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.

Prisoners of Hope

Brad Sullivan

1 Advent, Year C

December 2, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Psalm 25:1-9

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Luke 21:25-36

Prisoners of Hope

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly.”  Happy Advent everyone.  Here at the beginning of the church year, we have Jesus talking about what almost sounds like a doomsday scenario.  Be on guard, guys, because it’s gonna get bad, then it’s gonna get worse, then the Son of Man is going to come, and you’ll really have to watch out.

That’s not what’s going on here.  “That day,” Jesus said.   “Be on guard…[lest] that day catch you unexpectedly.”  They day he was referring to was the day of the son of man, an allusion to Daniel chapter 7.  The son of man, or one like a son of man, or a regular dude, (depending on how you interpret the words of Daniel), a regular dude is going to come with the clouds of heaven, and he is going to lead the people of Israel, and from then on, the people of Israel will be honored and praised by all the world, and all nations will look to Israel for peace and justice and the way of God throughout the earth. 

This was Daniel 7:13-14, after the first twelve verses of Daniel 7 described four terrible kingdoms of the earth rising up and wreaking havoc on Israel.  So, four kingdoms of the earth, followed by a kingdom whose origin is from God, a divinely ordained and ordered kingdom for God’s people, Israel.

That hasn’t happened yet.  If we’re looking for historical cognates to the four kingdoms mentioned in Daniel, there are plenty of contenders like Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, but the point of Daniel’s vision is less about particular historical cognates, and more about God’s restoration of Israel after and even through destruction. 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,” Jesus said.  Remember Daniel’s vision?  Yes, dark days are coming, and God will be with us in and through those dark days, and afterwards, we will be restored.  “When I am killed,” Jesus was saying, “when Rome sacks Israel, when the temple is destroyed, do not become prisoners of despair, weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.”

Don’t become prisoners of despair during the dark times.  Whether it’s Rome sacking Israel, Harvey sacking Houston, the Camp Fire sacking northern California, we have no lack of dark times.  We’ve got distress among the nations, roaring of the seas, fires, floods, we’ve definitely got fear and foreboding.  We’ve got plenty of reasons to numb ourselves.  That’ really what Jesus is talking about, being weighed down by dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.  Numbing.  Numbing out so the worries of this life seem muted, or at least for a little while, we don’t have to care as much.  Jesus is warning against responding to the worries of this life with dissipation and drunkenness. 

Don’t be prisoners of despair.  Be on guard lest you numb out and spend your life in frivolous amusement, wasteful expenditures, dissolute living…basically a lot of excess and pleasure seeking in order to numb out and avoid the darkness and worries of life. 

Almost everyone numbs in one way or another to avoid or to get a temporary reprieve from the darkness and despair and worry of so much going on around us.  We all numb out in one way or another, but don’t become prisoners of despair, Jesus taught.

Instead, Jesus taught, be prisoners of hope.  This idea of prisoners of hope comes from Zechariah 9:12, and I am completely stealing this idea from Rabbi Annie’s sermon last month during the Shabbat for Solidarity.  Become prisoners of hope.

Jesus knew he was going to die.  He knew the Temple would be destroyed and his people would be scattered to the ends of the earth.  He was acutely aware of the darkness and hardships around him, and he knew things were going to get worse, and yet he remained a prisoner of hope. 

Remember Daniel’s vision, guys.  Remember that one day, God’s kingdom will be fully lived out with Israel at the helm.  Remember the brightness of the future which casts out all the darkness of the present.  Remember, and be prisoners of hope. 

Love deeply.  Party with your friends, and enjoy life, that’s what Jesus did.  Honor and respect yourself and those around you.  Be faithful and true to who you are and who you want to be.    Serve others when they are in need, and let others serve you when you are in need.  Spend lots of time in prayer.

Jesus was constantly reconnecting himself to God through prayer.  He got overcome by the darkness of the world, just like we do, and so he spent a huge amount of time reconnecting to the light of God through prayer. 

As a people, we’re re-learning how to reconnect to the light of God through prayer with ancient practices like centering prayer and meditation.  A group meets here at Temple Sinai on Thursdays at 5:00 for Centering Prayer.  Bible Prayer groups are beginning to meet to pray though passages of scripture and to let the Spirit of God speak through the scriptures.  Groups of people are meeting for prayer in online communities when work and travel and distance won’t allow them to meet together in person. 

Praying the hours is becoming cool again.  Early in the life of the church, folks were becoming overwhelmed by the fast pace of life and the constant demands of their time and attention by second and third century society.  So, monastic communities began forming as folks left the cities to devote themselves to quieter lives of prayer, and far from drudgery, lives of service and prayer gave light, life, and joy to those who had been weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.  Nowadays, we find a new interest in monasticism in which people don’t have to become monks and nuns but continue to live their regular lives and also join with monastics in lives of service and prayer.  More and more folks are choosing to become prisoners of hope.  Morning, noon, evening, and night, we Episcopalians pray as prisoners of hope.  Even those four hours of prayer come from monastic roots, from people no longer wanting to be weighed down by numbing the worries of this life away through dissipation and drunkenness. 

Continual prayer and reconnecting to the light of God.  Serving others in need and allowing others to serve us when we’re in need.  Partying with friends and enjoying life while honoring and respecting ourselves and those around us.  Love deeply.  These are the ways Jesus lived as a prisoner of hope, and how Jesus taught us to be prisoners of hope. 

Restoration is coming from God.  That is our hope.  In little ways every day, God is restoring creation in and through us.  One day, God will restore all of creation with Israel at the helm.  So do not numb out.  Do not be weighed down by dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life as prisoners of despair.  Instead, love deeply as prisoners of hope. 

The Families of the Earth Can Be Blessed Through You

Brad Sullivan

2 Epiphany, Year B

January 14, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

John 1:43-51

The Families of the Earth Can Be Blessed Through You

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  I love this question of Nathanael’s partly because it appeals to my snarky side, and also because the obvious answer is supposed to be “no.”  Nazareth was a Podunk little sparrow fart town.  The messiah was not supposed to come from there, and further, at least in Nathanael’s mind nothing good could come from such a crummy place.  Nathanael would have rather written off Jesus and anyone from Nazareth.  Let’s leave those people there, and go on and hope for the messiah to come from somewhere important.  God just wasn’t playing Nathanael’s little game of making sure things looked good enough on the outside to stroke his ego.  “Sorry Nate,” God said.  “I know you want to be associated with a Messiah from somewhere awesome, but I’m not here to inflate your sense of self importance.  I’m here to bring about my kingdom of love, grace, and truth, and that includes places like Nazareth, and other little sparrow fart town and countries.”

When we get tied up in the place, the location where greatness is supposed to be, where we think God is supposed to be, God just says, “Oh you silly humans; I’m not in any one place.  I’m in all places, and like the Psalm says, even and especially with those people and places whom you often deem too lowly to matter.”  So while the obvious answer is “no, nothing good can come from the proverbial Nazareth,” God’s response is “come and see.”

Nathanael reluctantly does, “Fine, we’ll go see your crummy Messiah,” and Jesus tells him something pretty huge.  First he convinces him that he is someone worth hanging around and listening to, and then he tells Nathanael, “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

This is of course alluding to Jacob’s ladder, the story in Genesis where Jacob (who would later be renamed Israel) was sleeping outside and he had a dream of the heaven’s opened up and the angels of God ascending and descending upon a ladder to heaven.  In the dream, God spoke to Jacob and told him,

all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.  Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’  Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’  And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’

This promise of God indeed came to pass.  Jacob was renamed Israel, and from him and his children came the people of Israel, the laws and ways of God, the prophets, and Jesus himself.  So, when Jesus told Nathanael “You will see heaven opened and the angles of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man,” he was telling Nathanael that families of the earth shall be blessed in you and your offspring (children, disciples, people whom you will teach about me and my ways).  “You, Nathanael, can be like a new Jacob.  God’s mission of healing humanity, of reconciliation to each other and to God can be lived out through you, Nathanael, and not only that, families of the earth will be blessed through you and through those who come after you.  Through you, Nathanael,” Jesus was saying, “the salvation that I offer, the life of God’s love, grace, and truth, can be known and lived and passed on to others, and families of the earth will be blessed through you and through those who come after you.”

You may notice, however, that there aren’t too many St. Nate churches.  “Through you, Nathanael, families of the earth will be blessed,” and yet we hear very little about Nathanael after this.  Most of what he did was not recorded in the pages of history, and yet through this seemingly unimportant man, families of the earth were blessed.  Like Nathanael, most of our names will not be written in the stars or even in the pages of history, and yet, the families of the earth can be blessed through each of us.  We can all be like a new Jacob, people of the earth blessed through us and those who come after us, as we live out Jesus’ ways and share with them his kingdom of love, grace, and truth.

Further, the kingdom of God can indeed come from Nazareth, or any other sparrow fart nothing of a place because God does not dwell only in one place, like the place where Jacob was.  Indeed, the dwelling place of God was in Jesus himself, with the angels ascending and descending on him.  The dwelling place of God is within all of creation and within humanity itself:  you, me, the important people from great places, and the lowly schlebs from sparrow far places like Nazareth and flooded out shells of buildings. 

We are Emmanuel, and God is with us.  God dwells with us and within us.  We can live out God’s kingdom of love, grace, and truth anywhere, and through us God can bless the people of West Houston and beyond to truly the ends of the earth.  As far as we can go and as many come to know and follow Jesus through us, God can bless the people of the earth. 

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  Can anything good come out of this little flooded out gathering of Jesus’ friends?  Come and see.

Trees, Fruit, and Small Woodland Creatures: The New Eden

Brad Sullivan

4 Easter, Year A

May 7, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Acts 2:42-47

John 10:1-10

Trees, Fruit, and Small Woodland Creatures: The New Eden

Jesus said, “All who came before me are thieves and bandits...The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  Those who came before Jesus were those who were seen as a messiah, an anointed one of God.  There was a messianic fervor in Jesus’ time, a great desire for one to arise who would be the messiah, the anointed one to drive Rome out of Israel and to lead Israel into a time of peace and prosperity, a time that would last forever.  They were wanting a new king over Israel as the messiah, the anointed one, because the anointed ones were the kings of Israel.  David, king David who slew Goliath was the second of these anointed ones, these kings.  David was seen as the greatest of all the kings of Israel, and by what Jesus said, he was a thief and bandit. 

See, God was not overly enamored of Israel’s desire to have a king rule over them.  God even warned Israel what would happen if they placed a king over themselves.  In 1 Samuel, God said to Israel that if you place a king over you, he will take your sons for his chariots and horsemen; your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.  He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive orchards to give to his friends; and 1/10 of your grain and vineyards to give to his officers and his friends.  He will take your servants and the best of your cattle, 1/10 of your flocks, and “you shall be his slaves.”

Now, being that the people of Israel thought things through about as well as we do, they said, “sounds great; sign us up!”  Now, some of the kings of Israel were pretty good, some were ok, and some were rancidly terrible, but they were all anointed ones, all messiahs.  They were all seen as the new savior of Israel, and according to Jesus, they were all thieves and bandits.  They made war.  They conquered and were conquered.  They took from the people in order to bring about their conquests, and they took from the people in order to live in the opulence fitting for a king.

Jesus did something different.  Jesus did not seek conquest.  He did not kill.  He did not take from his subjects in order to live like a king, instead he lived simply.  Jesus was anointed by God, the messiah, and he led his people by being the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.  Many people had wanted to raise Jesus up as their earthly king, as their earthly anointed messiah to lead a revolt against Rome, and he could have let them.  He could have chosen that; he had every right to, being, you know, God, but he didn’t.  Jesus chose instead to be killed, rather than have thousands or even millions be killed in order to drive Rome out for the sake of some insults, some hardships, and a building. 

That’s really what it came down to, right?  Rome ruled over Israel and collected taxes from them, usually taking more than they were supposed to.  Corruption abounded.  They began appointing the high priest over Israel, desecrated the Temple in various ways, stole from the temple, and heaped contempt upon contempt for the Jewish people and their religion.  Insults, hardships, and a building.  Jews began to radicalize amidst the oppression of Rome and the messianic fervor of the age, and in the year 66, the great revolt began against Rome.  The Jews rebelled and won their first couple of battles again Rome.  After that, things did not go well.  Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed fighting in the great revolt, and in the year 70, the Temple was destroyed by Rome.

Then in 132, the Bar-Kokhba revolt began.  Shimon Bar-Kokhba was yet another messianic figure who led a three year revolt against Rome.  This revolt cost hundreds of thousands of more Jewish lives and also ended in defeat.  All told, estimates are that over a million and a half Jews were killed in these two revolts, the Temple was destroyed, and in the year 135, the entire nation of Israel was destroyed, the people taken into slavery or forced to move elsewhere.

“The thief comes in only to steal and kill and destroy,” Jesus said.  The people of Israel followed thieves and bandits, and their lives were stolen from them.  Husbands and fathers became killers.  Men with livelihoods took up the sword and were killed.  Their whole way of life, indeed their entire nation, was destroyed. 

“I came that they may have life,” Jesus said, “and have [life] abundantly.”  The earliest disciples of Jesus followed a different path than the path laid out by the thieves and bandits who led Israel.  Jesus’ small band of disciples followed him as their shepherd, as the gate to fields of life abundant.  They followed in his ways.  When they were kicked out of the Synagogue, they did not argue that they deserved to be there, they simply met in people’s homes instead.  When Rome said they couldn’t meet in the temples of the Roman gods, they did not demand a right of worship, but met elsewhere.  They followed Jesus, the good shepherd, and God added daily to their numbers.  They were a people without a nation, a people of many nations, living wherever they were, following and believing in Jesus.  They didn’t have doctrine yet.  They didn’t have a set of beliefs about Jesus other than his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.  People followed him, believed in him and his way, and they received life, abundantly. 

Like the people of Israel, the earliest Christians were living under the corrupt and oppressive government of Rome which didn’t care one whit if any of them lived or died, but rather than fight that government, they banded together and provided for each other as there was need.  They cared about each other more than they cared about their stuff, and they cared about each other more than they cared about fighting against Rome.     

They were, as we read in Psalm 1, like trees planted by streams of living water.  I know, it’s a mixed metaphor, shepherds and trees, but we’ll go with it.  Trusting in Jesus, following in his ways, and banding together to care for one another, the earliest Christians became a forest fed and nurtured by the abundant life of Jesus.  Together, this forest had fruit in abundance, and they shared their fruit with others, even the small woodland creatures who were not a part of the forest, who did not work for their fruit.  They provided shade and fruit for these creatures living in their forest, and they and even let some make their homes in their branches, and these other creatures became trees as well, sharing in the abundant life of Jesus.  They were provided for by Jesus, by their trust and faith in him and in his ways, and they shared abundantly with others.  Now, men came with axes from time to time, the oppression of Rome, and this forest of the early church even shared abundantly with them.  Some of these men became part of the forest themselves.  Others of these men came and cut down some of the trees, but the forest remained and continued to have abundant life and to share life abundant, fed by the streams of living water of Jesus and his ways. 

This forest of the early church was the new Eden of Jesus.  That was Jesus’ kingdom.  That was the place where Jesus led his disciples, the new Eden, and the new Eden of Jesus and his way could happen in any kingdom of earth, in any place and in any time.  The people of Jesus’ way, of his movement, did not look for an earthly thief or bandit to lead them to steal what others had, to force their rights upon others, to kill, be killed, and destroy.  The people of Jesus’ way, his movement, looked to Jesus to lead them beside still waters, to be for them streams of living water so that they could be planted in any place and bring forth fruit and shade to care for those around them, to give to any as there was need.  That is life, the life abundant in the Jesus movement, life with Jesus as our shepherd. 

Looking at a modern example of a thriving church with life abundant, the church in China is in a similar place as the early church was.  The government of China is not overly enamored of Christianity, so while they allow it, they have state sponsored churches, led by earnest Christians, but regulated by the state.  Sounds a little like Israel under Rome, doesn’t it.  Rather than rebel against the government, however, many Christians in China are simply forming their own churches.  They are meeting in homes or other larger building that they own.  They aren’t demanding any rights from the government; they are just going ahead and meeting, being the church, and the government is letting them.  They come by and check the roles to know who is attending these unregistered churches, but without fighting, with no thieves and bandits to steal, kill, and destroy, these unregistered churches in China are thriving and growing.  They are becoming, like the early church, a forest planted by the streams of living water of Jesus and his ways.

Now some in this country still talk about Christianity being attacked by our government.  Rather than quibble about whether such oppression is true or untrue, I would say it is irrelevant.  Where the church thrives, it thrives not because a government allows it to.  The church thrives and becomes the new Eden whenever and wherever the people of the church follow Jesus, trust in him and his ways, and band together, caring for each other more than their rights as a church.  When the church follows Jesus and his ways, and when we band together and care for one another, we become the new Eden, a forest planted by streams of living water that thrives and has life abundantly.