that after baptism, “God’s gonna change things, even though I won’t,” that’s not gonna work. That’s like laying down our burdens, being washed from the grime of carrying them, and then just picking them right back up to continue on.

The call of John, and the call of Jesus today is to change how you live and to let God change your life. Lay down the burdens of fear and anger. Lay down the burdens of treating others badly. Then choose something different to carry.

Pick up the light load that Jesus offers. Different reactions than anger, a different mindset than all about me. The light load that Jesus offers is to rely on God, not on your own strength. The light load that Jesus offers is to be kind and caring towards others, not to be tough, and strong, and intimidating. The light load that Jesus offers is to be a person of peace.

There’s nothing huge or extraordinary about the light load that Jesus offers. You don’t need to become a Bible scholar. You don’t need to be the most Jesus-worshipping religiousy person in the room.

Repenting, laying down your burdens, choosing a different way, and letting God change your life, is actually really simple. Paul laid it out pretty well is his letter to the Philippians as we heard today.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-11)

Repairing the World, a Cold and Broken Hallelujah

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
December 10, 2023
2 Advent, Year B
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Mark 1:1-8

In one of my favorite TV shows, called Angel, the main character, Angel, is fighting for redemption from his terrible past, and he’s doing so by battle all kinds of forces of darkness in the world. He fights demons, monsters, even regular street toughs. Anyone who preys on and harms others, he’s battling to stop them.

As he goes, the true forces of darkness, the demonic forces try over and over to stop him, and as they keep failing, they decide instead to break his spirit. They meet with him and tell him there’re going to take him to their home, where he can fight them on their own turf and probably die.

So he is taken to their home by a kind of demon guide, and when he opens the door, Angel is led back to regular old Earth, onto the streets of the city where he lived. His guide explains that the forces of darkness made the Earth their home long ago, and they aren’t battling to win. They just persist. Angel had been striving for some ultimate victory, some final battle to rid the Earth of the forces of darkness once and for all, and he is told that he will never be able to do so because for the forces of darkness, there is no goal, no victory. For the forces of darkness, there the pain and suffering they cause, and the next person, and the next person, and the next person to inflict with that pain and suffering.

Well, at this point, Angel pretty well gives up. His spirit is indeed broken, he turns on his friends, and decides there is no point to anything he does. Later, in the midst of his despair, he begins to realize that while he may not be able to win against the forces of darkness, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try. He tells his friends, “All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because I don't think people should suffer, as they do. If there is no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”

Angel realized he wasn’t able to heal the whole world, but he could continue to work to repair the world. The idea of repairing the world is a Jewish concept, and in The Ethics of Our Fathers, Rabbi Tarfon wrote, “You are not obligated to complete the work of repairing the world, but neither are you free to abandon it.” That is the way of life John the Baptist proclaimed in his baptism of repentance.

John was calling the people to repent, to turn around and begin again the work of repairing the world. “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” Repair the hurt and brokenness you see in the world. Turn from despair, and hold onto hope. Turn from being overcome by the suffering of the world, and join in the work of repair.

Find hope as well, John proclaimed, when you are overcome by the enormity of the suffering of the world. Find hope because the work is not ours to do alone, nor ours to finish. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” There will be a final victory over all evil. Eventually, all suffering and evil will be destroyed, but that ultimate victory isn’t our work to do. That isn’t our victory to win. That’s Jesus’ victory to win. So as you work to repair the world, do not be overcome by the enormity of the suffering in the world. Remember, “You are not obligated to complete the work of repairing the world, but neither are you free to abandon it.” Not even when you mess up.

We are going to mess up and mess up big time as we work to repair the world. In the words of Leonard Cohen. “Love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.” We also mess up and repent as we go. We continue to follow John’s call to repentance, to turning around and beginning ever again the work of repairing the world, including repairing the world from the damage we cause.

Last week, I caused damage right out in front of Lord of the Streets. There have been a lot of people driving around supposedly signing people up for health insurance, taking social security numbers, and in reality, they’re just scamming folks, getting their information and selling it, or signing people up for insurance that won’t actually work for them.

I was tired of seeing this happen, so when a pink van pulled up outside of Lord of the Streets, I had had enough. I began shouting at them to move on, to get the hell out of there. I was disrupting all they were trying to do. As they tried to explain that they were a legitimate business, I would hear none of it and shouted all the more for them to go. Eventually they did.

It turns out, they actually are legitimate, and I was terrible to them. Whether the insurance they’re signing people up for is good or not, I have no idea, and that’s not even the point. I was out of control, shouting, angry, adding suffering to the suffering of the world. Sure, my intentions were good, but I also really wanted a victory. I was overcome by the suffering of the world, and I wanted to win. I wanted to defeat the powers of darkness, so in that moment, I became darkness. “Love is not a victory march; it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

So now, it’s time for repentance: doing what I can to heal the damage I caused. I called the company and let them know what I’d done, and I asked if they could pass on to their employees who were there that I was wrong and that I was sorry. Now I’m here in public declaring that the pink van insurance people may or may not be really helping folks, but they are a legitimate business, not scammers. 

Following John’s call to make straight in the desert a highway for our God, we do our best in a broken world, often failing, often having no idea what the right thing to do is. So, we repent as we go, and we do so with God’s help. We are not alone in working to repair the world. We are not alone in the darkness of the world, for “The light [of God] shines in the darkness, and the darkness [does] not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

For us as followers of Jesus, there is an ultimate victory of Jesus over all evil in the world. It’s just not our victory to win. So, rather than be overcome by the enormity of the work, realize that every bit of good we do matters. Every bit of healing and repair we bring matters. Even though we don’t bring the ultimate victory, we get to help, simply because we can, because people shouldn’t suffer, as they do. Repairing the world is a cold and broken hallelujah. It’s work we cannot complete, but it is work that, with God’s help, is our privilege to get to do.

Come Unto to Me, and Be Prisoners of Hope.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church
August 9, 2023

Proper 9, Year A
Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm 145:8-15
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 

Come Unto to Me, and Be Prisoners of Hope.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus had harsh critics who blasted them for their ways of life. Their critics blasted them for the ways of their religion, and their critics blasted them for the way they spoke to the powerful pointing out ways they were oppressing others and being hypocrites. Both John and Jesus were executed by the powerful for all of the above reasons. Of John, his critics said, “He has a demon,” because of his ascetic lifestyle, his religious devotion and self-discipline. Of Jesus, his critics said, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners,” because of how he spent time with the outcast sinners who were receptive to his message of forgiveness, his message of changing their ways and turning to God, his message of love and faith rather than certainty and fear.

John and Jesus’ critics were afraid of them and them and their messages. John and Jesus’ critics felt threatened by them and their messages, and so they condemned John and Jesus. Our Zechariah reading today called on the people of Israel to be prisoners of hope. John and Jesus’ critics were acting instead as prisoners of despair.

I don’t mean they were sad and forlorn. They were afraid. They were judging and condemning John and Jesus, feeling threatened by them. They were judging and condemning others, those they felt were sinning too much, those fellow Israelites whom they felt were on the outs with God. In their judgment and fear, they were unknowingly prisoners of despair. Did they have to condemn others to make themselves feel like they were ok in God’s eyes? Did they condemn others because they were afraid of what “those sinners” might do to their country or because they were afraid of what God might do to their country because of “those sinners”?

Being afraid of “those sinners,” John and Jesus’ critics worked against them, spoke against them, and eventually had them killed. Such is the way of prisoners of despair. Fight against. Let anger and fear rule. Seek the destruction or subjugation of “those sinners,” or “those others” so that they don’t ruin everything.

Now, on the one hand, John and Jesus’ critics had the wrong bad guys labeled as “those sinners.” On the other hand, even if we have the right bad buys labeled as “those sinners,” fighting against them, letting fear and anger rule, subjugating or especially destroying “those others” or “those sinners” isn’t really going to help us. Living as prisoners of despair doesn’t really help anyone.

I think we generally know this, although there are times when we don’t see any other way. How can we not be against people who subjugate others? How can we not be against people who rape and steal? How can we not be against people who work to make life difficult and miserable for others? Our brains and our emotions often tell us we have to be against “those others” who do terrible things, but our brains and our emotions are wrong. They are stuck in hurt and fear. Our brains and our emotions are all too often prisoners of despair.

Who will rescue us from these prisons? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! “Come to me,” Jesus says. “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

“Come to me,” Jesus says, and be prisoners of hope.

In our Zechariah reading today, the prophet says “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.” What is our stronghold? Our stronghold is God. “The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble,” says Psalm 9:9. Likewise, Psalm 18:2 says, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, [the Lord is] my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, [the Lord is] my stronghold.”

When Jesus says, “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” Jesus is promising to be our stronghold. Jesus is calling us not to be prisoners of despair, but to be prisoners of hope.

As prisoners of hope, we don’t just rage against “those others,” even if we have the right “others” in mind. As prisoners of hope, we follow the words of Psalm 37:8, “Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; * do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.” As prisoners of hope, we don’t have to be against “those others” who do wrong. As prisoners of hope, we can, instead, live for those who are hurting, afraid, and oppressed.

If we continually rage against “those others,” we’ll just keep creating a mightier enemy. The more anyone fights someone, the more they tend to fight back. Living for someone, however, we end up building people up, guiding others, living into our truest selves: helpers and companions for one another. Such is life as prisoners of hope.

So, how do we go from being prisoners of despair to being prisoners of hope? We don’t, not by ourselves. We bring our hurt and our fear to Jesus. We bring our anger and our rage to Jesus. We come to him with those heavy burdens, hard to bear, we lay them upon him, and he grants us rest. Jesus heals us from being prisoners of despair and offers his yoke, his ways and teachings, that we may become prisoners of hope.

Then, Jesus offers us help, because as easy and light as his ways and teachings are, they are still often hard for us. Our brains and emotions, our bodies, still want us to be prisoners of despair. So Jesus offers us help in giving over our heavy burdens over and over again. Ask, Jesus says, and I will help you give those burdens to me. Then, freed of those burdens of hurt and fear, freed of those burdens of anger and rage, we can find rest for our souls and live as prisoners of hope.

We return over and over to Jesus, our stronghold, and we find that we don’t have to be against others. We can instead live for one another. We can be against those who would rape and steal; we can be full of anger and hate, or instead, we can live for those who might be victims. It’s harder to steal from and rape groups of people who are joined together, living for one another. It’s harder to hurt people who are prisoners of hope.

It still happens, of course, as it did to John the Baptist and Jesus. Those prisoners of despair who were against them eventually did hurt them, and yet they remained prisoners of hope. Their lives continue to bless us two-thousand years later. Such is the power of prisoners of hope. We return to Jesus our stronghold. We lay down our burdens, find rest for our souls, and get to live for others. We refrain from anger and leave rage alone. We stop living as prisoners of despair. We come to Jesus and live as prisoners of hope.