Wildcats Growling, Riders Approaching, Wind Howling

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
October 4, 2026
Proper 22, A
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-14
Matthew 21:33-46

All Along the Watchtower – Bob Dylan

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief.

“There’s too much confusion; I can’t get no relief

Businessmen they drink my wine, and plowmen dig my earth

None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

 

“No reason to get excited,” the thief he kindly spoke.

“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke,

But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate.

So, let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late.”

  

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view,

While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too.

Outside in the distance, a wildcat did growl.

Two riders were approaching and the wind began to howl.

So, with our readings from Isaiah and Matthew both being about a vineyard and a watchtower, my mind, of course went to Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, which, while certainly taking imagery from our Isaiah reading, probably has absolutely nothing to with these readings. Still, I’m listening to the song through the lens of these readings.

There is this feeling in the song, of impending doom, and the two people in the song are reacting to it. First, you’ve got the joker, wanting to get out, fearful for what’s coming, while also denying that he had anything to do with it. He’s lamenting that businessmen are drinking his wine, as if he wasn’t the one who had given it to them. 

Then, you’ve got the thief who is lying to the joker. “No worries,” he’s telling him. “Life isn’t a joke. Our fate is not to be destroyed. All will be well.”

Then we see the truth that the joker fears and the thief denies: the business of the calm before the storm. The princes know their end is coming. Preparations are being made by the women and servants, the wildcat, the riders, and the wind are the creeping chaos soon to enter in and overtake them all. 

Travis Roe / Grand Canton Watchtower, 2012 / cbsnews.com/pictures/captured-in-a-flash/2/ 

Impending doom while some deny it, others fear it, and none are able to admit the part they played in bringing that doom to them. Now that sounds like our Isaiah reading.

God had planted a vineyard, and rather than the grapes he was expecting, the vineyard grew wild grapes. The vineyard, of course, was the nation of Israel, and the grapes were the people of Israel. They were meant to live as one people, disciplined, following the ways of life God had given them. They were more than a collection of individuals, they were a people, living together as many and yet as one, and as one people, they had a particular way of life with some things they just weren’t going to do.

At my son’s marching band competition yesterday, it occurred to me that being together as one is how things were for us in my high school band. We were all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, but once we put that band uniform on, we were one. We got to goof off and mess around like normal high schoolers, until we put that uniform on. Once it was on, we were one. At marching band competitions, we didn’t only march together on the field. We marched together in the parking lot from the busses to the practice area. Then, we marched together from the practice area to the field for the show. 

Lots of other bands would walk around, la-da-dat-da-dah, in any old way, just a bunch of individuals wearing the same band uniform. We marched as one, all at attention, all in formation, all in step together. We didn’t act like all those other bands. We weren’t just a bunch of individuals. We were a band together as one. 

That unity of spirit and purpose is how Israel was meant to be, and yet time, after time, after time, they stopped going after God’s ways and they started acting like the nations around them. They were meant to be a light to those very nations, which means there were some things they just weren’t going to do, and yet time and again they chose to follow the ways and the gods of those other nations, doing those very things they weren’t meant to do.

Cheating one another, oppressing workers, living in selfishness and fear, murder, rape. Those are not the ways of the people of Israel. They were formed by God to love one another and care for one another as though they were one people, not just a bunch of individuals walking around, la-da-dat-da-dah, in any old selfish way they wanted, and so in Isaiah, God was declaring impending doom. Wildcats growling, riders approaching, wind howling.

“Restore us!” The people cried. We heard that in the psalm. We’re sorry, we repent, we turn back, but it was already too late. There was no real desire to live in love with one another, just to avoid punishment.

See, when repentance is only to avoid punishment, only to avoid the chaos to come, but there’s no real desire to follow in the ways of love, that’s not real repentance. 

God calls us to repent of the ways we are selfishness and seek our own pleasure regardless of the harm to others. Selfish pleasure-seeking, regardless of the harm to others is how you get a gang rape at Cornell University. All the facts aren’t known yet. From what we’ve heard so far, what began as consensual sex between two people became consensual sex between three people as another guy joined in. Then, as more guys entered the room, the sex became non-consensual with the young woman who said no many times and was so drunk and drugged out that she couldn’t really consent anyway. Pleasure seeking without regard to the harm to others. Joining in with a gang of other guys having sex with a barely conscious woman.

Now, finally, the truth is coming out, and the guys who thought they were just having some fun and got away with it are now walking along the watchtower with wildcats growling, riders approaching, and the wind howling.

There are some things, that, being a disciple of Jesus, you just don’t get to do. The rape part is hopefully obvious, but even before non-consensual, actual rape, there’s joining in as a group of guys having sex together with one woman. The big group sex party is something that as followers of Jesus, we just don’t get to do, if for no other reason than even if it begins consensually, it is far too easy for it to become non-consensual and for it not to stop once it does because people’s sex drives are often far too powerful for them to control well. 

So, as a people, formed by God to be a light to those around us, there are things that we just don’t do. There are the obvious ones like cheating one another, oppressing people, living in selfishness and fear, murder, rape, but there’s also all the less obvious things that can lead to cheating, oppression, selfishness, murder, and rape. 

If you’ve got a terrible temper and you know you can’t control it, then you don’t get to put yourself into situations where there’s likely to be a fight and you just might end up hurting or killing someone. If you know you can’t stop yourself from harming others when you drink or use drugs, then you don’t get to drink or use drugs. 

We make these decisions not to avoid God’s punishment or wrath. We make these decisions so that we won’t harm others. We make these decisions not to do some things so that we might live lives of love and care for others. When we don’t, we see the consequences. Women are raped, people are murdered, workers are oppressed, violence is called justice, and we see these things happening every day.

Now I’m not a prophet like Isaiah, pronouncing God’s doom the nation or any group of people within the nation. What I am doing is calling us to seriously the dangers of our selfish ways without regard to the harm to others. I am calling us to take seriously that we are called to be one people, unified like my marching band, and once we put that uniform on, once we put Christ on, there are some things we’re just not going to do because of how those things can harm others. 

I’m also calling us to remember that when we have been going against God’s ways and we have been following ways of selfishness and harm to others, God lets us repent when we truly want to. God may not remove every consequence of our previous actions. We may still hear the wildcats growl, we may still see the riders approaching, we may still hear the wind begin to howl, but when we truly repent and want to heal the damage we’ve caused, God allows us to turn around and be a light, to seek a life of love and care for others.

Who Knew God Was So Snarky? (Compassion, Rather Than Contempt)

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
September 20, 2026
Proper 20, A
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Matthew 20:1-16

Jonah had nothing but the utmost contempt for the people of Nineveh. They weren’t Jewish. They didn’t follow God’s laws. They seemed to be really rotten people. So, when Jonah was told by God to go and prophesy to the people of Nineveh to get them to repent, to change their ways, Jonah flat out said, “no.” 

That’s a pretty ballsy move. I mean, we all say “no” to God a lot, but we’re largely saying no to teachings from the words of scripture. We’re saying no to words that were spoken and written thousands of years ago. I’m not excusing that, but Jonah had God speaking directly to him, and he still said “no” because he had so much contempt for the people of Nineveh. He just wanted to God kill them, but he knew God was merciful, and he knew that if he prophesied to the people of Nineveh that they would repent and God wouldn’t kill them, so he just said no and went somewhere else to force God to kill the people of Nineveh. 

Jonah’s contempt. God’s compassion. 

Kill them all; I don’t like them. 

Eh, they’re human beings; let’s try to help them out.

Contempt. Compassion. 

Jonah’s not the only one to have contempt for others and say no to God. We all do. Bless those who curse you. Forgive your enemies. Love your enemies. I mean, Jesus said those things, sure, but he probably didn’t really mean it all the time. Maybe the writers just got it wrong. Maybe I’ll just wait to forgive them till God sends them to hell. 

In all these and countless other ways, we are all like Jonah, with contempt for others, running away from what God told us because we’d really rather have God just punish those people. 

The thing is, God still might, and he taught us to forgive. Bless, forgive, and pray for your enemies, and it will be like pouring burning coals upon their heads. Ok, this I can get behind. Follow God’s command for forgiveness and still they get bushwhacked. 

Yeah, that’s not quite the heart God calls us to have either. Rather, God calls us to have a heart that cares for and even breaks for our enemies.

God taught Jonah this lesson with the tree God made to give Jonah some shade and then killed the next day. Jonah was so upset about the tree, and God understood, “Dude, I get it man. You’re so sad about the tree that you didn’t make and didn’t love that just gave you a little shade, so maybe you get that I’d be sad about the destruction of a whole city of people whom I did make and do love? You get that, Jonah, you little dufus?”

Who knew God was so snarky, right? 

Hey Jonah, try to get your heart to break for the people of Nineveh just like it did for that tree. The healing nature of compassion, rather than the destructive nature of contempt.

We see this same lesson of contempt over compassion in the story Jesus told of the laborers in the vineyard. See, the laborers who worked all day had contempt on those who only worked a few hours and got paid the same. Never mind that what they got paid wasn’t getting any of them rich. They were getting paid what they needed to survive, not minimum wage, which is crap, but a living wage. They had what they needed.

So, they laborers who worked all day knew that if the ones who only worked a couple hours only got paid for a couple hours work, they wouldn’t have enough to live on. If they had only been paid for a couple hours work, they would eventually starve, and the laborers who worked all day seemed ok with that. Once they knew they were getting paid the same, they had contempt on the laborers who were only able to work a few hours. 

“Who cares if they’re gonna die? They don’t deserve what I got.” That’s the destructive nature of contempt. They had contempt for the other laborers; they had contempt for the landowner, just like Jonah had contempt for the people of Nineveh and for God. The laborers didn’t make the vineyard, they didn’t own the land, and yet they were contemptuous of the landowner for his generosity. “I don’t want you to be generous or have compassion. I want those other workers to die rather than get the same as I have.”

The destruction of contempt, rather than the healing of compassion.

Imagine if these laborers knew they were all going to get paid a full day’s wage working for this guy. Contempt would have made them all say, “No one get there to the end of the day and he’ll still pay us all for a full day.” I bet the landowner would have caught wise on that one, but what if the workers had said, “Ok, we’re all going to get paid a full day’s wage, so how about we rotate? Some of us work a full day one week, then others work the full day the next week.”

See, if they had compassion on one another and cared about each other’s’ wellbeing, not just their own, they could have worked together so everyone could have done well. 

Compassion, rather than contempt.

Now, looking at Jesus’ parable, the landowner having compassion, making sure all the workers had enough, rather than the bare minimum not to actually get by, I wish I was preaching this to billionaires and CEOs. However, the lesson of compassion, rather than contempt, is still a lesson for all of us, and like with Jonah and the laborers who worked all day, compassion rather than contempt is not easy lesson to learn. 

I mean, it sounds great and all, and I figure most of us want to live with compassion, but I can think of 4 times in the last week alone that I’ve felt and acted contemptuously toward someone, and that’s just the real people that I interacted with. If we include billionaires and politicians and what not, my contempt is up to like 17 times a day, or an hour? In two of the real life cases, I was able check back with the person, make amends, and tell them I was wrong. Two of the cases, I may not ever be able to. 

In each of these, I will say that I did move from contempt towards compassion. That’s a step in the right direction. We’re not gonna get it right all the time. That’s why God sometimes sends a whale, like he did with Jonah, to swallow us up and take us where he wants us to go when we’ve just told God no to his face. 

“Remember compassion,” God says.

“Yeah, no. I want to hurt this guy.” Sometimes we need a pretty swift reminder. So, remember this: God is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for all of humanity. We are made in God’s image, so being full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, that is the core of who we are. 

Showing compassion is how God made us to be, and can be one of the hardest things we do. Showing compassion is also one of the strongest things we do. The anger and contempt we have for others feels like strength, but it’s really just our weakness and fear having a temper tantrum. Real strength comes from showing compassion, being slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. 

That takes practice, too, and prayer, like much of anything worth doing, but we’re not practicing something outside ourselves or beyond ourselves. Practicing compassion and mercy is practicing at being our true selves. Practicing being slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love is practicing being our true selves. 

Contempt is when we’re getting outside of ourselves and letting fear dominate. Compassion is a return home, and so, whenever we feel contempt, that’s when Jesus is calling us. “Come home.” Set aside the anger, set aside the fear and contempt, and come home to compassion, mercy, and steadfast love. 

We don't need to know the path. We just need to walk it.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 30, 2026
Proper 17, A
Romans 12:9-21
Psalm 26:1-8
Matthew 16:21-28

“There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” That’s what Morpheus said to Neo the 1999 sci-fi film, “The Matrix.” In the movie, humans were struggling to be freed from machine overlords, and humanity was waiting on a savior, The One. Morpheus was looking for this savior, and he was firmly convinced that Neo was the one. At one point, after Neo did some truly amazing things, Morpheus again said how he believed Neo was The One. Neo again protested, and Morpheus said to him, “Sooner or later, you’re going to realize just as I did, there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” You may not know exactly where this is leading, Morpheus was saying, but you can walk the path you are meant to walk, regardless.

As I read today’s Gospel, I have a lot of questions, particularly around Jesus telling his disciples that some of them would not taste death before they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Was he talking about when Jesus would return in the clouds with great majesty, bringing in this new paradise on earth? If so, he was wrong, because that hasn’t happened in 2000 years, much less in the disciples’ lifetimes.

Did Jesus mean they would see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom because they were going to see him riding into Jerusalem on a donkey to much fanfare and praise, because they did see that. A week after he rode into Jerusalem, of course, he was executed as an enemy of the state, so maybe Jesus meant that they would see him come into his kingdom, but that his kingdom was not some great seat of governmental power that they thought it was. I kinda like that, but it also feels like a stretch. 

So, maybe Jesus meant they would see his resurrection, that rising from the grave with everlasting life was Jesus coming in his kingdom. Many of Jesus’ disciples did see him after being resurrected, and that’s certainly amazing and wonderful and far greater than riding a donkey into a city, but Jesus said the Son of Man would “come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he [would] repay everyone for what has been done.”

That just straight up ain’t happened yet. So maybe he did mean his resurrection when he said they would see him coming into his kingdom and the whole coming with his angels in the glory of his Father thing was something else? I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve got a lot of questions on this one. I’m not sure what I believe about Jesus coming with his angels in the glory of his Father and his disciples not tasting death before they see him coming in his kingdom. 

I could try to come up with an exact answer that suits me, and fits all the pieces together, and defines everything exactly. I’ve seen it done, but those answers, fitting everything together perfectly, tend to leave me cold. They kinda sorta make sense-ish of what Jesus said, if you don’t ask too many questions, but they tend to feel like an unskilled writer tying up loose ends in a script. You end up with something that’s definitely, almost a movie but the kind that you’d wait till it was out of theaters to watch and then just decide to skip entirely. 

The other reason I don’t tend to come up with an exact answer that suits me, and fits all the pieces together, and defines everything exactly is that I don’t really need to. “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

In the midst of all my questions, I don’t really know the right answers, but I choose to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, nonetheless. I believe Jesus was showing us that life does not end in death, but that life is transformed in death into something else, that we will all continue living together after our deaths. I find that beautiful. It gives me hope.

Morpheus - "The Matrix", 1999

Even not knowing how it all works, believing in Jesus’ resurrection gives me a path to walk, a path of hope, peace, and trust. I may not know exactly where the path will lead or how it all goes, but “there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” Knowing the path can lead to that really bad b-movie thing I was talking about earlier. Walking the path, well, that’s pretty much what Paul was writing about in Romans 12:9-21. 

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

That’s some of the highlights. Paul shows a path of hope and peace, a path of trust. Now, full disclosure, Paul seems to have thought that the end was coming very quickly, that Jesus would return any minute. So, you could see Paul’s advice as being, “Eh, since it ain’t gonna be too long, you can put up with some suffering for now.” That may be what he was thinking, but my question there is, if Paul had thought that Jesus wasn’t coming with his angels in the glory of his Father for at least 2000 years, would he have given the same advice. I think so, because as much as he thought Jesus was returning any minute, his hope was in Jesus’ resurrection, in life after death. So, Paul taught a path of hope, and peace, and trust. Paul walked that path, and he taught the churches to walk that path as well. 

Hope. Peace. Trust.

That is a decidedly different path than Peter was on when he rebuked Jesus. Peter thought he knew the path he wanted to take. He thought he knew the path he wanted Jesus to take, a path of power and glory. So, when Jesus said that he was going to be arrested, beaten, killed, and on the third day raised, Peter rebuked Jesus for being on what he thought was the wrong path. Power, glory, destruction of enemies, that’s the path Peter thought Jesus should have been on.

Now, they hadn’t been walking the path of power, glory, or destruction. Peter had been with Jesus for years, watching Jesus walk the path of hope, and peace, and trust, and yet, somehow Peter still thought the path they were on was power, glory, and destruction.  

“You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” Jesus told Peter. Peter assumed he knew the end, power and glory, and so he was ignoring the actual path they were walking. That continues to happen quite a lot in the church. Sometimes followers of Jesus know how things should be, and they are so determined for things to be that way, that they leave the path of hope, peace, and trust in order to force their way in the world. 

They form groups based on political beliefs to try to force things to be the way they think Jesus wants them to be. They try to pass laws to force others to conform to their morals or beliefs. They want Jesus’ kingdom here on earth, and they try to make it happen, but the path they end up walking is the path of power, glory, and destruction. 

That wasn’t the way of Jesus, it wasn’t the way of Paul, and even Peter abandoned that way of power and glory after Jesus’ resurrection. They all walked in the path of hope, peace, and trust. That’s the way of the church. 

I want to walk that path, except of course in the times when I don’t because I want to walk the path of power, glory, and destruction, because I want my way and I know how things should be, and I’m angry, or I’m frustrated, or whatever else it is. Jesus tells us to take up our cross as we follow him, and we put onto that cross what that cross represented for Rome: power, glory, and destruction. We put on to that cross our desires to force our way in the world and crucify those with Christ so that we can then walk with Christ in the path of hope, peace, and trust.

We don’t know exactly where that’s going to lead in this life. We seek to bring healing and love as we walk the path of Jesus. We crucify our desires for power, glory, and destruction, forcing the world to be how we want, and we don’t know when or how the path will end. We do know we can’t force Jesus’ kingdom on the world. We can’t force Jesus’ kingdom to come. It isn’t ours to bring about. So, when will Jesus’ kingdom fully come? Where exactly will walking the path of Jesus lead? We don’t know, but we don’t need to know. We don’t need to know the path. We just need to walk it.

Faith & Hope in Today's World

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 16, 2026
Proper 15, A
Isaiah 56:1,6-8
Psalm 67
Matthew 15:21-28

I was on a radio show a couple of weeks ago on 90.1, KPFT. The show is called, THNX, spelled T-H-N-X, and the host, Rand Mintzer was interviewing me and the Rev. Laura Mayo, senior minister of Covenant Church Houston. The topic of the show that night was “Faith in Today’s World.” Rand was looking at the challenges people are facing and the struggles so many are having while a very few are exceedingly, mind-numbingly wealthy. He asked about how our faith relates to these struggles, and he asked how we and our congregations are able to maintain hope amidst such disparity and injustice.

Rev. Laura talked several times about Amos – pointing out that it’s pretty short (only 9 chapters), and is fantastic when it comes to talking about the justice God desires.

Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
    and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
5 saying, “When will the new moon be over
    so that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath,
    so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier
    and practice deceit with false balances,
6 buying the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” (Amos 8:4-6)

Here, you had folks keeping the sabbath; they were following the law, not working on the day of rest. Unfortunately, they were like beasts lying in wait to pounce on their prey. Once the sabbath was over, they overcharged for grain and wheat, they lied and cheated to make extra money, and through all of that, they robbed the poor. 

In modern times, you could say they kept wages low while increasing prices so they could keep more profits for themselves. They weren’t breaking laws enough that you could really catch them, and by all outward appearances, they looked like fine, upstanding people, but they trampled the needy and brought ruin to the poor of the land. 

In our reading from Isaiah 56 today, we heard God calling people to “maintain justice, and do what is right,” and to “keep the sabbath, and [not] profane it.” As we saw in Amos, keeping the sabbath and maintaining justice are tied together for God. Doing religious practices right doesn’t matter if we don’t treat people with dignity and respect. Following religious rules to keep ourselves in God’s good graces may even count against us if we are adding to the hurt and harm in the world. 

Folks that oppress others and harm others tend to divide people up into categories like the worthy and the unworthy. These fine, upstanding people are worthy of honor and respect. These lowly schlebs, well, they’re not worthy of much of anything, are they? It’s easier to exploit people and oppress workers when you don’t see them as worthy. It’s easier not to care about the harm you are causing others when you don’t see them as worthy.

Jesus taught his disciples something about worthiness in his conversation with the Canaanite woman in the story we heard today. 

On the surface, we have Jesus telling this woman, who just wanted to have her child healed, that she was a dog and not worthy to have anything from him, especially not something as grand as healing of her child. That is decidedly different, however, from how Jesus usually treated women and how Jesus usually treated people who came to him asking for healing. Jesus usually gave honor and respect and chose to show mercy to people, relieving their suffering.

When the Canaanite woman shouted at Jesus to heal her daughter, he first ignored her, and his disciples asked him to send her away because she was bothering them. Rude. Talk about not seeing her as worthy, Jesus said that he was not sent for her kind of person, but only for the people of Israel. In other words, “You aren’t worthy.”

So, the woman decided to spar with Jesus. Since she wasn’t worthy, she knelt down before Jesus and asked again for Jesus to heal her daughter. At that point, Jesus called her a dog, once again, not worthy of him or his mercy. The woman came right back with “Even the dogs eat the crumbs under their master’s table.” 

That was a rather brilliant move on her part. I can see her getting angry and shouting at Jesus at this point. “I’m not a dog! How dare you call me a dog! My daughter is sick, and you need to heal her! You’re horrible! You ain’t no healer or good person! You’re the devil!” Well, he might have seen that like a dog barking angrily at someone, and Jesus could have been proven right, that she was just a dog, not worthy of him.

So, rather than take offence at Jesus calling her a dog, the woman basically said, “Ok, fine. I’m a dog, but I’m still a human being.” That revealed her dignity.

I’ve heard this referred to as sparing between the woman and Jesus. Perhaps he was sparing with her to teach his disciples a lesson? Perhaps she brought him up short. He had just said that what defiles us is not what our particular religious practices are, but what we do to one another, how we treat one another.

Well, Jesus wasn’t treating the woman well at first, and through their sparing, Jesus was shown to believe what he taught. He helped the woman out.

He also revealed her human dignity. Through their sparing, she didn’t deny being a dog, she just took his insult and turned it right back around. Even the dogs eat the crumbs. Again, “Ok, fine. I’m a dog, but I’m still a human being. You want to give me crumbs? I’ll take crumbs.”

That revealed her human dignity far more than if she had shouted back at him. Dogs bark and bite. She did not. She talked calmly and reasoned with Jesus. In admitting to being a dog, she showed that she was far from actually being a dog. In agreeing that she was a dog, her humanity was revealed.

That’s like Jesus’ teaching about turning the other cheek and not resisting an evil person. (Matthew 5:39) She didn’t resist his evil sounding words. She turned her cheek, offered herself the same insult again and exposed the inhumanity of calling her a dog in the first place. 

It really was brilliant, and I can see Jesus’ excitement. “Dude! She’s doing exactly what I taught!” I can also imagine the whole conversation between them being a way that Jesus took the opportunity to teach his disciples. “Here’s what turning the other cheek is all about, and here is what it means to treat people with dignity and respect.”

So, through all of that, her dignity was revealed and her suffering was relieved. Jesus showed that the way of God is not to some people worthy and some people unworthy. The way of God is not to practice religion and look good to others while oppressing workers, trampling the needy and bringing ruin to the poor of the land. No, the way of God is to care for all and to reveal the dignity and relieve the suffering of people some may consider to be unworthy.

Revealing dignity and relieving suffering is our way of life at Lord of the Streets. That’s our mission. “Reveal dignity and relieve suffering, through ministries and relationships with people facing homelessness.” As I said last week, that’s the mission for everyone who chooses to be a member of Lord of the Streets (and for everyone who chooses to be a partner and supporter of Lord of the Streets). That’s our mission in each of our lives, and that’s our mission as a church community. 

That mission is also how we can find faith and hope in today’s world. We strive to reveal one another’s dignity and to relieve one another’s suffering. That is the true life of our religion. Like Amos said, like Isaiah said, like Jesus said, revealing dignity and relieving suffering is how we show that we truly love God, that we live our religion. Recognizing all people as worthy of honor and respect, love and belonging, that’s how we find hope and faith in today’s world.

Who Cares Whose Daughter or Sister She Is?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 2, 2026
Proper 13, A
Isaiah 55:1-5
Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22
Matthew 14:13-21

Last week, I saw something really awful and disturbing. There were several of us talking together, three women, another man, and I. After a while, the other man had to go, and he said, “hugs all around.” He hugged each of the older women and me with a quick, friendly hug, and then he got to the third woman, who was younger, and the man obviously found her attractive. When he hugged her, she was trying for the side hug, not really knowing this person, and instead, he pulled her close, squeezing her body to his, rubbing her back, basically groping her with his body. She finally was able to push him away, and he left, looking very satisfied with himself. 

It was disgusting.

He felt good pulling her body against his. He probably felt like a man, except those weren’t the actions of a man, not a real man. Those weren’t even the actions of a little boy. Those were the actions of, I don’t know what, someone who has lost part of his humanity. He didn’t see this young woman as a person; he didn’t treat her as a person. He just saw her and treated her like a piece of meat, a play thing that he used just to get hard.

That’s the same attitude towards women as rape, using a woman’s body just to get hard, to feel good, to get your rocks off. I get that a hug is not the same as rape, but the difference is a matter of degree. The man who did this saw and treated this woman as a plaything for his physical enjoyment. Her humanity didn’t matter, and even though it was only a hug, that’s a huge problem, that her humanity didn’t matter.

What do we often hear in defending the humanity of women? “That’s someone’s sister or daughter.” That’s a problem. Who care’s whose daughter or she is? She is a woman, a human being in her own right. She has eternal value and worth all of her very own. See, if her value only matters because she is someone else’s daughter or sister, then she has no value of her own. Well, if she has no value of her own, then it’s that much easier for guys to do whatever they want.

Look at the woman in John 8, whom people were trying to murder because she was caught in the act of adultery. What about the guy? They were all fine murdering the woman whose worth only counted as someone else’s, while the man, yeah, he got off scot-free. 

If we don’t truly value every human being as having eternal value all on their own, then we’re going to continue raping and killing each other just so we can feel better, or we’re going to do things like full-body groping people just to feel a little juiced, a little sexed up.

We’re going to continue to be disgusting with one another, if we don’t truly accept and believe that every single human being ever has eternal value all on their own.

I do mean “we” are going to continue to be disgusting with one another, because it wasn’t just this one guy devaluing and groping this one woman. What he did, we all do in various ways with one another. I’d guess most every guy in this room has at some point devalued a woman and seen her just as an object of lust. I’d guess a lot of the guys in this room have held on just a little bit long, wanting to feel the woman’s body against theirs, whether the woman wanted that or not. 

Disgusting behavior is, of course, not only something men do. Women also can see men as just pieces of meat, and everybody can treat others terribly. Every one of us has at some point devalued another person and treated them just as some thing, whether as an annoying thing or as an object of some kind of desire or way to get what we want. We use one another in a thousand different ways. We lie to one another. We cheat and steal from one another. We hurt one another, all in order to feel better in some way or to get something we desire. In all of these ways, we treat people as things, not as beloved human beings with eternal value.

In this way, we fill our lives with the hurt of others. We feed off of each other’s hurt. It doesn’t really help us, not for very long. The guy with the disgusting, groping hug felt better for a couple seconds, but he had just caused harm to someone else and hadn’t done anything to truly feed his soul. 

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” Isaiah asks. “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”

Of course, the food Isaiah is talking about is fulfilling the covenant that the people of Israel had with God. Stop chasing after foreign gods. Stop cheating one another and using one another just to get what you want. That is all food that does not satisfy. Instead, Isaiah was reminding the people to love God to love one another, to eat the food which does satisfy by following the ways of life that God had given them.

We talked about this during Bible study last Thursday, looking at the kind of spiritual food we eat. There is the food which does not satisfy, things like sexual immorality which I’ve mentioned a lot today; there is also the unsatisfying food of anger, jealousy, fighting, drunkenness and drug use, unforgiveness, and so many more things like that. Boy, those things sure taste good at first, but we are left feeling bad, wanting ever more just to keep feeling worse.

The fruit of the Spirit, on the other hand, is the food which does satisfy: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are all good, rich foods which will sustain and heal us. Like most good food, it requires some work actually to eat the fruits of the Spirit.

See, the food which doesn’t satisfy, the anger and lust and all that requires no effort. If we just go through our day and wait long enough, something is going to make us angry, or lustful, or whatever else. It’s like eating a bag of chips: easy, fast; you tear it open and chow down. 

The fruit of the Spirit is like good food which requires some time to prepare, like cooking a good meal. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We work at these things. Being led by the Spirit, eating the fruits of the Spirit means putting in the work to cultivate and prepare that good food. 

If we’re angry and want love, joy, and peace, then we need to take the time to offer our anger to God. We need to trust that any vengeance that needs to be taken will be taken by God, rather than trusting our own hand for vengeance. Time in prayer, time learning rules of a way of life that God has taught, and time practicing that way of life that God has taught, that’s some of the preparation needed to be guided by the Spirit. 

Treating people as full human beings with eternal value takes work. Taking a full-body, groping hug from someone, doing whatever we want to one another to get hard and feel good, that takes no work at all. We just have to let our base, animal desires take over and lose a bit of our humanity. Then we can eat all of that spiritual junk food we want, losing more and more of our humanity with every bite, or we can do the work needed to be real men and real women. We can do the work needed to be led by the Spirit and eat the fruit of the Spirit. We can gain more of our humanity and be healed with every bite. Choosing a life of Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we can eat food which does satisfy and spend our lives on the true bread which comes from heaven, Jesus our Lord.

You Aren't Taking this Seriously Enough...And Don't Forget to Smile

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
July 19, 2026
Proper 11, A
Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19
Psalm 86:11-17
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Did you notice that in Jesus’ parable of God’s kingdom here on earth, there was no separation between the righteous and the unrighteous? The church wasn’t separated from the world. The people of the church didn’t isolate themselves from those they thought were too sinful, or not good enough, or impure. When churches do try to isolate themselves from everyone else outside the church, they miss an essential piece of God’s kingdom here on earth. God’s kingdom is lived out among all of us together, the wheat and the weeds, the good and the bad, the righteous and the unrighteous. Welcome to Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat.

Of course, you’ve also got to notice that the wheat and the weeds weren’t the ones separating each other out declaring who was righteous and who was unrighteous. That was done by angels at the end of the ages, and we know from other teachings of Jesus that Jesus will be the one who judges us as righteous or unrighteous. 

So, to anyone who has ever been told you aren’t good enough to belong to a church, or anyone who has been told you are too sinful to be able to be a part of a church, I present to you Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat. We aren’t meant to separate out the unrighteous from the church and leave only the righteous people in the church. 

When we do, we end up with things like the Salem Witch Trials and the Spanish Inquisition; people die when we end up declaring “only the righteous may stay and the unrighteous must leave.” 

I think in modern times of so many gay kids who have been kicked out of their churches for being gay, and then kicked out of their families for being gay, and then ended up killing themselves because everyone they loved had rejected them and told them they were weeds, good for nothing but destruction, and of course there are countless others who have been rejected by various parts of the church for not being righteous enough. Jesus said that people’s lives were on the line when they tried to pull the weeds out from among the wheat, and we know from our lived experiences in the church that Jesus was right.

In addition to the sometimes life or death decisions of telling people they don’t belong in the church, we have the little problem that if you want to uproot someone and have them gone from the church, remember, there is probably someone else who feels the same way about you. So, as the church, we are meant to be the wheat and the weeds living together, and even though we do try to help each other in living in loving ways, in not harming each other so much, even though we may say things like, “No, you can’t shout and fight with people in the church,” we don’t declare who are the weeds and who are the wheat. We do get to say things like, “You need to go away for a while because of your behavior,” but we also get to say, “You can come back.”

Monty Python - No One Expects ths Spanish Inquisition

Of course, it is certainly easier to feel safe when we get to declare who’s in and who’s out. I’m safe from God’s judgement so long as I’m in, and I know I get to be in so long as they’re out. When we start making these determinations, however, we end up turning God into ourselves. So, let’s look at what scripture says about the God who judges us as wheat and weeds.

In the Wisdom of Solomon, we’ve got this image of God who judges justly and mildly, who gives hope through repentance for sins. We’ve also got this image in Matthew of God burning all evildoers and causes of sin in a furnace of fire. How do we reconcile these images of justice and mild justice, with repentance of sins, and burning fire? How can God have justice and mercy? How can God have judgment and forgiveness?

Usually in the church, we’ve come up with very clear, easily definable answers to these questions. Some have said God’s justice is for those who aren’t Christian (or the right kind of Christian), and God’s mercy is for those who are Christian (or the right kind of Christian). That’s kinda lovely, I guess. It certainly makes the math really easy. Unfortunately, if God’s justice is only for those other people, then we aren’t taking God’s justice seriously. If God’s mercy is only for us and those who believe just like us, then we aren’t taking God’s mercy seriously. This has been our challenge for around 1,700 years. 

Around that time, around 1700 years ago, much of the church fearfully decided to follow certainty in their beliefs about who gets God’s judgment and who gets God’s mercy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the church decided that people who were a part of the church got the mercy and people who weren’t a part of the church got the judgment. They used grand theological concepts to support their fearful assurance of God’s mercy towards them, concepts like election and predestination, and none of that took God’s justice or mercy seriously because all of those things gave us assurance of salvation and gave them, those outside the church, assurance of damnation. 

What we hear from Jesus is more complicated. What if instead of easy answers with bows tied around them, we took seriously both God’s justice and God’s mercy for all people?

We all have sin, and we all do evil. So that puts us on the burned up side the Jesus’ parable. We also all have righteousness and love, so that puts us on the shining in God’s kingdom side of Jesus’ parable. So, rather that fearfully deciding who gets God’s punishment and who gets God’s mercy, how about we put our trust in the one who judges? 

Jesus will be our judge, the one who welcomes sinners and guides them into a new life. Jesus will be our judge, the one who has no time for our self-righteous judgments of others. Jesus will be our judge, the one who said, let not your sin keep you from approaching God, but rather come humbly before God and be healed.

If any think that because they believe in Jesus, they are now wheat, and any who do not believe in Jesus are pure weed, people who think that need to stop fooling themselves. We’re told in the Wisdom of Solomon that, “God’s strength is the source of righteousness.” That means we all have plenty of righteousness in us, of course we do. Sorry to Augustine and Calvin, who really liked the who’s in/who’s out theological systems, but we are not totally depraved with no goodness within us. 

Of course we have goodness within us! God made us and declared us very good! Sure, we screw up, but that doesn’t destroy all goodness within us. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden didn’t destroy all goodness within us, and passages of scripture which indicate that they did are misunderstood and read out of context. There is plenty that is good in all humans. There is lots of good in non-Christians, and as much as Augustine or Calvin may say that non-Christians’ good works are hated by God because they don’t believe in Jesus, scripture tells a different story. Heck, just not being an idiot tells a different story.

Jesus said that at the end of the age, he’ll talk to all the people throughout the earth, folks who believe in him and folks who don’t, and he’ll say to some of them, thanks y’all for being kind and loving towards others, when you did that them, you did it to me; welcome into God’s eternal kingdom. That’s in Matthew 25. The love they showed to others is greater even than whatever faith they may or may not have had. So it’s great if we believe in Jesus, but if we don’t have love of others, our faith is meaningless. That’s in 1 Corinthians 13. So, what does God really want from us? Justice. Mercy. Kindness. Caring for others. Walking humbly with God in our lives, and we all have that ability in us. That’s in pretty much all of the prophets.

So yeah, there’s a huge amount of goodness in all humans. 

There is also plenty that is pretty darn broken and harmful in all humans. Of course there is. We get hurt. We get traumatized, and our brains react in ways that harm others, who then get hurt and traumatized, and the whole cycle just keeps on going. We have goodness within us, and we have evil within us. Welcome to Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat. 

So, what are we to do? We are to grow together. We are to love one another as best we can and seek to help one another heal. We are to trust in Jesus and seek strength and healing from him. 

Sometimes we do have to have someone go away for a while, but that is always meant for healing, with an invitation to return. What we don’t get to do is declare who are the weeds and who are the wheat. We don’t get to kick out those evil ones, assuming that we’re the righteous ones. The folks who did those things never had Jesus’ backing. In fact, what we find over and over in scripture is that the weeds the righteous kicked out were the one Jesus had mercy on. Welcome to Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat.

"If You Want to Be Who You Want to Be, You Have to Give Up Who You Are."

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
July 12, 2026
Proper 10, A
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

What is the soil of your heart like? Can it receive and live the Kingdom of God here on earth? Jesus told a parable of the one who scatters seeds of the Kingdom of God. Depending on the condition of people’s hearts, they would receive and live the Kingdom of God here on earth, or they would not. 

The Kingdom of God here on earth is a life of faith and hope, trusting in God’s grace and love for us, trusting in God’s grace and love for every single person, ever. We believe that we are loved by God. We believe that we are forgiven by God. We believe that even after we die, will continue to live forever with God in God’s eternal Kingdom. 

So, with that faith and hope, Jesus teaches us to live the Kingdom of God in our lives on earth. Forgive people who wrong you, even if they don’t deserve it. Work to heal any damage you’ve done to others. Love those who love you, and love those who hate you. Rather than fight against a world that is full of problems, accept the things you cannot change, and lovingly live to help heal the things you can. Faith and hope build up the Kingdom of God, and they are built on the foundation of love.

In the parable Jesus told, he is constantly scattering the seed of that kingdom of faith and hope, built on the foundation of love, and as he scatters that seed, some people really don’t get it, just don’t understand. Their hearts don’t understand. Their hearts just can’t grasp the idea of a life of love, forgiveness, and service to others built with faith and hope. So, the idea of living God’s Kingdom of faith, hope, and love, is gone almost as soon as they hear it. 

As Jesus scatters the seed of God’s Kingdom, some love the idea, and they really want to start living a life of faith and hope. Other people they know, however think it sounds stupid and weak, and they mock them for such soft beliefs. So, they give up on the Kingdom of God because their hearts weren’t ready to live it without the total support of others around them.

Then, Jesus said there are some who receive the seed of the Kingdom of God, but they want power, wealth, and stuff instead. They put their trust in their own power; they want control over the world and the lives of the people around them. They don’t want to serve and heal the world, rather they want to force the world to be the way they want it to be. They may have a lot of money and power, or they only have a little bit of money and power, but either way, they want they everything to go their way, and so they reject the Kingdom of God to make the kingdom of themselves. They cause harm, so much harm to those around them, near and far.

Then, Jesus said there are some who receive the seeds of the Kingdom of God and they truly accept it. They choose to live a life of faith and hope, built on the foundation of love. These are the peacemakers, the merciful. These are the pure in heart, the meek, the poor in spirit. These are the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the ones who mourn, the ones who may even be rejected and ridiculed for their way of faith, hope, and love.

When rejected and ridiculed, the ones who truly live the Kingdom of God don’t turn to their own power. They don’t turn to anger or rage. They offer their difficulties up to God, they accept what they cannot change, and they seek God’s strength to continue living a life of faith and hope as part of something bigger than themselves. 

When we see people shot on the Metro right beside us, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. 

When we hear of people being chased in ordinary looking cars and then shot by people claiming to be police, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. 

When we feel like we keep getting knocked down over and over again, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. 

When we have given up and decide to do whatever we can to numb and feel better, we turn back again, we offer our fear to God, we leave rage alone, and we seek God’s strength not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. 

The seeds of God’s Kingdom are scattered over and over throughout our lives, and sometimes the conditions of our hearts aren’t able to receive them. So, we work on the condition of our hearts. We work to make the soil of our hearts ready to receive and live God’s Kingdom of faith, hope, and love. 

So, I’m going to sing a song by Guy Forsyth called, “Leave Me Alone.” It’s about a guy who wants to just be left alone, except that he actually desperately wants not to be alone. Maybe he’s been overcome by pain and hurt in his life, we don’t know, but we find in the end that he desperately desires to change so that he won’t always be alone.

Leave Me Alone - Words and Music by Guy Forsyth

https://www.guyforsyth.com/ (Sung with permission)

I’m all alone now, they’ve all gone upstairs.

I’m on my own now, except for the tables and the chairs.

Guess that’s what I wanted, you know I tried hard enough,

To make them leave me alone.

It used to scare me, now I crave it.

I keep joking about taking off to London.

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

If I could, I would. I want to go, to go away,

To make them leave me alone. 

 

They all danced so well tonight,

Spinning cartwheels ‘round the moon.

I didn’t even have the strength to move my legs.

I didn’t even catch the tune.

If you want to be who you want to be,

You have to give up who you are.

Lie with your love, love with a laugh,

Laugh with a lie, life to your love.

Don’t let them see which one is me,

Or they will leave me alone.

Leave me alone.

When we find we want God’s kingdom and we just can’t seem to live it, we just can’t seem to receive the seeds of God’s kingdom, then we find we must give up who we are in order to be who we want to be. That’s resurrection. That’s Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 16:25, that, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” 

“If you want to be who you want to be, you have to give up who you are.” If you want to live God’s kingdom, but you just can’t seem to receive the seeds of God’s kingdom, then it’s time to turn around, to give up who you are and ask God to take control and guide you into who God wants you to be, and like in the song, that work is not done alone. We can’t become who we want to be, living God’s kingdom of faith, hope, and love, and be left alone. We join with our church and others in our church to live the life of God’s kingdom together, becoming merciful peacemakers, pure in heart, meek, poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, even as we mourn, even if we are rejected or ridiculed for our way of faith, hope, and love. We live the kingdom of God with others, dancing so well together, spinning cartwheels ‘round the moon.