Rather Than What the Market Demands, Choose Justice, Mercy, Love, and Transformation.

 The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

February 9, 2025

5 Epiphany, C

Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13]

Psalm 138

Luke 5:1-11

Title

“From now on, you’ll be fishing for people,” Jesus told his first disciples. This has been interpreted by many as Jesus’ call for his disciples to be evangelists, sharing the good news of Jesus and getting folks to become Jesus’ disciples. So, I’m supposed to preach about how we’re all supposed to go out and be good evangelists and get people to believe in Jesus. 

When I’ve heard people talk about this kind of fish for people evangelism, the message that I’ve heard that people are to share often has very little to do with this life and has a whole lot to do with life after we die. So, there are often thinly veiled threats of God’s punishment or not veiled at all threats of God’s punishment, along with a get out of punishment free, Jesus card. Believe in Jesus. You just gotta believe. The whole thing is often kind of confused and leads to believers whose faith may be in Jesus, but whose lives are not transformed. 

It kinda follows the movies I’ve seen about Jesus where his disciples get so excited about fishing for people that they go around talking about the good news, and how great it is because of the good news, and y’all should believe because of the good news. There’s never really any explanation as to what the good news is, and audience members who haven’t been raised in the church are left wondering what in the world they were talking about. 

I find that a lot of our “fish for people” evangelism is equally confused, people feeling like they have to tell folks about Jesus to get them saved, but in that conversation, the actual person with an actual life is irrelevant. “You gotta get saved.” “But what about what’s going on in my life right now?” “You gotta get saved.”

So, that’s definitely one interpretation of what Jesus meant by “you’ll be fishing for people,” but I read a different interpretation last week which is fantastic and actually makes sense with the rest of Luke’s Gospel and the prophets that came before. “Fish for people” was an image used in Jeremiah, and Amos, and other prophets calling for justice, for an end to oppression, and for turning back to God’s ways of loving and caring for one another. 

In Jeremiah 16:16-17 God says he is sending fishermen to catch those who are not following God’s ways, who are following idols and violence. In Amos 4:1-2, God says those who oppress the poor and crush the needy will be taken away with fish-hooks. In light of Jeremiah and Amos, it sounds like Jesus was sending his disciples to call out oppression and to serve and heal the needy who were being crushed by the powerful.

Jesus sending his disciples to fish for people by working to help the poor and needy, and striving against oppression, that follows all that had come before in Luke’s Gospel. What did Mary sing when she was pregnant with Jesus? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t, “My son is going to be a get out of Hell free card with little or no impact on this life.” Mary’s song said, “[God] scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Justice and mercy were the themes of Mary’s song. 

For centuries, the prophets had been preaching justice and mercy. “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8) “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6) “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17) Then, when John the Baptist was proclaiming his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, people asked him what they should do, and he told them to live lives of justice and mercy. 

So, when Jesus told his disciples, I’m going to have you fish for people, he was telling them, we are going to work for justice and mercy, and by working for justice and mercy, we are going to draw people closer to God and one another. We are going to live lives of love and transform people’s lives by how we care for them. We are going to transform people’s lives, and we teach others to do the same.

That work of justice and mercy, that work of love and transformation was for everyone, those who were wealthy and those who were poor. In one parable Jesus told, a wealthy man showed mercy, and a poor man did not, and the poor man was not let off the hook (or the fish-hook) just because he was poor. 

Justice and mercy, love and transformation, that’s God’s will for our lives. That’s always been God’s will for our lives. We see this in the earliest parts of scripture and when God formed the people of Israel and gave them the law. One law God gave was about gleaning. Gleaning was a practice in ancient Israel in which large landowners, farmers, would not take in all of the harvest. They would intentionally leave some of the grain, leave some of the fruits or vegetables out in the fields, so that the poor among them could come and take what had been left.

In other words, the wealthy intentionally took less than they could for themselves so that others might have enough.

If we look at modern-day gleaning, we could look at the owners of businesses and the executives of businesses. Owners are the shareholders, and they want to get as much as they can get from the profits of the company. Executives try to keep shareholders happy by earning as much profit as they can to give as much as possible to the shareholders. The executives also end up getting as much as they can in their salaries. The market demands that executives get huge salaries, because if one company didn’t pay as much, then another would pay more, and they’d get the best executives. So, salaries keep going up as companies compete for the best people.

Executives and shareholders get as much as they can out of the business, and folks on the bottom have not enough or barely enough to live on. That goes completely against the Biblical demands for justice and against the concept of gleaning. Modern-day gleaning would look like shareholders and executives intentionally giving themselves less than they could get so that those at the bottom could have more.

That’s the kind of thing Jesus and his disciples might preach when they went around fishing for people. For those at the top, you don’t need to take as much as you can for yourself, regardless of what the market demands. Choose to take less than you can, so that those at the bottom can have more and won’t be weeks away from eviction at any moment. 

Rather than choosing what the market demands, choose justice, mercy, love, and transformation. I think that’s what Jesus and his disciples would preach as they went fishing for people, and Jesus and his disciples would preach that message to all of us, not just to the wealthy. Even those with very little can oppress others. 

God, who created all that is, has been teaching us this for millennia. Choose justice, mercy, and love, rather than oppression. God knows how hard that can be for us, and so God became human. God became human to join with us in our oppression, both when we are oppressors and when we are being oppressed. God joined with us to strive with us and to help transform our lives. From lives of oppression to lives of justice, mercy, and love, God strives with us, joining us together with God and one another so that our lives might be transformed. That sounds like good news. Fish for people. Choose justice, mercy, and love, and allow Jesus to transform our lives.

“Nope,” Jesus said. Rather than bring death, Jesus transformed death into life.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston
October 20, 2024
Proper 24, B
Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Mark 10:35-45

So, there’s an election coming up in a few weeks, and yes, I am encouraging you all to vote, and no, I’m not encouraging anyone to vote in any particular way. I’m bringing up the election because it is once again rather contentious, hotly contested, and there’s this feeling in the air of, “Holy Dear Lord Almighty Sweet Baby Jesus, if the right side doesn’t win, then the Kingdom of God will be destroyed, and Jesus will never return.”
 
That is, of course, not the case. Neither side winning is going to bring about the destruction of the Kingdom of God. The election may be important, but it ain’t that important. Not even the gates of Hell can prevail against the Kingdom of God, and the president and congress of the United States, as much power as they may wield, aren’t powerful enough to destroy or bring about God’s kingdom.
 
Our hope is not in whoever becomes president. As Jesus pointed out to his disciples in our Gospel lesson today, our hope is not in any human power or position. Our hope is in Jesus, in the unity with God and one another which Jesus has forged. The Word of God which spoke creation into existence became human, fully uniting humanity and divinity. God and humans are one, and nothing, not even a bad president can separate that unity.  
 
So, despite the terrible angst and seemingly large stakes of the upcoming election, our hope is in Jesus’ victory. His is the victory and power not of human governments, not of domination, or enforcing his will. Jesus’ victory is the power of service, surrender, and resurrection, transforming death into life.
 
That resurrection power of service and surrender is the power we live out when we live the life of the kingdom of God which Jesus taught us to live. In today’s Gospel reading, once again, Jesus taught us to wield resurrection power not through the might of ruling over others, but through loving and serving one another as we were created to do.  
 
When James and John sought great power from Jesus, he assured them that such power of ruling over others is not what makes us great in the kingdom of God. They wanted to sit one on his right hand and one on his left, and they weren’t thinking of life after this up in heaven. That idea was kind of a concept in Jesus’ day, but not the dogma we have now. The thought of, “Let me serve with you after I’ve died,” was almost certainly not in their brains.

No, James and John wanted earthly power to rule with Jesus as his co-world-dominating vice-presidents. They wanted power and might over other human beings, and that is simply not the way of the kingdom of God.
 
“You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you;” Jesus taught, “but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.” That sounds a lot like Eden, being one another’s companions and helpers.  
That teaching that those who wish to be great must be servants in God’s kingdom is pretty darn similar to the teaching we heard last week with the man who had great wealth. Remember, he wanted to make sure that he had the best of everything in this world and this life, and also to make sure that he had the best of everything in the life to come. “Sure, Jesus, I care about others and hear you teaching that I can use my vast wealth to serve others and to make sure they have enough as well, but I really love my stuff more than I do other people.” He wanted an “all about me” salvation, making sure that he was going to be ok, and not thinking too much about the well-being of anyone else. That’s not salvation; it’s just selfishness.
 
Remember the man in the parable Jesus told who used his great wealth to make sure everyone who worked for him, had a living wage. He even went searching for more folks to work for him, even if only for an hour, to make sure that they had a living wage too. That’s greatness in God’s kingdom, using wealth as a servant, not as one to be served.
 
Greatness in God’s kingdom comes from using what God has given us for the benefit of others, not for ourselves to get even more, and greatness in God’s kingdom does not come by forcing the world to be how we want it to be. Even when we’re right, it’s not our world to force our will upon. Even if we’re right, forcing our will on others is being a tyrant, and Jesus expressly taught against being a tyrant. The world is not any of ours to rule, not even by proxy, electing the folks we think are the right ones to be in office. God’s kingdom and our hope do not come from us or through elected proxies on our behalf. No, our hope and God’s kingdom come from Jesus, from the unity with God that he gave and through the resurrection life that he continually gives.
 
Even so, a lot of us are going to be mightily disappointed the day after the election. Some will be angry. Some may be legitimately afraid because of who gets elected, and some will be afraid probably not so legitimately. Fear, anger, and angst are very human and understandable reactions to the changes and chances of this life. Reacting out of our fear, anger, and angst, are also understandable, and, those fearful and angry reactions go against the kingdom of God. Those fearful and angry reactions come from feelings of powerlessness, wanting power over a world that is not in our control.
 
That is the power that James and John wanted, and Jesus told them, “No.” That power is not the way of God’s kingdom.
 
Jesus teaches us instead to accept our powerlessness, just like he did before Pontius

Pilate. “I have the power to kill you or to save your life,” Pilate said. “Nope,” Jesus said. “I could command hosts of angels to save me and destroy you all, but I’m not going to do that.” Jesus could have brought death to thousands and saved his own life.  Instead, Jesus accepted the seeming power that Pilate held over him, and because of that, rather than just bring more death, Jesus transformed death into life.
 
So, what are we to do then with our fear, and anger, and feelings of powerlessness? Once again, we follow Jesus’ example and teaching. We give our fear and anger over to God. We ask God for the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We act out of the fruit of the Spirit, rather than the burning fire of our anger and fear. Let by the fruit of the Spirit, we can call and write our political leaders to let them know of our fear and anger. They probably won’t care, but we can.
 
We can let go our fear and anger, accept our powerlessness, and choose to love and serve one another because that is who and how we were made to be. Loving and serving one another is how we live the eternal life of God. Loving and serving one another is how we live the life of God’s kingdom.
 
Our hope is in Jesus, and our hope is in the resurrection life of service and surrender, loving one another, even loving our enemies, so that all things, even death itself, are transformed into life.   

We’ll never be transformed if we aren’t willing to walk into the tomb.

Brad Sullivan

5 Lent, Year A

April 2, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

John 11:1-45

We’ll never be transformed if we aren’t willing to walk into the tomb.

Thinking about the raising of Lazarus from the dead got me thinking about death and the fear of death, and that got me thinking about Star Wars.  To be fair, most things do, but fear of death is a recurring theme in the Star Wars saga.  In Star Wars there is something called “the Force,” an almost divine-like force that some people can tap into and use to perform great feats and do great good.  There are others who can tap into the force, but use it selfishly.  The way they use the Force is called The Dark Side, and through The Dark Side, they bring about great evil.  The tragic hero of Star Wars, Anakin, is one of these good force users, but he is particularly afraid of death and the death of those he loves.  So when he receives a vision of his wife dying, he is terrified, and he seeks the advice of the wise, old Master Yoda. 

Anakin explains this vision of death, and Yoda says, "Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin! The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side."

"I won't let my visions come true, Master Yoda," Anakin replies.

Yoda says, "Rejoice for those around us who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed, that is."

"What must I do, Master Yoda?"  Anakin asks.

"Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose."

Sadly, Anakin didn’t really take Yoda’s advice and through his fear of death and loss, he ended up acquiring great power through The Dark Side and became an embodiment of evil, the infamous Darth Vader.  Anakin was unwilling to face the tomb, for his life and the life of those he loved, and so he became and brought about the very thing he feared.  

Now most of us aren’t going to become an embodiment of evil because of our fears, and yet Yoda’s advice still applies to us.  “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”  Jesus said something similar in his teachings about not worrying and about losing our lives.  Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear, Jesus taught.  “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:34)  Worrying, he taught, won’t change anything or help you in any way, but it will make you afraid and miserable.  Closely tied to not worrying was Jesus’ teaching about our lives.  He taught us to let go of that which we fear to lose.  “For those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus said,  “and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

How much of our time is spent, like Anakin, “sensing the future”, worrying about some possible future catastrophe?  How much of our resources are spent trying to stave off death?  We fear, we worry, and we take actions that are guided by our fear and our worry of death and loss, and those actions usually bring about greater death and loss. 

Jesus would prefer that we let go of that which we fear to lose and trust instead in him.  That’s what he showed us in his raising of Lazarus from the dead.  When Lazarus was deathly ill, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus, and Jesus apparently had every intention of healing Lazarus, but only after he died first, right?  Jesus waited around and let Lazarus die before he healed him, and he did so for two reasons:  one so that people could see that he, that God, has power even over death, and two because it was very important to Jesus that people believe in him.

Jesus waited around till Lazarus was good and dead before deciding to go to see him in Bethany “so that [he], the Son of God [would] be glorified through [Lazarus’ death and being raised from the dead].”  See, just before this story, Jesus had been in Jerusalem and had given sight to a man who was born blind, a miracle so great that no one had ever heard of anything like that ever happening before.  Many who did not see Jesus actually perform this miracle, however, did not believe that Jesus had done this, and later, many of them even tried to kill Jesus for claiming to be God’s son. 

So, Jesus left Jerusalem, went away across the Jordan River and then received word that Lazarus was sick.  When he arrived in Bethany which was very close to Jerusalem, with Lazarus already dead, many Jews from Jerusalem were there mourning with Martha and Mary.  Ok so, we don’t know if these were the same people who tried to kill Jesus, but they were from the same place where those doubts and death threats had come.  In fact, Jesus’ disciples were afraid of going so near to Jerusalem, believing that they were going to be killed, since last time they were there, people tried to kill Jesus. 

So, Jesus returned to Bethany to show people from Jerusalem not only a healing, but to show them that he had power to raise the dead back to life.  Jesus wanted these people to believe in him.  It was important enough to Jesus that people believe in him, in fact, that he waited for Lazarus to die and risked being killed in order to show that he truly was God’s son, and those who saw believed.

So why was it so important to Jesus that people believe in him, that he would risk so much?  Because Jesus wanted to heal them too, and believing in him was the healing they needed.  They needed to believe in him who is the light and life of all creation.  They needed to believe in his power over death.  They needed to believe that his teachings were true, that they could let go of that which they feared to lose, and trust in him.  Jesus wanted them and us to believe in him because Jesus knows what our worries and fears bring us when we follow after the ways of our worries and fears. 

Ultimately, our worries and fears bring us to The Dark Side, to Darth Vader.  Consider when we don’t trust in Jesus and don’t follow in his teachings.  Times when we have been hurt and we don’t let go of that hurt, we don’t forgive, and we cause greater strife.  Times when because of our hurt and our perceived righteousness, we retaliate and cause further harm.  Consider how much suffering is caused by our epic battle with death.  How many are killed in order to protect the lives of others.  Consider the suffering caused by our battle with all kinds of death:  physical, emotional, relational, death of goals, dreams, etc.  How often do we try to stave off and prevent death at all cost, rather than accepting death and trusting our lives and our deaths with Jesus?

Trusting in Jesus, believing in him, means letting go of that which we fear to lose.  Trusting in Jesus means being willing to face the tomb, trusting in resurrection, in Jesus’ power over death.  That’s a lot of trust because even trusting in resurrection, we don’t know what’s going to happen.  Trusting in Jesus, we need to let go of that which we fear to lose and accept death in order to be transformed. 

A couple I know and gave some counseling to was limping along with their marriage basically on life support.  Their marriage was dead, but neither was willing to face that truth.  Finally, one did, but rather than simply say, “ok, let’s get divorced,” this person said plainly what their marriage had become and did raise divorce as a possibility.  That was a bit of a shock to the other.  So, together they began facing the tomb in which their marriage had gone.  They looked at what was causing the death of their marriage.  They looked at what they each of them were afraid to lose, what each of them had to place into the tomb in order for their marriage to survive.  They worked together, and they both allowed some things to die.  Some of their dreams of what they wanted their lives to be died.  Some of their visions of what they thought marriage should be died.  Through those deaths, they found new life.  Through their willingness to enter the tomb, their marriage was transformed.  They found new life, resurrection, by letting go of that which they feared to lose and entering the tomb.

See, what Jesus ultimately wants for us is transformation.  That is why it is so important to him that we listen to him and believe in him.  Jesus wants us to be transformed into light and life, and we’ll never be transformed if we aren’t willing to let go of that which we fear to lose and walk into the tomb.  If we trust in Jesus and believe in him, then we can accept and face our deaths.  We can enter the tomb and be transformed.