"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.

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.