Giving Thanks: Topsoil, Rain, Bread of Life

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

November 26, 2025

Thanksgiving

Deuteronomy 6:1-11

Psalm 100

John 6:25-35

When the people of Israel came into the promised land after they had been freed from slavery in Egypt, God commanded them to take the first fruits of the food they were growing, and bring them to the altar of God to be given as an offering of thanksgiving. This offering was a reminder that God had been with the people from the beginning and that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt so that they could be a light to the nations. The offering also reminded the people that God gave the growth to their crops, so they were to give thanks to God from whom all life flows. The people planted and tended their crops, and God gave the soil and brought the rain so the crops could grow.

Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey once noted that “despite all our many accomplishments, we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.” If there were no plants on the earth, there would be no animals. If humans could not grow fruits, and vegetables, and grains, we would all die. So, we do indeed owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. 

Giving thanks for the simple fact of food helps ground us because when we don’t give thanks, we tend to take things for granted. We don’t notice any of the blessings around us, and when we no longer notice blessings, we tend to fall into despair. If there’s nothing for which to be grateful, well then there’s nothing good in the world, and if there’s nothing good, well then everything is bad. 

What do we do with the bad stuff in our lives? We tend not to like it that much, and we end up contemptuous and resentful of all the bad things in our lives. So, when we stop giving thanks, we tend to become contemptuous and resentful of everything in our life, even the good things. 

It seems God really knew what he was doing when he told the people of Israel to give thanks for the first fruits of the harvest each year. Remain grateful so that you can remain joyful. Remain grateful so that you notice the blessings around you and don’t fall into despair.

There is also something particularly healing about being grateful for food, and I think it is this: food comes from the ground, from the earth, which is where we come from. We are connected to our food because we are connected to the earth. 

When the people of Israel were wandering in the desert, God gave them manna to eat. It rained down from the heavens and the people gathered it every morning. It was described as the bread of angels. That’s pretty fantastic that God gave the people angelic food, and they didn’t even have to work for it. Every morning it just appeared, and the people quickly came to hate it.

Ok, on the one hand, guys, just be grateful. On the other hand, I think they grew to hate the bread of angels because it wasn’t from this world. They weren’t as connected to the manna as they were to the fruits of the ground. 

There is something about real food that connects us to the earth and to each other. Meals eaten together connect our families and communities. Those meals, that food, connects us back to the earth, that six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. Those meals then, that food, helps remind us of our connection to God from whom all life flows and from whom all love flows.

God loves us so much that he thought becoming human sounded like a pretty neat idea, so that God is connected physically to us, just as we are connected physically to the earth. Our sustenance, our food, is not only the physical food that comes from the earth, but also the physical connection to God which comes from Jesus.

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Never be hungry and never be thirsty, Jesus said, even when we mess up, even when we turn away from Jesus, because we always get to turn back. 

Jesus said that our work, the work which will bring us the bread of life, is to believe in Jesus. Well, that work that Jesus would have us do means believing in all of his life, and his teachings, and his death, and his resurrection. 

Last Sunday, we heard about Jesus’ death in his crucifixion, calling out “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Forgive them for killing the bread of life. That’s love, right there, God’s great love for us. Not only did God give us six inches of topsoil and rain so that we can eat the physical food of this earth, God gave us the bread of life, the physical connection between us and God. In Jesus, God gave us a physical connection with God’s own eternal life, and when humanity tried to kill that physical connection between us and God, Jesus said, “Father forgive them.”

We can’t do enough bad to sever God’s connection with us in Jesus, and we know this because of Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection tells us that God doesn’t give up on us, even when we give up on God. As a friend of mine, the Reverend Pete Nunnally said, “Even though we tried to kill God, God came back to us.”

That is the bread of everlasting life which we eat by believing, and we let that belief be real enough to change our lives. 

“Do not work for the food that perishes,” Jesus said. Do not work, and strive, and fight just for things that’ll help you feel better for a moment or two. The next bit of cush will make you feel better for a short while, but it will also drain you of life. The next drunk will help you not care for a time, but it will also drive people away from you and make them push you away. 

The police are making the rounds more and more on the streets of midtown, moving people off the sidewalks, removing people’s belongings, and forcing people to leave the area. On the one hand, it kinda sucks to take someone who has no place to live and force them to go away to somewhere else. On the other hand, when folks are using drugs, getting drunk and high, threatening men and harassing women so they no longer feel safe coming to church here, who could blame the police for making people move on?

I don’t say this to condemn, because as a recovering alcoholic myself, I truly do understand the pull and the chains of addiction. I understand using something to feel better and feeling like that thing will fill the hunger. I also understand how addiction harms one’s behavior, and I understand how addiction leads to anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness. 

I understand trying to fill a hunger with food that doesn’t satisfy, “food that perishes,” Jesus said, and I understand how dark life can be. I also believe that the true hunger we feel is not just to feel better. The true hunger we feel is for eternal life. The true hunger we feel is for connection with God and one another. The true hunger we feel is for love and belonging. 

So, today I offer again what God has given us to fill our hunger, the bread of life which is Jesus. God became human to connect us physically with God’s own eternal life, and not even death Jesus’ death on the cross could sever that connection. “Even though we tried to kill God, God came back to us.” 

No matter how often we turn away, God always invites us back. So for us, the antidote to our anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness is not numbing out with food that perishes. The healing for our anger, resentment, fear, and hopelessness comes from the bread of life, and working for that bread, believing in Jesus. Our healing comes from believing in Jesus’ teaching and ways. Our healing comes from believing that Jesus is the eternal life of God joined physically, and our healing comes from letting that belief be real enough to change our lives. 

So, on this day of giving thanks, we remember God’s gifts, and we remember the gift of gratitude itself, because without gratitude, we stop noticing the blessings around us, and we fall into despair. We give thanks today for the food of the earth, for that six inches of top soil and the fact that it rains, connecting our lives physically to creation. We give thanks for the bread of life. We give thanks for that physical connection to God’s eternal life, Jesus, whom we tried to kill and who came back to let us know that nothing can separate us from God’s great love for us and God’s eternal life.

Of Journeys and Justice: Staying the Course In Discipleship

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church

August 16, 2023
Proper 10, Year A
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65: (1-8), 9-14
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Of Journeys and Justice: Staying the Course In Discipleship

Twelve years before being arrested for sitting in the whites only section of a bus, Rosa Parks was already working for civil rights. After she was arrested, it would then be another nine years before most racial segregation was made illegal with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Another year for the Voting Rights Act, and then three more years before the Fair Housing Act.

For 25 years and more, Rosa Parks was striving for civil rights, and it was over 20 years before she saw large-scale, national results. The same is true for countless civil rights leaders and workers who still continue on to this day. They were and have been committed to the cause, and they changed the world.

Imagine if Rosa parks had given up after 12 years, finally deciding, “To heck with it. Bus driver tells me to move, I’ll move.” The world would not have changed the way it did. She was committed to the cause, and despite setbacks and discouragement along the way, she stayed committed to the cause of civil rights. She didn’t get excited for a while and then quit. She didn’t get distracted or give in because it was difficult. She stayed and changed the world for the better.

That’s the kind of discipleship Jesus is talking about in the parable he told in our Gospel reading today.

Jesus’ parable was about a guy spreading seeds to get plants to grow, and he was just tossing the seed about, and when it landed on good soil, it grew and produced a huge harvest. Jesus said that the seed was the word. If we think of that as the Word of God, then the seed is Jesus. The seed of Jesus has been cast, and when it lands on good soil, it produces a huge harvest.

Now, I’ve often heard and thought of this parable as being about how each individual receives Jesus. If our hearts are in the right condition, meaning the soil is good, then we receive Jesus and we gain great faith in him.

I think there is truth in that understanding, and another understanding is that the growth of the seeds is about our discipleship. When our hearts are in a good place, when the soil is good, then we become committed in our discipleship, and from that discipleship, even more disciples are grown or raised up. As the group of committed disciples grows, then the ways of Jesus grow stronger in the world. As the group of committed disciples grows, the way of healing grows. The way of peace grows. As the group of committed disciples grows, the way of love and compassion grows.

Of course, as Jesus told the parable, a lot of the seed falls on poor soil, or is snatched away, or is choaked out by other things. Think about starting to grow as a disciple of Jesus, and the ways of Jesus start conflicting with ways of life we’re used to. Jesus said bless you enemies, and we’re often used to cursing our enemies and trying to get back at them. Think about when that conflict comes, and we just go with what we’re used to. We strike back at our enemies, and our discipleship of Jesus is diminished. Our commitment to Jesus’ ways starts to fade.

What about when we are following in Jesus’ ways, and things don’t get better all that quickly? Our lives haven’t changed dramatically for the better right away, and the world around us certainly hasn’t gotten miraculously better just because we’ve started following as a disciple of Jesus. Think about when things don’t get noticeably better fast enough, and so we quit. Nothing really changes, there is no great harvest, and even 20 years later, there is still no huge, societal change for the better. That’s like the seed that falls on the rocky path. We get excited about Jesus and the gospel, but that excitement doesn’t last long, and we’re quickly back to just how we were before.

That’s how things would have been for the Civil Rights Movement, if Rosa Parks and others had quit even several years into their work because they just weren’t seeing changes come fast enough. Remember, it was twenty years of work by Mrs. Parks before she saw change on a national scale.

Twenty years of staying the course with only modest gains to show for it. At the same time, those twenty years brought forth a huge harvest of other people who became fully committed to the cause of Civil Rights. If Mrs. Parks had been lukewarm in her commitment and work, the movement wouldn’t have grown. Others would not have joined. There would have been no great harvest.

When Jesus told his parable of the sower and the seeds, he was encouraging his disciples to stay committed to their discipleship, to stay committed to their faith, to stay committed to the ways and teachings of Jesus. He was telling his disciples that if they stayed committed to their discipleship, then they would help grow more disciples, and amazing, world-altering things would happen.

What are our hopes and dreams for our lives and for the world around us? How about less violence and theft? How about justice in economic practices so that people aren’t forced out of their housing, just so investors can make some easy money? How about people loving and caring for one another, more than just looking out for self-interest?

I’d say we’ve got a ways to go on those things, those kinds of changes for the better can happen. Our part is to stay committed to the ways of Jesus, to stay committed as his disciples. When we do that, God brings forth growth far more than we can imagine. As we stay fully committed disciples of Jesus, changing our lives to live as he taught, God brings forth growth of even more fully committed disciples, and the changes for the better start to happen.

Like with the Civil Rights Movement, it takes time, decades, even, and lukewarm discipleship or giving up when it is difficult or it isn’t going fast enough isn’t going to make and change or grow any fruit. Changing our lives to follow Jesus’ teachings and way, and then fully committing, with God’s help, God can bring forth God’s kingdom on earth. Fully committing as disciples of Jesus can produce world-altering fruit in our lives and in all of society around us. So, despite hardships, discouragement, temptations all around, we stay the course as Jesus’ disciples, and God brings forth an enormous harvest.