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.

Trusting in God, Neither Tame Nor Tidy

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets

June 16, 2024

Proper 7, Year B

Job 38:1-11

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

Mark 4:35-41

“The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’” (Job 38:1) Well, Job and Job’s friends were the ones who darkened counsel by words without knowledge. When things first went really badly for Job, his family had been killed, his land and livelihood destroyed, his friends sat quietly with him for days. At that point, they were being great friends. Then they stared opening their mouths, telling Job all the self-righteous platitudes that they knew. They kinda had to because without that, there wouldn’t have been a story. 

See, Job was written as a story meant to be told to give lessons. It’s probably not a true story. So, the story is set up with God and Satan, “The Adversary,” making a wager about whether or not Job, who was a righteous man, would curse God, if all he had was taken away. Satan figured he would, God figured he wouldn’t. This opening to the story shows right off the bat that the tragedy which happened to Job was not because he was sinful. He was absolutely righteous, and tragedy still struck him.

A prevailing thought among some religious folks is that if you’re bad, bad things are gonna happen to you, and if you’re good, good things are gonna happen to you. Right off the bat, the story of Job tells us that ain’t true. 

There was also the question of praising God, and why wouldn’t Job praise God? He’d been blessed beyond measure and never had the slightest reason not to praise God. In the end, with everything taken from him, Job didn’t curse God, but he did put God to the test. Job’s question was basically, “How could you possibly let this happen to me, God? Do you have any justice at all?”

With God’s reply, Job realized that his simplistic view of the world didn’t hold water. As Moshe Greenberg points out on the website, “MyJewishLearning.com,” Job had been so fortunate his whole life, he had never even considered why people who had suffered tragedy might praise God. Before tragedy struck him, Job had been right there with his friends claiming to understand God and God’s world. They all figured Job was blessed because he was righteous, and others who weren’t as blessed as Job were obviously less righteous than Job. Through Job’s experience of loss, Job, his friends, and we the readers see that the world is not so simple as good people are blessed and bad people are cursed. We are shown the fact that there are terrible things that happen to people, and it is not necessarily God’ will or the people’s fault that those tragedies happen. Bad things happen. Period. Through the story of Job, we’re able to face the reality that the world and God’s actions in the world are far more complex than we like to imagine. 

God’s favor is not always seen in life going well. Tragedy is not understood as God’s punishment for sin. We might shouldn’t boast too greatly about our knowledge of how exactly God works in this world, lest like Job and his friends, we darken counsel by words without knowledge. 

As I’ve said before, our brains crave certainty and for things to fit in nice, tidy categories, with everything making easy, understandable, rational sense. Unfortunately for our poor little brains, God doesn’t tend to fit into our comfortable little boxes of easy, understandable rationality. We want God tame and tidy, and God just isn’t tame and tidy.

So, here are some of the tame and tidy platitudes we like to use for God. “Something bad or good happened because God needed it to happen.” “They were bad, so God was judging them.” “God has a reason he put you through that tragedy.” “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” 

All of these platitudes point to some aspects of truth about God that we’re given in scripture, and all of these platitudes are darkening counsel by words without knowledge. These simple statements we use to define how God works in the world are ways we try to make sense of our world and try to make sense of God. Unfortunately, these platitudes are also ways we try to control God, to keep God tame and tidy so we can keep some feeling of control over a world we neither control nor understand.

Defining how exactly how God works in the world according to our understanding is ultimately a form of rebellion against God, because we aren’t admitting our lack of knowledge and our powerlessness. By claiming to know how the tame and tidy God works, we’re seeking power and knowledge over God which we do not possess. 

Then, as if that isn’t enough, we often claim to know how God’s judgment works not only on earth in this life, but into eternity as well. 

How often do we hear people talking about who will be going to Hell when they die? We’ve got whole doctrines in the church defining who goes to Heaven, who goes to Hell, and exactly how that all works. That work is darkening counsel by words without knowledge. Scripture specifically tells us not to ask such questions, Romans 10:6.

See, the thing is, we don’t know exactly how God’s judgment and mercy work, and we don’t need to. We aren’t taught to understand exactly how God works. We are taught to trust in Jesus and follow his ways. 

Why? Why are we taught to trust in Jesus? We see in today’s Gospel story and our story from Job, why we would trust in Jesus. At the end of Job, Job is reminded that he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about because he wasn’t there when God made the seas and determined just how far they would stretch, what their limits would be. The seas obeyed God’s voice in creation.

Then, in our story from Mark, we hear about the seas obeying the voice of Jesus. A windstorm arose as Jesus and his disciples were in a boat on the sea, and Jesus basically said to the seas, “Shut up! Quiet down. Be at peace,” and the seas obeyed Jesus’ voice.

“Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God asks Job. In our Gospel reading, we find that Jesus’ answer to that question is “yes.” “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Jesus’ disciples asked. He was the one who laid the foundations of the earth and told the seas, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

and here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

We’re taught to trust in Jesus because unlike all of our tame and tidy versions of God, Jesus actually is God and actually did lay the foundations of the earth. So, rather than try to keep God in our tame and tidy boxes of understanding like Job and his friends did, we are encouraged to marvel at God with awe and wonder, as Jesus’ disciples did. 

Rather than trusting our tame and tidy understandings of God, we are asked to trust in God, to trust in God’s goodness, as unfathomable as that sometimes is. We’re called to trust in God’s love which extends far beyond and is much wilder than we can conceive of. 

We are called to accept our limitations. We’re called to accept our lack of knowledge. Rather than put our trust in doctrine which is often used to explain why we are right and others are not, rather than put our trust in that tame and tidy doctrine, we are called to put our trust in God who is neither tame nor tidy. We are called to put our trust in God who is good and loving. 

Who is this Jesus, that even the winds and the seas obey him? I can’t tell you exactly, but I can tell you that I trust Jesus. I trust him for being there when the foundations of the world were laid, and I trust him for his goodness and his love.  

Be Not Socially Awkward or Weird: AKA - Our Faith Has No Need for Others to Share It

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
August 2, 2023
Proper 8, Year A
Romans 6:12-23
Psalm 89:1-4,15-18
Matthew 10:40-42 

Lord of the Streets Episcopal Church

Be Not Socially Awkward or Weird:

AKA - Our Faith Has No Need for Others to Share It

 

So, in last week’s Gospel, there was this rather interesting bit where Jesus said that he had come to set family members against each other and, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” At first glance it might look like if we’re going to follow Jesus, we’re supposed to turn against our family? Some might even preach that we should turn against our family or friends if they don’t believe in Jesus.

 

That is, of course, completely misunderstanding what Jesus was saying. First note the context. Jesus was talking to his disciples in first century Israel, and the religious leaders of the time weren’t over fond of Jesus and his teachings. He was considered by many to be a heretic, and so were his followers. So, Jesus was warning his disciples, saying, “If you follow me, your family might turn against you. Realize that fact, and if your family turns against you, don’t stop being my disciples. Work to accept that your family might not understand, that they may turn against you.”

 

That was a tough pill to swallow: people’s families turning against them for following Jesus, being exiled from their communities for following Jesus. Jesus referred to it as taking up a cross. Jesus was telling his disciples, that it was likely going to get pretty tough for them, and he was encouraging them to continue to follow and believe in him, despite the difficulties. Never let anyone fool you into thinking God is against you, even if people turn against you.

 

Never was Jesus’ message, you should turn against anyone who doesn’t believe in me. Nowadays, however, some folks seem to turn Jesus’ message around, saying things like, “If someone in your family isn’t Christian and won’t convert, stay away from them, or if someone in your family is a sinner, stay away from them. Shun them.” Must we hate people or declare others our enemies in order to be Jesus’ disciple?

Nope. Nope, nopey, nope, nope, nope. That’s the exact opposite of what Jesus was saying. Jesus wasn’t saying turn against others. Jesus was saying to his disciples, “People may turn against you for being my disciples, and if they do, accept it, be ok with it, and continue to love them. Realize that God is not against you, even if your family turns against you.”

Then, in our reading today, Jesus continues assuring his disciples that those who treat them poorly need not be worried about. Those who treat his disciples well, Jesus said, would receive the reward of the righteous. Don’t worry if people turn against you for being my disciple, Jesus was saying. Try not to get too down over it. God’s with you, despite what some may say, and God will be with you always.

So, accept that when we seek to follow in Jesus’ ways, some people may not get it.

Now, by and large, most of us aren’t going to face the same kinds of difficulties for following Jesus as his disciples did in first century Israel. His disciples back then faced excommunication, shunning from their families, sometimes even death.

Nowadays in Houston, Texas, when we decide to follow Jesus, some folks may think it’s lame. Some may think we’re going to become terribly judgmental. Some may be afraid we’re going to start hating them because of who they are, things they do, ways of life which some Christians frown upon. Remember, though, Jesus never taught his disciples to hate or shun others. Rather he taught his disciples to accept that people may hate or shun them. Rather than grow angry or resentful, accept it, and continue to love.

In our reading from Romans, today, Paul talked about being freed from sin. In light of Jesus’ teaching, think about sin as being angry, resentful, or hateful toward non-Christians or folks who may turn away from you for being a Christian. Responding to that with anger, resentment, and hatred is dismissing the freedom of Christ and binding ourselves up in sin again. Folks may hate you…for any number of reasons. You don’t have to hate them back. That is freedom.

There are folks in America nowadays who say Christianity is under attack. I don’t

believe it is, but even if Christianity is under attack, Jesus said, “be ok with it.” He didn’t say, “attack them back.” That’s the total opposite of what he said.

There was a gentleman on the Metro up in DC where my wife is right now, and this man got on the Metro and started talking loudly at everyone on the car, telling them about Jesus and how they needed to be saved. That’s not evangelism. That’s just frantic, angry, forcing one’s religion on others. It’s also just socially awkward and weird.

Jesus didn’t say, “force your views on others.” That’s the exact opposite of what he said. Jesus didn’t enslave us to being weird and awkward and hating others. Jesus offered us freedom from fear, freedom from anger, freedom from resentment, and freedom from hatred. Jesus offered us freedom to believe in him, and trust in him, and be ok with the fact that others don’t. Jesus was very clear in his message to his disciples that their faith didn’t require others to share it. Others don’t believe as we do, and our faith doesn’t require them to.

“Bless those who curse you,” Jesus taught. How much more then, does Jesus teach, “Bless those who don’t believe as you do.” Love other people. That’s freedom. We don’t have to get angry or resentful towards others. We are freed from sin, yet somehow the church often seems to be consumed by sin, focusing so much attention on sin…usually someone else’s sin.

“We’re all sinners, we’re forgiven, but you…you had better stop sinning.” Why do we get so wrapped up in sin, especially other people’s sin, when Jesus came to free us from sin? Sin is ways that we harm ourselves and harm others. When we get all bent out of shape over other people’s sin, when we drink that cup of anger and resentment, all we’re doing is poisoning ourselves and then harming others out of our own poisoned souls. Getting so wrapped up in sin just causes us to sin.

As Jesus’ disciples, we don’t offer judgment for others’ sin. Jesus was about forgiving sin, freeing us from sin. We may, in socially normal ways, offer people some of the healing we’ve found in Jesus. We also get to be totally ok if people don’t want it. They don’t have to. Our faith has no need for them to. That’s freedom, freedom which Jesus has given us.

Our way as disciples of Jesus is the way of forgiveness, healing, and love. Anger, resentment, hatred of others has no place in the way of Jesus. Others may not like the fact that we’re Christians. That’s ok. We don’t need to force acceptance on others, to force others to be Christian or even to like Christianity. Jesus didn’t teach us to force our faith on others. Jesus taught us to love. Even if people reject you, love them, Jesus said. In the face of anger and fear, offer the way of love.

Wow, That Got Out of Hand Quickly

Brad Sullivan

Proper 23, Year A

October 15, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Isaiah 25:1-9

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

Wow, That Got Out of Hand Quickly

So this is everyone’s favorite parable.  In a few sentences, Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast went from a king throwing a wedding feast for his son to the guests not wanting to come, killing the king’s servants, and the king utterly destroying their city and killing all of them.  From “Hey guys, let’s have a party,” to total bloodbath in 4.3 seconds, the hearer of this story is left rather breathless, thinking, “Wow, that really got out of hand quickly.”  We’re left stunned, and a bit scared as we hear this parable, and so we often try to clearly define what groups of people Jesus is talking about.

Christians have long tried to define themselves as the riff raff collected from the streets who accepted the king’s invitation, and Christians have then tried to define the Jews as the initial guests who killed the kings servants and were then killed by the king themselves.  Not so fast crazy Christian.  At the time Jesus told this parable, there weren’t any Christians yet.  Jesus was an itinerant Jewish Rabbi telling a parable to his disciples in the context of the priests and the  Pharisees trying to discredit him and his ministry while at the same time exalting themselves.

So, Jesus tells a parable about God’s judgment and God’s grace, and there is tension there which the Pharisees and the priests wanted to ignore.  Pharisees and priests followed the law of Moses, so much so that they became certain of their own righteousness before God not because of God’s grace, but because of how well they followed the rules.  They felt justified in God’s eyes as if they had earned his good graces.  That’s now how grace works.

In Jesus’ parable, no one earned anything.  People were invited to a party.  The king invited his people to the party, and they didn’t want to come.  In fact, they were so dead set against going to a party, that they would literally rather kill people than go to the party.  How crazy is that?  “I invited you to a party, and you chose to murder people instead?”  The king says.  So, at that point, yeah, the king kills those people and kills ‘em good, burns their town and leaves nothing but ashes.  

Then he invites whoever is left, the riff raff, and all is well.   They come to the party, and being riff raff, being the good and the bad, the whomever the king happened to find out among the streets, these people didn’t have fancy clothes to wear to the wedding.  In fact, it wouldn’t have mattered if they did, because at a wedding like this one, the king would have provided even the initial guests with wedding garments.  They were the kings guests, and they would wear what he provided, rather than showing off their own splendor and mocking those with less. 

So the riff raff is having a great time at the party.  Crazy uncle Earl is making a bit of a spectacle of himself, but that’s ok.  Music is going, the wine is flowing, and then the king sees this one dude without his wedding garment.  Did the kings servants mess up and not give him one?  Did he refuse to take it?  Did he sneak in through an open window and crash the party?  We don’t know, and that’s what the king wants to know, and rather than fess up, the man just stands there not saying anything.  From his initial entry without accepting the wedding garment to his refusal to speak to the king, the man is making one thing very clear.  “Sure, I’ll be here at your stupid party, but I’m going to be here on my terms.”

That’s now how the party works.  That’s not how grace works.  Grace is freely offered, and you just say “yes” and “thanks.”  If the guy in the story had just spoken up, he’d have been ok.  When asked “Why you don’t have a wedding garment?”, just admit that you’re a self righteous prat.  Just admit that you’re still broken and messed up and trying to earn your way or trying to place yourself above others.  If the guy without the wedding garment had just spoken up, the king would have said, “Oh, you misunderstood.  The party is a free gift, you don’t have to earn it.  You don’t have to be better than anybody else.  Here, take this wedding garment, and let me get you a beer.”

The story isn’t about being better than anybody else or being prepared, it’s about saying, “Gee whiz, thanks,” to God’s grace.  Often when we hear this parable, however, we make it about something else, and we try to define who has accepted the wedding garment and who hasn’t?  Do we, as the church, worry about our family and friends who reject becoming Christian, reject being a part of the church?  Possibly we do, but whoever said “the Church” are the ones who have accepted the invitation and put on the wedding garment?  Sometimes, in the church, we take our faith in Jesus and turn it into our own clothes, trusting in our faith in Jesus as a rule, rather than simply trusting in Jesus.  We take our faith in Jesus and turn it into our own terms.  We take Jesus and turn him into an institution.

Sometimes folks reject the church as the institution and reject the faith of the church as the faith of that institution.  They’re searching for truth, searching for a way, searching for life.  They are searching for God’s grace, for what we understand Jesus to be, but they aren’t finding what they are searching for in what we proclaim about Jesus nor in how we live out Jesus’ way.  Perhaps those who reject the church are being called to the wedding banquet from the streets, and we have unknowingly rejected the invitation, or accepted the invitation but done so on our own terms?

There is always that tension, that we take Jesus’ invitation and turn it around and accept it, but accept it on our own terms.  “The invitation is free, but I’m accepting it as a good and righteous person,” some may think, or “Now that I’ve been invited, I’ll earn my invitation by being such a good person from now on.”

There is always the tension between following Jesus and his way, the importance of living as Jesus taught, and the free gift of grace, the invitation that continues to be offered regardless of our actions, regardless of how good we are or how bad we are.  There is tension between the free gift of grace and the command to love one another as Jesus loves us, and the man in the parable who tries to go to the wedding feast on his own terms reminds us that we don’t get to resolve the tension. 

“I thought God wanted me to be a kind and decent person, loving others?”  Yes, he does. 

“But doesn’t he want me to show that off at his party?”  Nope.  You didn’t get to the party by being so awesome.  God invited you out of grace.

See God wants to have a party, all the time, and at the end of all time.  In this life, God wants us to love each other.  God wants us to accept his grace and to give his grace.  God looks at us and thinks, “Man, y’all are messed up.  Just admit it, and quit with this silliness of thinking you have to be better than each other.  That ain’t how I work.  Y’all are all messed up, and I want to have a party with all of you.”  That’s how grace works.  The judgment is that we don’t buy it, or rather than we think we have to buy it.  When we think we have to buy it, that’s when things get out of hand really quickly.  The truth is, we don’t have to buy God’s grace or earn God’s grace.  We don’t have to fight with each other to try to get enough of it.  We don’t have to claim ourselves as having it and others as not.  That’s keeping our own clothes on.  God’s grace is God’s grace.  It’s a free gift, and there is plenty to go around.

We Are One With Jesus, and Jesus Is With Us

Brad Sullivan

Proper 11, Year A

July 23, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 28:10-19a

Romans 8:12-25

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

We Are One With Jesus, and Jesus Is With Us

I had a wonderful week last week at Camp Allen.  Kristin and I, along with Machel Delange and Caroline San Martin were the camp directors for a session of summer camp for 3rd and 4th graders, and our theme was Star Wars based, “I am one with Jesus, and Jesus is with me,” that line taken and modified from a prayer that a character prayed in the most recent Star Wars movie, substituting “The Force” for Jesus.

We showed clips from the Star Wars movies and talked with the kids about trusting in Jesus and following in his way, like Jedi trusted in the Force and followed the path of the light.  We hiked, we swam, we comforted homesick kiddos, and we supported the teenagers and young adults who were counselors and staff members of the camp.  The kids gave these great responses during our discussions about Jesus being the light of the world and us following him and being one with him.  “Jesus’ light is within us and we offer pieces of that light to others.”  We talked about being one with Jesus and that because we are one with Jesus, we are one with each other and with all creation, so what we do really does matter; if we do good things to one, we are bringing light to all, and if we harm one person or even one part of creation, we’re harming and bringing darkness to all.  Then, we made prayer beads and prayed “I am one with Jesus, and Jesus is with me” on the prayer beads to help us to be aware of his light within us so that we live and act out of that place of unity with God and with all creation.

It was a really good week.  Then I came back and started working on the sermon for today, and was met by one of my not quite favorite passages:  Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds:  Jesus sows good wheat seeds, and then the devil comes along and sows weeds among the wheat.  On the one hand, I love that Jesus says not to tear out the weeds until the harvest so that harm doesn’t come to the wheat.  We’re all connected, and so tearing out the weeds would harm the wheat.

On the other hand, at the end of the parable, Jesus explained that the weeds would be burned, meaning all causes of sin and all evildoers will be thrown into the furnace of fire at the end of the age.  I imagine that means that some people will be punished eternally for what they did during one lifetime, and I’ve always been bothered by that idea.  I fret over who is going to end up as the weeds and who will end up as the wheat.

How does this work?  Are we all children of Jesus or children of the devil from our birth with nothing we can do to change it?  That’s certainly what Jesus’ explanation of the parable sounds like.  Perhaps he was using black and white language to describe something more complicated so his disciples would understand.  Perhaps it is every bit as simple as it sounds.  Perhaps the furnace of fire will burn the evil away and leave what is good in people?  I honestly don’t know.  I struggle with this one.  How could there be causes of sin and evil doers in God’s kingdom?  Of course there wouldn’t be, but doesn’t Jesus redeem them?  Isn’t that what his death on the cross was all about?  I wrestle with these questions, as have Jesus’ disciples for 2000 years.

Most of this wrestling has to do with our fears over the idea of a final judgment.  Who will be wheat and who will be weeds?  Many Christians end up try to assuage those fears by coming up with biblically based rules about who will be in and who will be out, rules about determining who is wheat and who is weeds.  Predestination.  Double predestination.  Marks of election.  These and other attempts to defend God’s sovereignty and to identify who is wheat and who is weeds all have several problems.

While trying to tie up Jesus’ parables and teachings about his kingdom into a nice neat package with a bow on top, and all such attempts lead to putting our faith in rules rather than in God, and we end up determining for our own sense of security who is in and who is out, which means we end up taking removing Jesus and the angels from the story and put ourselves in their place.  When we start supposing that we can determine who we believe to be weeds and who we believe to be wheat, we end up exalting ourselves to the place of Jesus, and not surprisingly, folks who engage in this type of supposition also end up placing themselves on the side of the wheat, not the weeds. 

Whenever we start trying to determine who is wheat and who is weeds, we also end up making the same first mistake of Adam and Eve, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Such determinations are not ours to make, and Jesus expressly forbids our doing so.  So on the one hand we aren’t supposed to make determinations about who is good and who is evil, and on the other hand, we don’t have to.  There is great relief in not having to determine who is good and who is evil.  There is great relief in not having to determine even if it is so clear cut as good and evil, black and white.  Thankfully, we don’t have to make those determinations. 

So, rather than try to justify God’s sovereignty and make ourselves feel better by assuring ourselves that someone else is the weeds and we are of course the wheat, we can take comfort in the idea that God will eventually judge justly and eradicate all evil, all malice and fear, all hatred and enmity.  God doesn’t do so right now, because we are all so interconnected that removing all evil right now would destroy us all.  That’s another question I often hear asked, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”  Because removing all evil right now would destroy us all.  If God just killed all the people we though were bad, eventually it would get back around to someone we love.  Additionally, we just might be on someone else's bad list.  Remember that when we determine who is evil and who is good, one person’s evil enemy is another person’s hero.   If we got to determine who is evil and who is good, there would be none of us left.

As much as we may want to determine who is good and who is evil, ours is not to answer such questions.  Ours is to trust in the way of Jesus who prayed for God to forgive the evildoers who killed him.  “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” Jesus prayed.  Ours is to forgive others even as we have been forgiven.  Ours is to trust the Word of God which spoke all of creation into existence, to trust that the Word of God which became human as the person of Jesus just might have a good idea about how to run the universe which he created. 

Then, we continually seek Jesus’ help in our lives, to live out his kingdom now.  We get to seek Jesus’ help to eradicate evil from ourselves and to live out God’s kingdom as best we can now.   Freed from having to run the universe, we get to trust Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life.  We get to live with his light within us, and we get to share that light with others. 

We get to live and share his kingdom, and what is life like in God’s Kingdom here on earth?  Well, it's wheat and weeds.  At least in this life, it is full of joys and sorrows, full of missteps and faithful following in Jesus’ way.  Life in God’s Kingdom is full of grace and compassion, understanding and forgiveness, messing up and reconciliation.  God’s kingdom is full of joining together to help one another in times of adversity, and joining together to celebrate in times of joy.  God's Kingdom is reaching a hand out to those whom we believe to be weeds, helping them out as well, remembering that they probably believe we are weeds.  Rather than trusting in rugged self-reliance, the hubris of earned or deserved wealth, and a lofty self-appointment as being wheat among the weeds, life in God’s kingdom is life lived together, putting our trust in Jesus and in each other, sharing with others what we have been given by God.

As we said at camp last week, we trust in Jesus and follow in his ways, for he is the way, and the truth, and the life.  We trust the light of Jesus within us.  We trust in his goodness and ability to order well the universe that he created.  We live life not with continual fear, wondering are we wheat or are we weeds.  We live life in God’s Kingdom, life lived full of the assurance that we are one with Jesus and Jesus is with us.