Just Deserts

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 8, 2026
3 Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
John 4:5-42

Don’t you just love it when your enemies get what’s coming to them? It’s like a delicious meal of deserved justice served with vengeance pie topped with self-righteous ice cream. It’s great. I love it when the bad guys fall and the really terrible people get exactly what they deserve. Enemies getting their comeuppance makes my little black heart sing. 

Then, the rest of me starts feeling pretty rotten, actually. That part of me that sings at other people’s misfortune ends up making the rest of me rather sick. Rejoicing at my enemies’ downfall may feed my cold little black heart, but it feeds my heart poison and grows in me like a cancer.  

It’s said that we are what we eat, and that is true of our spiritual food as well. Junk food and desert taste great, and when that’s all we eat, our bodies suffer. They stop working well. We end up with diabetes, and cancer, and heart disease, and even depression and anxiety can get worse from a bad diet. 

When we feed our hearts and souls with junk food, our hearts and souls become unhealthy as well. Vengeance, delighting when our enemies are hurt, that’s like really bad junk food for our souls. Think about what that diet really looks like: anger; rage; happiness that others are hurting, that’s cruelty. We can’t really be healthy and happy people when we feed ourselves on cruelty. We can’t be healthy and happy people when we delight in people’s suffering, even the suffering of our enemies.

See, the more we eat of people’s suffering, the more we want that food, which means we end up wanting people to suffer. So, even though our enemies might deserve suffering, when we delight in their suffering, we end up becoming cruel people.

Another problem with delighting in our enemies’ suffering is that we let ourselves focus on them, rather than ourselves. If they are bad and are getting what’s coming to them, I don’t need to look at ways I harm people. It’s still there, though, festering and eating us up from the inside. So, it grows in the dark, like mold, like fungus, rotting us from the inside. 

So, Jesus offers us different food. When he met the woman at the well, he told her he would give her water welling up within her to eternal life. Then Jesus talked to his disciples, telling them that the food he has to eat is doing the will of God. 

Well, what was the will of God that Jesus kept doing throughout his ministry? Healing people. Healing communities. Showing people a better way than the way of vengeance, a better way than the way of fighting and being against one another.

When the woman at the well asked Jesus which mountain was the correct one to worship God, he told her, neither was the correct mountain. The time is coming, Jesus said, when people will worship God neither on one mountain or the other, but they will worship God in spirit and in truth. 

So, what’s with the two mountains? They were the mountain on which the temple was built in Jerusalem and mount Gerizim in Samaria. The people of Israel and the people of Samaria were bitter enemies, so the argument over which mountain was the correct place to worship God was really an argument about which people God loved and which people God didn’t love.

So, when she asked which mountain was the best mountain, Jesus told her that folks would worship God neither on the mountain in Samaria, nor the mountain in Jerusalem. Instead, people would worship God in spirit and in truth. That sounds to me like all people get to worship God, regardless of which nation you belong to. That sounds to me like no more quarreling over whose mountain is correct, and if they stopped fighting over which mountain was correct, then they’d no longer be enemies. They’d no longer delight in one another’s suffering 

The food that Jesus offers is for each of us as individual people, and the food that Jesus offers goes far beyond individual healing. Jesus offers food that grows into healing among communities and even healing among nations. A community and a nation full of peaceful, loving, compassionate people is a community and a nation that will spread that same peace, love, and compassion to others.

Now, this is not about turning a nation into a Christian nation. Jesus wasn’t preaching to kings and rulers. Jesus wasn’t calling for a religious conversion of governments. Jesus wasn’t talking about forcing his way on others. Jesus was speaking to a woman at a well and to his disciples. Jesus spoke to the masses, to the people. Jesus met with religious leaders. Jesus wasn’t taking over a nation’s government to force change from the top town. Jesus healed and taught people the way of love to change lives and communities from the ground up. That’s things grow after all, from the ground up.

The food that Jesus offers feeds us in ways that lead away from bitterness, anger, and cruelty and into peace, love, and compassion. The food of taking delight in our enemies’ suffering, decays our bodies and souls, making us bitter, angry, and cruel. The food Jesus offers feeds our bodies and souls with eternal life, making us peaceful, loving, and compassionate. 

A community and a nation full of peaceful, loving, compassionate people is a community and a nation that will spread that same peace, love, and compassion to others. That peace, love, and compassion doesn’t spread through force feeding it, but by offering it and living it. When Jesus offered this food & water to the woman at the well, she wanted it. 

She ran to tell others to come and see a man who, “who told me everything I’ve ever done.” All Jesus actually said was that she’d had five husbands and the man she was with wasn’t her husband. Rather than dismissing this woman as sinful for having five husbands, let’s ask ourselves, “Why?” Only men could sue for divorce, so she hadn’t left her husbands; they had dismissed her. Why? 

Well, we don’t really know why five husbands had all sent her away, but we can guess that it left her feeling hurt and ashamed, probably bitter and resentful too. It could be a shameful thing to be dismissed by one husband, others wondering, “What’s wrong with her?” She’d been dismissed by five, so it’s a good bet she felt deep shame, like she was no good and unlovable. 

Then, Jesus talked to her, not like damaged goods but like a fully important, beloved human. “If he only knew,” she probably thought. Then, she found out that he did know, and he wasn’t shaming her or treating her like a lesser human. That was healing for her. That was the food and water Jesus offered, welling up in her to eternal life.   

The woman went from eating the bread of shame, bitterness, and resentment, to eating and drinking the love of God, the eternal life given by Jesus. Peace, love, and compassion was the food Jesus gave her, revealing the truth of her life, so she was no longer bound by it. There she was, fully exposed, and God was still calling her beloved. That’s being naked and unashamed, as we were created to be in Eden, in the beginning.

From there, the woman spread his message to others, bringing them to Jesus so he could feed them as well, the food Jesus offers growing from the ground up. That what Jesus calls us to do, to offer the same bread and water of peace, love, and compassion, to offer the same healing and eternal life we have be given to others. We’re reminded again and again to stick to this diet as well. 

As much as delighting in our enemies’ downfall is juicy and delicious (and it is delicious), it is also cancerous, harmful food which rots us from the inside out. Set aside that food. Offer it to God. “Here, Lord, accept my offering to you of my anger, fear, resentment, desires for vengeance. Accept my offering to you of the cruelty in my heart. Then, please feed me with your peace. Feed me with your love. Feed me with your compassion. Amen.”

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.

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.”

Giving Up the Power of Anger and Receiving the Power of Forgiveness

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

January 11, 2026

1 Epiphany, Baptism of Jesus

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Matthew 3:13-17

I have been struggling with sadness over the last several days. A 37-year-old woman was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis while in her car, apparently trying to drive away from the agents. In response, our government has called her a terrorist and said she brought the killing on herself. There’s been the now usual clash of responses to her killing, folks on the right claiming that it was her fault and that she should have been killed, and folks on the left saying it was an ICE Agent murdering an innocent woman. Fear and anger. Fear and anger. 

Closer to home, a young woman was shot and killed on a METRO bus by a couple of teenagers here in Houston. They weren’t even trying to kill her, they’d gone on the bus to kill someone else, like that’s any better. Fear and anger. Fear and anger. 

Hearing about these things last week, along with everything else that’s…the crud of the world, I’ve had to deal with my anger quite a lot. I’ve been snapping at my family a bit, brooding, and working to keep my anger in check

What has helped me keep my anger in check is many things. Prayer. Medicine. Writing a song to get the anger out in a constructive way. Talking about how angry I am with a couple of people I know I can trust to hear me without sharing my anger, spreading my anger, or using it against me.

The reason for all that work is the knowledge that if left unchecked, my anger will take over, and I will harm others, probably just with words, but I’ll be looking for a fight, looking for any way to lash out at someone. That’s me. No work required. Scared, angry, and wanting to lash out at anyone and everyone. 

I do the work required not to lash out at everyone because I firmly believe that lashing out like that is not the right way to live. Anger feels good, feels powerful, till it overpowers us. Then, when we lash out at people in anger, people tend to get hurt, and people tend to die. When we lash out at people in anger, a young woman gets shot and killed on a METRO bus. When we lash out at people in anger, a 37-year-old woman gets shot and killed in her car. Such is the world when we lash out in anger, when we don’t do the work to be healed of our anger, and when we instead take the power of our anger out on others.

Jesus showed us a better way. Jesus showed us to use our power for justice and peace. 

Today, we’re remembering the day when Jesus was baptized. He walked into the River Jordan to be baptized by John for the forgiveness of sins. Presumably he didn’t particularly need to be baptized. Jesus was the Son of God, God himself who had become human. So, as far as sins which separate us from God and one another, Jesus didn’t have that sinfulness. Jesus didn’t and couldn’t separate himself from himself. Jesus didn’t need baptism and he chose to be baptized anyway. Even though he was God, Jesus emptied himself of that power. Jesus didn’t raise himself up above everyone else. He chose to serve others, instead. In that service of humanity, Jesus chose to join with us even in baptism for turning our lives around, not because Jesus needed it but because we do. 

Jesus had power, and like all people with power, he could have chosen to use his power either to help or to harm others. There have always been people with power, and those with power have used their power to help promote justice and peace for others or to improve their own lives at the expense of others, forcing the world to be like they want it, hurting and killing the powerless in order to get their way. We see in Jesus which of those two ways is the way of the one who has all power, the way of God.

Jesus had all the power of the universe and more, and Jesus chose to serve humanity, rather than rule it. Jesus had all the power of the universe and more, and Jesus chose to teach and guide others. Rather than use his power to force people to follow his desires, Jesus used his power to heal, to help, and to guide.

Such is the way of God. You want to know who God is and what God’s ways are? Look at Jesus.

God chooses to be with us as a fellow human being. God chooses love and relationship over forcing us to be right all the time. God is here with us in tragedy. God forgives us and invites us to forgive others. God teaches us to let go of our anger and our fear, to give them over to him so that we may be healed. In these and so many other ways, God strengthens us for recovery and healing. God offers us that healing and love.

God doesn’t force us, and God doesn’t bribe us with wealth and riches. A little side bar here, but let no other preachers mislead you. Jesus does not promise wealth. Jesus does not promise riches. If you’re expecting Jesus or your faith in Jesus to bring you wealth and riches, then you are praying to something other than God. I mean, you can pray to God for riches, but if you expect that because you believe in Jesus, God will make you rich, that’s not God. Jesus doesn’t teach that our salvation comes from wealth. In fact, Jesus tells us the truth, that our wealth ends up consuming us. Wealth may feel powerful, but as we see in the world today, a lot of people end up using that power to further enrich themselves, rather than giving away that power to serve justice and peace.

Wealth often ends up consuming us, kind of like our anger does. If feels powerful, but then it ends up overpowering us.

Now, back to God and what Jesus shows us about God. I’m really tired of the ultra-rich harming people through their wealth, and I’m really tired of people killing other people out of their anger. What we have seen of Jesus makes me think that perhaps God is tired of those things, too. In fact, from what Jesus taught and did, it’s a good bet that God is frightfully tired of people harming others through their wealth and God is frightfully tired of people harming and killing others out of their anger. 

Frightfully tired of it. What that means is, we can trust God to deal with those people as God sees fit. If people need punishment, God’s gonna give it to them. So, we can pray all of the anger we have towards people and ask God to do all of the things we want to do to those people. 

God may or may not do it, but that’s not the point of the prayer. This prayer is to be honest with God. The prayer that God will do all of the things we want to do to the people we are angry with is a prayer of trust that God will do whatever is right and that we, then, don’t have to take our anger out on the world.

Praying all of our anger to God has another point as well. Remember that Jesus was baptized with a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. God was baptized with a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, joining with us in forgiveness of sins. God joined God’s own forgiveness with us. 

So, in praying our anger to God, we’re also praying for forgiveness. We may not pray for forgiveness right away, but that’s the goal. We pray our anger over to God to give over the power of our anger and to receive instead the power of forgiveness. 

Those who killed the young woman on the METRO bus and who killed the 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis chose to use their power of anger to force their way on the world, and death followed. 

When we pray our anger over to God to give over the power of our anger and to receive instead the power of forgiveness, life follows. In Jesus’ baptism, God showed us that forgiveness is who is how God is. Jesus taught over and over how people could turn their lives around and be healed by loving others and by loving God. On the cross, as he was being killed, Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” 

Baptism, forgiveness. Life and teaching, forgiveness. Death and resurrection, forgiveness. God would so much rather forgive than punish, and that is where we find our way when we are lost in and consumed by anger. Give that anger to God so that death will not be your way, and receive instead the power of forgiveness, so that life may follow.

...and Heaven & Earth were Joined

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
January 4, 2025
2 Christmas
Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
Psalm 84:1-8
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

God became human and lived among us. Forgiveness and reconciliation were revealed as the way of God among us. Love and service of others were shown as the life of God lived among us, and heaven and earth were joined.

When God was born among us, the baby Jesus, born to a young woman named Mary and her husband, Joseph. They were a couple of teenagers, probably 14 or 15, who had been promised to each other in marriage by their parents. It seems to have been a good match. They had other children together after Jesus was born. They were faithful to God’s call on their lives, and they were faithful in following God’s ways and God’s laws even before Jesus was born. They were good parents, and heaven and earth were joined.

Then, a couple years after Jesus was born, Israel’s mad king thought he might take his throne, and so he plotted to assassinate Jesus and his parents. They fled their country, becoming political refugees, and fled to Egypt. Then, when the king died, they went back to Israel, no longer seeking asylum in a foreign land. Still, felt that they were in danger near the capital of Israel, in the area of Judea, so they went to the region of Galilee, to the town of Nazareth, and heaven and earth were joined. 

We’re still in the season of Christmas, “the hap-happiest season of all”, and we’re not telling the story of the baby in the manger, the shepherds with their flocks, or the angels singing, “glory in the highest heaven.” We’re in “the most wonderful time of the year,” telling a story of attempted assassination. Happy Christmas.

It’s not all bad news, I promise. Have any of you ever been a part of a worship service where the music was playing, the congregation was all joined in together in singing and in prayer, and you could feel the Holy Spirit among you? Heaven and earth are joined, and God’s spirit is with us in worship and in prayer. 

Have you been with a group of friends, enjoying one another’s company, having a grand old time, and also felt God’s presence among you? Heaven and earth are joined, and God’s spirit is with us in love and fellowship.

Then, have you ever been with someone in times of sadness and mourning, you’ve supported them, or been supported when you were mourning. In those times too, God’s presence was felt among you. Heaven and earth are joined, and God’s spirit is with us in the times of loss, in the care and support we give one another. 

Heaven and earth are not only joined in the good times, and God is not only with us when we pray. Jesus and his parents fled an assassination attempt by a mad king and fled as refugees to Egypt. Heaven and earth were joined then, too. We get to tell this story of exile and murder during the happiest time of the year because God is with us even in the death and destruction we cause, and that is reason to rejoice. 

Anglican bishop and author N.T. Wright notes in his latest book, The Vision of Ephesians, that Christians often miss the joyful reality of God with us. According to Christian Post reporter Leah M. Klett, Bishop Wright believes that many Christians have totally misunderstood our faith. Instead of seeing Christianity of God joining with humanity, instead of seeing heaven and earth as joined, many have been taught to think of salvation as escaping the earth, getting to go to Heaven when we die. 

https://www.christianpost.com/books/nt-wright-why-western-christians-have-misread-heaven.html

Jesus is not a portal for good little Christians to flee through once they’re dead. Jesus is the physical joining of God with humanity. Jesus is the cosmic union of God and creation. Jesus is Emmanuel, “God is with us,” or do we really think we live in a world devoid of God’s presence, with God only waiting for us to die so we can be with him? Are our lives really just a proving ground to get to heaven? Are we really just trying to have faith, so that our souls can escape this earth once we’re dead?

That’s not the story of scripture. That’s not the story of the Gospel in the Christian scriptures. The Gospel is the story of God coming to us, not us leaving to go to God. God became human. God joined humanity in our physical bodies. 

The idea of a soul as something different from our bodies isn’t a particularly Jewish or early Christian idea. That’s an ancient Greek and Roman idea. The Gospel is not that faithful enough Christians get to leave the world once they die. The Gospel is that heaven and earth are joined. 

We believe not that we will leave, but that Jesus will return. Heaven and earth have been joined, and at the end of the ages, God will finish this work, and all evil will be destroyed, and all things will be made new.

“The Church,” Bishop Wright says, “is called to be…the small working model of new creation.” We are here to live this new creation as best we can, which we can only do if God truly is with us. If God truly is with us, then, as Paul points out, our battles are not against one another, but against spiritual forces of wickedness, and so we’re told to put on the Armor of God, which is almost totally defensive. 

Bishop Wright points out that many Christians think of this spiritual battle as one we must fight, and that we must constantly fight the demonic. The greater struggle, however, is how so many Christians claim to see the demonic in so many people and groups of people around them. The greater struggle, Wright says, is believing people are our enemies when they are not. That’s what Herod did to Jesus.

Paul said our struggles are with cosmic powers, not with one another, and that doesn’t mean that everything bad is demonic. Everything and everyone that bothers us is not demonic. Herod trying to assassinate Jesus was not demonic. It was the sad actions of a tiny, scared little man.

When we see demons and evil everywhere, we live into this notion that the point of the Gospel is to escape a terrible earth and go to Heaven instead. That’s not the Gospel. The truth of the Gospel is that Heaven and earth are joined. 

Rather than seeing demons everywhere, see God everywhere. God was there when Jesus and his parents fled for their lives. Heaven and earth were joined. Demons didn’t seek to kill Jesus, a scared little man did.

God is there when people beat, rape, steal from, and kill one another. That’s not the demonic fighting humans. When people beat, rape, steal from, and kill one another, that’s humans fighting God. Heaven and earth are joined, and whatever we do to one another we do to God who became human. We don’t get to pin that on demons. That’s on us. 

Humans do terrible things to one another, and our fight is not with one another, but with those terrible things that we do. We are meant to be, we are meant to live as God’s new creation. Heaven and earth are joined, and so we are meant to see God among us. In the good times and in the bad, we are walking among God with heaven all around us. Heaven and earth are joined. Happy Christmas.

We Belong Here, Together, in the Light

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
December 28, 2025
1 Christmas
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147:13-21
John 1:1-18

Happy Christmas, everyone. This is the fourth day of the twelve-day season of Christmas, the season of light shining in the darkness. For us in the northern hemisphere, this is the dark time of year. The days have been getting shorter and the nights getting longer, right up until the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, after which the days start getting longer and the nights start getting shorter. The Winter Solstice is, then, a celebration of the return of the light.

So, the date for Christmas was chosen to be on that longest night of the year so that we celebrate the light of Jesus coming into the world at the same time that we celebrate the return of the light into the world. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Reverent Hannah, the head priest here at Trinity Episcopal Church preached on Christmas Eve, and she noted that we often think of light as good and darkness as bad, and she pointed out that there are times when we also need darkness.

The season of darkness, of winter, is also a season of rest for the earth. We need rest. We sleep in darkness. We have lights to guide us in the darkness, and without the darkness, we wouldn’t be able to notice the light. Darkness is a part of creation. It’s needed. Darkness can also come from hurt and trauma, and that darkness can definitely hurt us, yet even that darkness has a place. It’s our body’s way of protecting us. Anger, fear? They are natural responses to being hurt. Anger and fear can help lead us to safety. When we are overcome by anger and fear, however, then we become lost in the darkness. So, “the light [of Jesus] shines in the darkness, and the darkness [does] not overcome it.” 

Think about guilt as well. Guilt may feel like darkness, guilt over ways we’ve harmed others. More accurately, guilt is how we feel the darkness we’ve caused. It’s a good thing. Guilt helps us know we’ve done wrong and that darkness we feel helps nudge us back to the light. That is, unless, we get overcome by the darkness, and our guilt turns to shame.

When that happens, we become lost and alone in the darkness. Who has felt alone, ashamed of what you’ve done or ashamed of what someone has done to you? That shame is darkness overtaking us, no longer helping us heal or guiding us to the light. Shame keeps us alone, telling us no one will ever understand. No one will ever forgive us. No one will ever accept us if we let this secret shame be known. 

Shame tells us we are unloved and unlovable. Jesus tells us that shame is wrong. 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 

We are loved. We are lovable. Whatever we have done, and whatever has been done to us, we belong in the light. That’s why God became human, to help heal us and, when we are overcome by darkness, to guide us back to the light. 

The Word of God became flesh and lived among us, and his name, Jesus, comes from the Hebrew name Yehoshua, which means “God is salvation,” “God saves,” “God is deliverance.” To believe in Jesus’ name means to believe that God is the salvation we seek. God is the deliverance we need. God is the light which shines in our darkness, and God is the light which our darkness cannot overcome. Into our darkness, God’s light shines, saying, “Come, my beloved child.”

Every morning when we rise, God’s light shines in the darkness. See, sleep is like a tiny, daily darkness, which we call the shadow of death, the big darkness. Now, even that darkness is not a bad thing. Our bodies wear out, and death is a natural part of life. Death is the great rest at the end of life, and yet even the darkness of death does not overcome the light of life. 

Jesus showed us in his resurrection, that death does not have the final say. There is life, stronger even than death. That life is the light of God, and the darkness of death does not overcome it. Be at peace even with death, then, trusting that God’s light is not overcome by the darkness, and that life will return. Then, live with the peace that comes from that belief. “God is salvation.” 

God is salvation for all people and for all the mess and darkness of our lives.

When Jesus grew up, he was friends with sinners. He taught forgiveness. He healed people and proclaimed forgiveness. Jesus was the light of God shining for people who were lost and alone in the dark. Jesus is still the light of God shining for people who are lost and alone in the dark. 

So, Jesus’ church is a community for people who are lost and alone in the dark. We’re not the good folks proclaiming judgement on the world. We’re the messed up, broken folks who come to Jesus and the church and find that we’re not alone. When we come to Jesus and the community of the church, we find that don’t need to be alone and ashamed. We don’t need to be lost in the darkness. Jesus says, “I love you. I see you. Come to me, and join with the rest of this rag tag band of screwups. Join with this group of hurt, beaten, and damned people, and find that you’re not actually damned. Those thoughts are just the darkness overcoming you. Come, be loved, and be healed.” That’s the light shining in the darkness and the darkness not overcoming it.

How many have been a part of the church who had murdered someone in the past, who had raped someone in the past? How many have been drug dealers and gang members? How many have been part of the church who are ex-convicts or current convicts? How many have been part of the church who made fortunes at the expense of others and found their lives empty? How many have prostituted themselves, doing whatever they felt they needed to in order to survive? How many, of all of the above, did all of those things because they felt they needed to in order to survive, or because they were so hurt and beaten down, that they just didn’t care who they hurt anymore?

The church is full of people who have been overcome by darkness. The church is full of people who have then found healing together, as we recognize our own hurts and darkness in one another, and we also see our belovedness and the light of God in one another. The church is full of people who have found healing in the name of Jesus. “God is salvation.” The church is full of people who have found healing believing that God is light, life, and healing for all of us together.

So stay, and keep returning. Keep joining together recognizing one another as God’s beloved, because we are loved. We are lovable. Whatever we have done, and whatever has been done to us, we belong here, together, in the light. 

Mercy. Letting People Be. God Is With Us.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
December 21, 2025
4 Advent, A
Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Matthew 1:18-25

When Mary ended up pregnant with a baby that wasn’t Joseph’s, he could have called for Mary’s death. Such was his right under Jewish law in Deuteronomy 22:23-27. Mary could have been stoned to death for being pregnant because she was engaged. Even if she had been raped, if she hadn’t screamed out loudly enough for someone to hear and stop the rape, she still could have been killed. We don’t know how often such killings took place in 1st century Israel, but we do know that Joseph had every right to have Mary killed. Some might even say he had a responsibility to fulfil the righteousness of the law, to have Mary killed. Joseph decided to go a different way.

He and Mary were probably both in their early teens, their marriage arranged by their parents, with Joseph and Mary still living with their parents at the time. So, when he found out she was pregnant with someone else’s baby, he could have, at the very least, called off the wedding. That was, in fact, what he planned to do. He would tell Mary’s family that since she was no longer a virgin and had been impregnated by another man, he would no longer accept her as his wife. 

Had that played out, Mary would have likely continued living with her parents. She would have had her baby. Maybe one day she would have gotten married, though her prospects for security and a husband weren’t that great. 

Then, of course, Joseph was visited by an Angel of the Lord who told him to take Mary as his wife because the child was given to her by the Holy Spirit, not by another man. Now, when Matthew wrote this story of Jesus birth, we find that it reminded Matthew of Isaiah 7:10-16, where the young woman gave birth to a son and the son was named, “Immanuel,” meaning God is with us.

Reminding us of that story, Matthew was telling us that God is with us in the birth of Jesus. God was with Mary as he chose her to become pregnant with Jesus and to raise him as her beloved son. God was with Joseph as he assured Joseph of his plan, that the pregnancy was God’s doing. God was also with Joseph before the angel visited him, when Joseph chose to let Mary go quietly.

If Joseph had had Mary killed, he would have fulfilled the letter of the law, but he would have missed God being with us, not to mention murdering an innocent young woman. Instead, Joseph chose to let Mary be, and God is with us.

God was with Mary when Joseph chose to simply let her go, rather than enforce upon her the full weight of the law. Even though she had seemingly broken the law. Even though she was engaged to him and gotten pregnant by some other dude, he thought, Joseph simply chose to let her go. 

She won’t be a part of my life, he figured, and that will be that. There had been a civil contract between his and her families, one’s daughter and one’s son, and since that contract had been broken by Mary, the two were no longer going to be married. That was all. No death. No condemnation. No public outcry. God is with us.

Now again, some would say he should have publicly disgraced Mary. She had done wrong, and they needed to keep Israel pure from such immorality. How could they be God’s people if they allowed such terrible behavior as Mary the tramp getting knocked up by some random dude? If they allowed that, how could God be with them? If they allowed Mary and others like her to live, wouldn’t they be making God angry with them as a nation? How could God be with them if they did not follow God’s laws of purity and sexual morality?

That could have been Joseph’s response, but again, he went a different way. Joseph chose mercy, and as it turns out, God was with them because of that mercy. God is with us because of that mercy.

So, trusting that God is with us, even when people do things that are considered unrighteous and immoral, how might we follow the example of Joseph? How might we show mercy, too?

Well, Joseph thought Mary had committed sexual immorality, and we have laws being proposed and passed aimed at what some consider to be sexual immorality. I am thinking of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters who are being targeted by laws written to uphold some people’s ideas of Christian sexual morality. Repealing marriage equality. Preventing doctors from helping transgender people transition. What if, instead of writing laws against our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, people just let them be?    

I’ve heard concern by some Christian preachers that God is angry with the United States for allowing LGBTQ people to have the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. That’s kinda like thinking Mary had to be killed to keep God from being angry with Israel. Turns out, despite what the law said, God wanted mercy, not murder.

Well, if we look to Joseph, his righteousness came not by enforcing the punishment of God’s law. Josephs’ righteousness came by showing mercy. Joseph’s righteousness came by simply letting Mary be. What if people who consider LGBTQ folks to be sinners just let them be, trusting that God is with us. 

What if Christians in general didn’t force their ideas of morality on others, but simply let people be? Could we still trust that God is with us? That would be following Joseph’s example of righteousness, showing mercy, trusting that God is with us.

What about other ways that people might show mercy, trusting God is with us, rather than enforcing punishment for doing wrong? What about when we lose our tempers, wanting to shout at or fight with someone because they did something against us? We’re so pissed off, and we want to teach the, to make them know they were wrong, to admit it, and to make it right. We want punishment and justice.

That is presumably what an 18-year-old wanted when he stabbed his 16-year-old classmate in the neck, killing him. The 18-year-old couldn’t find his vape pen and was convinced the younger man had taken it. A fight ensued and because of that, one young man is dead, and the other is in jail, facing murder charges and decades in prison. 

I don’t know what was going through his head at the time, but it’s a good bet it wasn’t mercy. A $21 vape pen, an assumption of theft, no mercy, and a young man is dead. That’s what could have happened to Mary. An engagement, an assumption of adultery, no mercy, and Mary would have been killed, but Joseph chose a different way, and God is with us.

Joseph choosing mercy was probably not an accident. He had probably been shown mercy himself, had been taught mercy. Vengeance is easy. All we have to do is listen to our emotions, get hurt, get upset, and do exactly what our emotions tell us to do. That’s what Cain did when he killed Abel. Be angry and do exactly what that anger says to do. That’s what Derek Chauvin did when he murdered George Floyd.

Vengeance is easy, and vengeance tends to rest on the idea that we’re alone. Vengeance is a fearful response that we have to take care of whatever problem ourselves. Judgment, justice, all up to us. Vengeance can also be a fearful response that if we don’t hurt the people we think are wrong, then God may hurt us. Neither of those were Joseph’s response. Joseph chose mercy and found that God is with us.

Mercy is taught and practiced. Mercy takes trust that God is with us, and so we don’t need vengeance. 

For the young man who killed his classmate over a missing vape pen, mercy does mean that he’ll need to be in prison if he’s convicted, and that he’ll need to be shown mercy when he’s there, helped to heal, not just beaten down and punished forever.

God is with us. Always and everywhere. God became human so we would know that he is with us. God became human to show us mercy. Mercy helps heal the world. May we follow Joseph’s example. May we follow the way of God. May we show mercy.