Denying Jesus? Loving One Another? How Do We Choose to Follow?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
April 2, 2026
Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

So, I know we don't actually talk about Peter denying Jesus, after his arrest, until tomorrow, on Good Friday, but I'm skipping ahead a little bit in the story because there are many ways we get to deny Jesus throughout our lives. Sure, there’s the obvious stuff like saying, “I no longer believe in Jesus,” but what about the less obvious ways where we deny Jesus by how we choose to follow Jesus? 

I know that sounds strange, denying Jesus by how we choose to follow Jesus, but what about when we choose to follow Jesus by praying against all of the evil ones whom Jesus is going to send to damnation? It’s one thing when hurting or angry to pray against people, and Jesus hopefully comforts us in those prayers, and we get to give that hatred and anger as our offering to God. Then, Jesus reminds us to pray for the healing of our enemies, and we follow as Jesus’ disciples by offering that sometimes difficult prayer of blessing and God’s will upon even our enemies. 

So, praying against our enemies to get our anger out, that’s one thing, but what about when we pray for the eternal damnation of our enemies with the absolute conviction that we are right and that Jesus truly is going to condemn those evil ones? That’s when we are denying Jesus, because we are praying and believing completely against how Jesus taught us to pray and believe. 

Pray for your enemies. Bless those who persecute you. Don’t judge others as worthy of eternal damnation; we’re all a bunch of screw ups here, what the hell do any of us know. Those were the teachings of Jesus, so when we claim to know better and to pray in ways and judge people in ways that Jesus expressly told us not to, we are denying Jesus.

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What about when we declare that a war is being fought in Jesus’ name? Jesus, who said, “Put your swords away,” when enemies came to arrest him. Jesus who chose to be killed rather than summon hosts of angels to kill his murderers. Jesus who said, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword,” aka, war and killing people actually aren’t terribly great ideas. When we declare a war is being fought in Jesus’ name, we are denying Jesus, denying who he is and what he taught. 

What about when we look at others with contempt or even indifference. You don’t matter; your needs don’t matter; I have everything I need, and if you’d just work harder, you would too, but you’re too lazy; I deserve my good things and you deserve your bad things; you’re not worth my time or effort. When we treat other people that way, we are denying Jesus who said, “Whatever you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.”

What about when we determine that any of our success and wealth that we get through our success and wealth-making efforts are all thanks to Jesus blessing us for our faithfulness? As much as we may be trying to give praise and glory to God, when we claim all of our riches and success are because we are particularly faithful to Jesus, we are actually denying Jesus, who never promised us success or wealth as a reward for faithfulness. No, when we claim God’s favor on us for being more successful and wealthier than others, we’re actually just claiming to be better than others, not only in our own eyes but also in God’s eyes. 

Jesus didn’t say people will know we are his disciples by how strong our belief is in him. Jesus didn’t say people will know we are his disciples by how holy and righteous we are. Jesus certainly didn’t say people will know we are his disciples by how rich we get through all our rich-getting efforts, claiming that Jesus is the one blessing us with riches. 

No, Jesus said people will know we are his disciples by how we love one another.

To illustrate this point, Jesus took the role of a servant during his last Passover meal with his disciples. He washed their feet and told them that if they didn’t let him wash their feet, they had no share in him. Not letting Jesus wash their feet was denying Jesus. Then, Jesus told them to wash one another’s feet, meaning they should serve one another. They should love one another and live out that love by actually, physically caring for one another. 

Of course, we’re not very good at caring for other people if we are not cared for ourselves. So, Jesus told his disciples, you gotta let me wash you first. Be good sheep that you may be good shepherds. If we don’t let Jesus care for us and then assume we’re gonna care for others, we’re denying Jesus just as surely as Peter did after Jesus was arrested. 

Love one another, Jesus taught. That’s how we proclaim Jesus in the world, by loving other people. Eventually we may get to tell folks that we believe in Jesus, if they ask, if they want to know, but our proclamation is first about loving other people. Our proclamation is not first about evangelizing other people or saving other people; Jesus already took care of that. Our proclamation is first about loving other people, continuing to live the healing love that Jesus lived. Our proclamation is to draw near to Jesus to be loved by Jesus in prayer, in rest, in scripture, in service, in fellowship, in adversity, in joy, and in sorrow, we draw near to Jesus to be loved by Jesus and to share that love with others. 

Then, in those times when we do deny Jesus, because we all do, we repent. We return to the love of Jesus to share that love. When we deny Jesus by deciding which humans are bad and deserving of damnation, we return to Jesus with humility, choosing to see them as beloved, not damned. When we deny Jesus by deciding that our enemies or those others that we view with contempt are not worthy of Jesus’ love, we return to Jesus with humility, choosing to see Jesus in those other people, respecting their dignity. When we deny Jesus by determining that our blessings are due to our great faithfulness (and therefore other less-blessed people must not be as faithful), we return to Jesus with humility, choosing to trust Jesus not because of our success or failures but because Jesus showed us the way of love.

In Jesus, God said, I choose to join with you in every part of your lives, including being hated, tortured, and killed. Such is God’s love for us, and so Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

So, I Tend to Be Kinda Grouchy

Brad Sullivan

Maundy Thursday, Year A

April 13, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

So, I Tend to Be Kinda Grouchy

I tend to be kinda grouchy.  There’s my Good Friday confession a little bit early. 

So this has been for me a fantastic Lent.  Lent is generally my favorite time of year because it’s this time of year when we get to be more intentional than usual in seeking help from God in some aspect of life, or we seek to give something up so we can further our dependence on God, and this Lent I had not come up with anything to give up by the first Sunday of Lent.  Ash Wednesday came and went, and I was thinking, “I don’t know.  I don’t eat much chocolate so that’s not going to do much…” 

Then I was talking to a Gentleman on the morning of the first Sunday of Lent, and he was talking about how Lent had been great.  He had this laundry list of things he had given up.  We’re talking chewing tobacco, coffee, alcohol, every coping mechanism a person could have, and he had gotten rid of all of them, and so I was thinking, “That’s gotta stink…,” but it had been a fantastic Lent for him because every time he started thinking about, “I really want this, or I really want that,” he took it as an opportunity to pray.  So, he was loving it, because it was this constant drawing nearer to God that he got to have.  I was thinking, “Thank you!  That should have been obvious, but thank you, and that’s what I’m going to do now.”

So, I decided to give up being grouchy for Lent.  There was one night when I was angry and upset, and it wasn’t really about my life, it was listening to the news and hearing about all the awful stuff and getting so incensed about all the bad things in the world and finally saying, with tears streaming down, “God, I cannot take this anymore.  Please get rid of this.  Get rid of this anger.  Get rid of this overreaction to everything.  I don’t want it anymore; I’m done with it,” and he took it. 

It was gone, and I felt fantastic.  I was less grouchy, less grumpy.  I had a greater capacity to be a loving person.  That has been my Lenten practice for the rest of Lent.  Every time I start getting agitated, or worried, or upset about something, I stop, and I pray, “God, please take this from me.  I don’t want to deal with it.  I can’t deal with it.  Please take this from me.”  Then I can go about and deal with whatever was getting me upset in a much more loving way. 

So it has been a fantastic Lent, and I offer that story because we’re coming to the end of Lent.  We’re starting what’s known as the Tridium, the three days, and Maundy Thursday as we’re remembering our abandonment of Jesus at the end of this service.  We’re remembering, tomorrow, the crucifixion of Jesus and the horrors of humanity.  Talk about grouchy, here was a guy loved people far too much for humanity to allow him to live, and so we’ll be remembering just how huge our capacity for atrocities and darkness is. 

Jesus knew that was coming, so he gave his disciples this new commandment, and knowing full well his disciples’ and our capacity for darkness, his final commandment was not a warning against darkness.  His final commandment was not, “Guys, try not to be terrible jerks to each other.” 

His final commandment was “Love one another.  Even as I have love you, love one another,” which tells me that despite our capacity for darkness, Jesus knows that we have a capacity for love, and not just a capacity for love, we have every bit as large a capacity for love as he does.  He didn’t say, love one another kinda like, near to how I have loved you.  He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

We were made in God’s image.  Jesus was fully human.  So, every bit as much the capacity for love that Jesus has, so do we have.  That is what he left his disciples with on the night that he knew they were going to leave.  Amidst all of the darkness of the world, amidst all of the darkness that was to come, he wanted them to remember and to live out their capacity for love. 

That is what I have found this Lent in asking this continual prayer of help from God, that ultimately, asking God to help us to take away the darkness leaves us free to love.  Jesus has taken care of our darkness.  He has taken it, and he asks us continually to offer it to him, so that we then may be free to live out a life of love, a life full of every bit as much love for one another as he has for us.