Without Discipline We Are Slaves to Our Moods and Passions

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
February 22, 2026
1 Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Matthew 4:1-11

Can you imagine if an Olympic athlete was so excited at having made it to the Olympics that they said, “Yea, I made it! Now I think I’ll rest up until my event and stop all preparation. I mean, I’m really good, so I’ll just go out there and assume it’ll be fine.” Yeah, probably not going to work out all that great. The athletes for the Olympics, or any great athletes train for years to master their sport. Even if they have huge natural talent, they gotta practice and learn, hone their skills, train their bodies, and discipline their minds to be able to compete at an elite level. Take the most naturally talented skater in the world with very little training, and throw them into the Olympics against lesser talents who have trained for years, and the natural talent guy is gonna come in last.

So, when “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, [and] fasted forty days and forty nights,” it wasn’t the first time that he had fasted or resisted temptation. We’re not told of other times that he fasted or resisted temptation throughout his life, but we know he did so because that’s how human beings work. Jesus’ natural talent at resisting temptation was through the roof, being God and all, but he was also human, so he still had to train his body and discipline his mind to be able to make it through those 40 days. If you’ve never fasted before or resisted any great temptation, and then you try it out for the first time for forty days, you ain’t gonna make it. 

That would be like a 30-year-old, out of shape, non-athlete strapping on a pair of skis or ice skates and trying to win gold at the Olympics. It’s not gonna happen. You’d crash out, embarrass yourself, and possibly die. Winning the Olympics, or even getting to the Olympics, again takes years of training, years of dedication to your sport, years of controlling and conditioning your body, years of discipline. 

Jesus won the gold in that forty day fast and resisting temptation, and to do so, he needed years of training, years of controlling his body and mind, years of discipline. He grew up learning Torah, the Jewish scriptures, and he grew up learning the ways of life of the Jewish people. He grew up with a life of prayer. Jesus lived a life of walking with God throughout his days. He followed the law, followed God’s commandments, and grew into the way of love though his childhood and into his adulthood. Jesus also grew up following the way of repentance. He chose to be baptized when John was baptizing people in the river Jordan, and he followed the way of repentance in the yearly Jewish Day of Atonement. Whether he needed it or not, Jesus followed the way of repentance, looking at your life and seeing how you might change to more fully walk in the way of love. 

We are now in the Christian season of repentance, Lent, a season of discipline, a season of penitence, a season of fasting. 

I was asked last week, “Why do we fast? What’s the purpose?” Well, there are several reasons why someone might fast. With a traditional fast, you simply don’t eat from sunup to sundown. So, you have and early breakfast, then you don’t eat again until a late dinner, after the sun has set. 

Why in the world would someone do something so crazy? It teaches us discipline. When we’re hungry during the day, we discipline our bodies and discipline our minds to overcome that hunger and wait to eat until after sundown. Fasting teaches us control over our bodies and our desires. Fasting also teaches us to trust in God as we remember that even as we hunger for food, we also hunger for unity with God, unity with one another. Our food is not only the physical food we eat, but also to follow in the way of love. Fasting is meant to remind us to feed ourselves on the way of loving God and loving others.

So, there are other fasts we can choose. Rather than the traditional daily fast from food, we can choose to fast from some particular thing, as you hear people giving up something for Lent. Whatever it is you give up, the point is the same. We’re teaching ourselves to discipline our bodies and minds, to overcome our desires, and to live more fully the way of love.

Then, with the discipline of fasting, we’re more prepared to give up things that actually matter. Following the way of Jesus, we give up things like punching people in the face when they bothered us, shouting at others, stealing, lying. What about a fast from taking advantage of others? What about a fast from assuming the worst in other people? What about a fast from letting anger guide us?

Jesus fasted and disciplined his body and mind over his whole life. He fasted from things like over-charging folks for what he made in his carpenter shop. He fasted from deciding that prayer and committing himself to the way of love was getting boring and he wanted to just stop working at it for a few months. Jesus fasted from assuming that because he was God, he didn’t have to work that hard at repentance and being kind and loving toward others. “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself…” (Philippians 2:6-7). Jesus disciplined himself, fasting, working hard at living a life in which he honored others, controlling his own desires and emotions. 

That is why we fast during the season of Lent.

We fast to discipline our bodies during the season of penitence. Now, penitence is a form of prayer in which we confess our sins, we make things right with others when possible, and we work to change our lives so we stop harming others. Penitence is a prayer that Jesus practiced, whether he needed to or not.

More than saying “sorry” when we mess up, Penitence is a form of prayer which requires discipline, dedication, and practice. Penitence is a prayer that is done all the time, day in and day out. Sometimes you’re going to be voicing a prayer to God, confessing to God ways that you’ve harmed others. Other times, no one’s going to know that you’re praying, such when you tell someone you were wrong for how you treated them, and you see if you can do something to make it right. That’s just making amends to people, and that’s part of the prayer of repentance. 

That prayer takes practice. Likely our first response when we do something wrong to someone is to deny it, try to minimize it, blame someone else, or just hope don’t get caught. Well, that’s the easy way, no work required, and it works out about as well as a thirty-year-old, out of shape, non-athlete throwing on a pair of skates and jumping into the Olympics. You get hurt. Others get hurt. No one wins. 

Penitence requires practice, making a habit out of admitting our faults and trying to make things right with other people. We practice that over and over, making it our way of life, and every time we do, that is part of the prayer of penitence. Through discipline, dedication, and practice, penitence becomes a way of life, and the results are healing and love. 

Now, one man said that he couldn’t admit to people when he wronged them because if he told this one guy that he had stollen from him, then he’d get his ass beat. “Ok,” I said, “so get your ass beat.” Then keep on doing the right thing. Keep on praying the prayer of penitence. If you know you’re going to fess up when you wrong someone and you know you’re going to get your ass beat when you do, then you might stop stealing from people. Then you might have more people on your side, and you won’t be at odds with everyone around you. You wouldn’t have to worry constantly about someone wanting to beat your ass.

That’s the way of life of penitence, a prayer that takes discipline, dedication, and practice. No one will know you are praying. You’re just living your discipline and dedication, and that way of life becomes your prayer. 

It sounds like a lot of work. It is, and it’s also freedom. Eliod Kipchoge, Olympic gold medalist and world champion marathon runner said, “Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your passions.” Only the disciplined ones are free. The undisciplined ones are slaves to moods and passions. 

You can’t just strap on a pair of skates or skis and compete in the Olympics. Jesus didn’t just decide one day it would be a really good idea to go hungry for a month. He practiced disciplining his body for years so that he wasn’t a slave to his moods and his passions. Jesus disciplined his body and mind and dedicated his life to the way of love so that when the devil’s temptations came, he was free. Jesus was free to be more powerful than the temptations of the devil. Rather than be a slave to his passions and a slave to his moods, Jesus was free because of his discipline, dedication, and practice, and so can we be.

Walking with God in the Way of Love

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
September 1, 2024
Proper 17, B
James 1:17-27
Psalm 15
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Hey guys, don’t think about kittens jumping around in front of a scared looking puppy. Stop, I said don’t think about it. No kittens jumping. No scared puppy. Keep it out of your mind.

Failures. Kidding.

It’s hard not to think about something when you’re focusing on not thinking about it. Ok, now think about Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel we just heard. ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ Spending time in worship can be really good for us, and the worship God truly wants is caring for one another. Loving one another. Think about someone in need and choosing to help them out. Think about a time you were in need and a kind and loving person came to your aid. I’m guessing you weren’t just thinking about cats and puppies anymore, were you?

Jesus said that the things that defile a person are the harmful things that come out of our hearts. Fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly, these selfish things that we do are what defile us, not doing our religion wrong. 

So, I could preach about not doing those things, talking about each one in detail, and saying “That’s bad; don’t do it.” The problem is that sometimes the harder we try not to do something, the more we fixate on it and the harder time we have not doing it. Don’t think of the kittens and the puppy, right? And as soon as I tell us not to, we start thinking about it. 

Jesus giving us this list of things not to do is important and teaching we often need to realize that these things are harmful, and there’s more to the story. Jesus didn’t just say, “This stuff’s bad; don’t do it.” Jesus gave us a way of life so that we would not just fixate on harmful behaviors and end up doing them anyway. The way of life that Jesus gave us is the way of love. 

Now, following the way of love is part of why there so many are religious practices. Religious practices, at their best, are meant to help train us, to keep us walking with God in the way of love, walking with one another so the thought of harming one another would go totally against who we are. Unfortunately, we often forget that, and religious practices end up being ways we try to please God. 

As far back as human history goes, people have had belief in one type of god or another, and along with all of our various beliefs about God or gods, people have continually sought ways to please God. People have tried to get God on their side against others. People have tried to gain God’s favor so that crops will grow or natural disasters won’t happen. In all sorts of societies, people have done all sorts of things to appease their gods. 

Folks have sacrificed animals and various food on altars. Folks have burned things, said particular prayers at particular times, cut themselves, had ritual dances, even left out milk and cookies. 

What we find over and over in scripture is that God was never all that interested in any of that stuff. 

In Jesus’ day, the some of the religious leaders were pretty adamant about doing everything they could to try to please God. We heard today about the Pharisees who even went beyond the actual laws that they were supposed to follow and said that Jesus and his disciples were displeasing God because they were eating without washing their hands. There were a lot of laws about washing, about being ritually clean before God, but washing your hands before you ate wasn’t one of those laws. By tradition, they had added hand washing to the ritual purity laws. 

On the one hand, it was really helpful in keeping disease down. As far as societal health went, handwashing was fantastic. It just wasn’t going to make you more or less righteous before God.

All of those rituals and religious laws weren’t bad, but folks could miss the point, thinking the rituals were there to please God, rather than to be helpful for the people. The practice of keeping the laws, of following the ritual, with a mind toward connecting with God and trusting in God, can be helpful. You’re training yourself to trust in God in all things. The rituals and laws are like daily practice of trusting in God, unless they become things you must do lest God be angry with you.

Look at modern Christianity, guilting people for not showing up for church on Sunday. No wonder people don’t want to come…as though coming to church pleases God in and of itself. Worshipping together is meant to be helpful for us, joining together with one another, taking some time to pause in the business and struggle of life, to rest together, connecting with God. That’s a good way to practice religion…and it’s not going to make God happy with us.

What is the religion that pleases God? Taking care of one another.

The more we take care of one another, the more we see the absolute beauty and divine worth of every human being. When we see one another’s divine worth and care for one another, then we end up not falling into those destructive ways Jesus talked about: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly. Rather than not thinking about kittens and puppies, we focus on loving one another.

Those vices that Jesus mentioned are all about selfish pleasure seeking with no regard to the hurt we do to others. Gaining immense wealth with no regard to how it hurts others. Taking and taking and taking, with no regard for anyone else. Taking people’s things and livelihoods. Taking the truth from people. Taking life from people. 

All of these desires we have within us, and acting on these desires is what defiles us, Jesus says. Acting on our selfish desires with no regard for others is what makes us ‘stained’ by the world, as James says. 

Look at religious hypocrites, which we all are at times, but think about the big examples. Huge mega-pastor televangel-whatevers who have an enormous following. They’re great at showing how religious they are and demanding that same religious purity from others, and then they get brought down by some big financial or sex scandal. We tend to call such people hypocrites, but the real problem is not the hypocrisy, but that they were chasing after the wrong things in the first place. It’s not as though their super religiousness was stained by their misdeeds. The point is that all of their religiosity that looked so impressive never much mattered in the first place.  

They were hearers of the word and not doers, at least in part because of a focus on doing all of their religiousy stuff right, trying to please God (or at least show off about pleasing God), rather than simply trying to love and serve other people.

True religion, according to James, is to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Being here, following other religious practices is training to trust in God, to love ourselves, to love others. When we do that, those selfish desires which live within us tend to fade away. We love and care for others, and that makes our religion true. Loving and caring for others is the religion that pleases God.

We don’t need to make grand gestures to appease God. We don’t need to be super religious. Just go with the simple notion that we all matter, that we all are of divine importance, and treat one another accordingly.