Freedom: Killing the gods That Bind Us

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
January 18, 2026
2 Epiphany, Baptism of Jesus
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Psalm 40:1-12
John 1:29-42

“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That’s what John the Baptist testified about Jesus when he saw him walking by. John had seen the Spirit of God descend and remain on Jesus, and God had told him that that person, the one on whom the Spirit remained, that person would baptize others with the Holy Spirit. That person would be revealed as God’s Son. 

Calling Jesus God’s Son, the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, was calling Jesus much more than a child of God with special prophetic or healing abilities. Jesus was the Word of God, which was God, which spoke creation into existence. So, who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? God. God is the Lamb of God, because the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, was God who had become human. So, that means that the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world was God acting together with humanity. 

That’s pretty much been God’s M.O. kinda since forever.

When God called on Abraham to make a sacrifice and to trust God in that process, Abraham did as God instructed, thinking he would have to sacrifice his son. Instead, God provided a lamb for the sacrifice. God was working together with humanity so that we would begin to see God as trustworthy. 

When the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, God was with the people and had them make sacrifices of lambs, eat them quickly, and mark their doors with the lambs’ blood so that God would only attack the Egyptians and then lead the people of Israel out of slavery. 

The lamb provide to Abraham, the paschal lambs of the Passover, Israel itself seen as a lamb, all little lambs of God which God used in working with humanity to heal us and free us from bondage. All of those are ways that Jesus is the Lamb of God for us, as John proclaimed, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Here is the Lamb of God who frees us from bondage.

John the Baptist saw Jesus, trusted God, and proclaimed to others who Jesus was.

Andrew, Peter, and their friend all began following Jesus as soon as he was proclaimed to them, and during good times and bad, they continued following him. That kind of devotion really only comes when you’ve actually been freed from whatever it is that binds you. Following and continuing following through good times and bad comes when you have actually been freed.

The fact that Andrew, Peter, and their fried would follow Jesus immediately when they were told, “Jesus is the Lamb of God,” or “Jesus is the Messiah,” that makes sense. Any good snake-oil salesman can get people to follow them pretty quickly. Find people who are vulnerable and suffering; promise them healing and wonders, a new life without pain; get them to give up something in order to follow you; and you can probably get some followers pretty quickly. 

Now, with folks like this, you’ve usually have to give up cash to follow people them. Some are selling various cure-alls. Some are selling some newfangled religion where you gotta give a good amount of money, or if you give enough money then god will reward you with even more. Some are simply selling drugs so you can feel better for a minute while they get rich off your misery. 

All of these charlatans and snake-oil salesmen can get a pretty good following pretty quickly, so long as they’re charismatic, smooth-talking, and willing to exploit people’s suffering and vulnerability.

They just can’t usually get people to follow them for their whole lives because people eventually find that they haven’t actually been freed from anything. They’ve followed, they’ve given money, and they’ve remained chained to whatever it was that bound them before, or they’ve become enslaved to the very thing they were being sold. Take this; feel better. Have some drugs; feel better. Oh, and keep giving me money; have this; feel better. Feel worse; give me money; have this; feel better. Feel worse; become enslaved; give me money; have this; feel better; stay enslaved. 

What we find with Jesus, what we find with the Lamb of God who is God is that Jesus wasn’t selling anything. He did heal a lot of people. He brought good news to a lot of folks who were suffering and vulnerable. He taught how to live a life of freedom and joy. He freed people from their sins and fears so they could live a life of freedom and joy. 

Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; he offers us freedom from all of the thousands of ways we can end up bound and enslaved.

As I said earlier, one way Jesus is understood as the Lamb of God is as the Paschal Lamb, the lamb of the Passover. That’s from back in Exodus when the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt. When God told the people of Israel to kill lambs to eat and to mark their homes, it wasn’t just random animal. The lamb was the form and symbol of one of Egypt’s primary gods. So, when the Israelites took lambs into their homes, killed and ate them, and put the lambs’ blood on their doorposts, they were killing Egypt’s gods. “We are no longer your slaves,” they were telling the Egyptians, “because we have just killed your god.” We have been freed from bondage, freed from the false god you put over us, and we will now follow God, walk in his ways, and be freed from you forever. 

When John called Jesus the Lamb of God, John was declaring him to be the one who will free us from bondage. Jesus frees us from slavery to whatever has us chained and enslaved. 

There are two things in particular which tend to bind us, and those are our past and our future, also known as our sins and our fears. We harm others and ourselves, and guilt turns to shame, and we become chained to the past, chained to our sins. We are anxious about the future, worried about what is to come, and we become chained to fears. 

We also become chained to our sins and our fears because we get so used to the ways of life of our sins and our fears that we forget how to live any other way. 

Something bad happens, get angry.

You’re afraid? Get angry, or get small and hide; push everyone away.

You believed that snake-oil salesman and got hooked on drugs, alcohol, sex, and now you’re trapped, chained by the false cure you were sold.

You think that money, power, or lots of stuff with fix you, and so you keep chasing after more and more, bound to a quest you can never fulfil. 

A thousand other ways we all become enslaved to our sins and our fears.

Jesus says, “Follow me,” and “I will become in you a fountain of eternal life.” (John 4:7-15) Rather than chain us with our sins, Jesus forgives us of our sins. Rather than frighten us with what is to come, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Rather than, pay me enough, and I’ll give you what you want, Jesus says, “Come to me, you who are weary and worn out, and I will give you rest.” Jesus didn’t say I will sell you rest, he said, “I will give you rest.”

Now, following Jesus does not mean you will have a life where nothing bad ever happens. Life still happens, and sometimes life is not great. There are still plenty of bad things that happen to Jesus’ followers. Even to those who believe completely in Jesus, bad things still happen in life. Anyone who says believing in Jesus means no suffering ever, is selling something. Only salesmen, trying to get your money, promise no suffering, ever. 

What Jesus promises is freedom. Freedom from sin. Freedom from fear. Freedom from the thousands of little gods that enslave us. Jesus is the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is God and humanity joined so that nothing can separate us from God. We need not fear the future because we are one with God even beyond death. We need not be bound by the past because Jesus has forgiven us and allowed us to walk now in freedom. Jesus has allowed us to be reconciled with one another, forgiving each other, and trusting in God’s judgment, rather than our own, so we need not be bound by our hurt and our resentment. Jesus has freed us as we trust in him and follow in his ways. “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Crushed By God and Remade

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
October 8, 2023
Proper 22, Year A
Philippians 3:4b-14
Psalm 80:7-14
Matthew 21:33-46

Crushed By God and Remade

Happy Sunday everyone! The Astros won, it’s cooler outside, Jesus is talking about crushing people with stones. “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” Hurray! Jesus was saying this about the chief priests and Pharisees, those who were constantly critical of and at odds with Jesus. So, when we who are on team Jesus read Jesus saying that the stone will crush anyone on whom it falls, there’s a tendency to read that as, “someone else.” That feels pretty good. The stone will crush someone else. We’re on team Jesus, so we’re ok.

We’ve got to assume, however, that at least at some point in our lives, we’re going to be the ones on whom the stone falls. We’re going to be the ones crushed by the stone. At some point, we’re going to be tripped up by the stone and broken to pieces.

So, the first question I have is, what is the stone that Jesus is talking about?

Well, according to Isaiah 8:14-15, the stone is God. “[God] will become a sanctuary,” we’re told, “a stone one strikes against…a rock one stumbles over…many…shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken…”

Well, that sounds fun! Yea for God being a stone over which we stumble and get crushed. I realize I’m not really selling the whole, “love God” idea right now. God becomes a stone we strike against, a stone we stumble over, and a stone which breaks and crushes us. Can’t God just let us go our way and not hurt us? That sounds kinda nicer, or can’t we just go back to thinking the whole God Rock Stumble Crush Thing is about someone else?

No. We can’t. Deciding who those others are that God is going to make stumble is a pretty quick way to make sure God is going to trip us up. Do not judge others, Jesus said. Take a look at the log in your own eye, rather than the speck in someone else’s. When we’re focusing on everyone else’s faults and flaws, we’re ignoring our own, pretending that we’re just fine and everyone else is at fault. God loves us enough not to go along with our self-deception, so there will be times when all of us will be crushed and tripped up by the stone that is God.

We don’t want it, but because God loves us, God is going to trip us up and have us be crushed and broken to pieces by the stone that is God. So, why would God do this to us as an act of love?

Because we are so often going a thousand miles an hour completely and obliviously in the wrong direction? At that point, it might be kinda nice to have a stone to trip us up and stop us. 

 A stone of stumbling and crushing, well, yeah, at a thousand miles an hour, we’re going to get crushed by whatever stone we trip over.

That’s an act of love because when we’re going a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction, we need more than a slow down and some course correction. We need to be remade. God tripping us up when we’re going a thousand miles an hour in the wrong direction crushes us and shatters us so that we can be remade.

 

On a societal level, think of times and ways we have been remade. Think about what it took to end slavery in this country. The Civil War crushed and shattered this country so that it could be remade. We didn’t do a great job of it, and so there was the Civil Rights Movement which shattered the country again so that we could be remade. Striving to end discrimination on the basis of sex has shattered many who believe they are righteous in their discrimination.

 

Stumbling over the rock that is God and being shattered is never pretty, but it is an act of love so that we can be remade, no longer going down a path of destruction. On an individual level, being crushed by the stone of God is often called hitting rock bottom.

 

I think of a man I know, a friend, who was successful and miserable, addicted to alcohol, cheating on his wife with multiple women. He was finally shattered when she left him and took their son with her. He also lost his job. Crushed and shattered. So then, recovery, sobriety, working on his resentments and fears with others’ help, starting to be of service to others rather than just taking from others. After he was crushed and shattered, he was remade. He has a job again. He gets to be with his son again, and his ex-wife trusts him to be with their son. Being shattered wasn’t pretty, but being remade was beautiful. All of it was an act of love by God.

 

St. Francis was another who stumbled and was crushed by the rock that is God. In his case, his family was hugely rich, and yet he couldn’t help be the poverty he saw all around him. After first stealing from his dad to try to help people out (that didn’t work out so well), he decided to give up his wealth and lived a life of love, prayer, and service. He led others in lives of prayer and service, some living a monastic life, supported by the church, others continuing with the jobs and families, while also devoting themselves to prayer and service of others.

 

What St. Francis and those who joined in his way of life found was peace in their lives. Love and service to others grounded in a life of prayer became a sanctuary for them, a life of blessing, having first been tripped up by the rock that is God, then shattered and remade.

In the same passage that calls God a stone to trip us up and shatter us, God is called a sanctuary. When we are stopped from going in the wrong direction, we then get to take refuge and recover in the sanctuary that is God. We can then find our way to be led by God in a direction that is whole and healing for us. That’s the idea behind God being a stumbling block that crushes us. God stops us from the harm we are living, we are crushed and remade, and then God becomes a sanctuary for us as we live a life of love and service, grounded in prayer.

So, when Jesus says, “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” I really do say, “Hurray!” Hurray for being remade in the sanctuary that is God. Hurray for the peace that comes with God as our refuge, living lives of prayer and of love and service to others.