When God Became Human, He Didn’t Find Things to be Beneath His Dignity to Do.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston

January 12, 2025

1 Epiphany, C

Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Today, after the service, I have to leave to get to another church where I’ll be talking with them about Lord of the Streets, recruiting volunteers, and continuing to grow our connections with our supporting congregations. So, unfortunately, I won’t be here for breakfast, which I love, not just the food, but being with everybody. Usually, after breakfast, I join with our parishioners to help clean up, put tables and chairs away.

One morning about a year ago, I was cleaning up after breakfast with several parishioners, and someone else said, “You shouldn’t be doing this. You’ve got more important things to do.” I said, “Not really, cause for one, I like getting to be with our parishioners doing this work, and two, if I’m too good for cleaning tables and sweeping floors, then I’m not good enough to be preaching and serving at the altar.”

I bring that up because I think it has something to do with why Jesus got baptized. In seminary, this was a popular question.  Why did Jesus get baptized? He was without sin, right, so he had no need for baptism. We’re told in Matthew’s version that Jesus chose to be baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.” So then, of course, there were debates about what exactly that means. Jesus was already righteous. He was God. Nothing he did separated him from God, and he needed no reconciliation to be reunited with God. He was righteous. He had no need for forgiveness of sin. You could say he was too good for baptism, and you’d be right.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism-of-Christ.jpg

So, what righteousness was Jesus fulfilling? Perhaps the righteousness of being human. The righteousness Jesus fulfilled was the righteousness of joining with humanity in every way. Jesus got baptized because we get baptized. While he was too good to need baptism, he wasn’t too good to be baptized. Jesus didn’t “regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” (Philippians 2:6) Baptism marks our repentance and our desire to be washed clean of everything that separates us from God and one another. Baptism is a physical and spiritual way that we choose to accept and live into our unity with God through Jesus.

We are baptized to embody our unity with God and the love, forgiveness, and grace God has for us, so when God became human, rather than claim to be above all of that, God joined with humanity even in humanity’s ways of joining with God. Even if he didn’t need baptism, Jesus wasn’t too good to be baptized. He wasn’t above that.

Perhaps, as followers of Jesus, there is a lesson there for us. When God became human, he didn’t find things to be beneath his dignity to do. Rather, God joined with us in all of our lives. Perhaps then, nothing is beneath any of our dignity to do as well.

Even forgiving others, which is part of what baptism is all about, the forgiveness of the harm we do. For us to forgive, we have to swallow our pride, to set aside the fact that forgiveness may not be deserved, and then choose to forgive anyway. That’s what God does, forgiving us, not necessarily because we deserve it, but because we need it. We need healing, and forgiveness brings healing, both for the one being forgiven and for the one doing the forgiving.

If God can forgive us and even be baptized with a baptism for forgiveness of sins, then, as hard as it may be, forgiving others is certainly not beneath our dignity. If being God didn’t put Jesus above forgiving others, then being human certainly doesn’t put any of us above forgiving others.

Now, in Luke’s version of Jesus’ baptism which we heard today, John talked about Jesus gathering the wheat of humanity into his granary and burning the chaff of humanity with unquenchable fire. That’s God’s job to do, not ours, and it is a job that we don’t fully understand. How exactly does God’s judgement work? Who or what is the chaff? Who or what is the wheat? We’ve got lots of answers, but if we’re being honest, we don’t fully know or understand. That’s because it’s God’s job to do, not ours.

What we do know is, God is unmistakably for us, and so we are meant to be for one another as well. When we judge one another, and we do judge one another, our judgments should be meant for healing, for reconciliation, for helping one another in this life. We can judge our behaviors as harmful or helpful, as loving or hateful.

Our judgments are not meant for determining who is the wheat and who is the chaff to be burned with unquenchable fire. When we make those determinations, we’re making ourselves equal with God, and not even God made himself equal to God when God became human.

So, when we judge, for example, we can judge that violence and settling our conflicts with our fists and weapons is harmful and terrible for us. Last week at breakfast a man felt disrespected when another asked him to quiet down during the prayer. Feeling disrespected, he became angry and attacked the other man, physically, rather than just taking a breath or using his words. That unquestionably the wrong thing to do. His violence at feeling disrespected didn’t help him. It just hurt everyone, and he had to leave over it.

At the same time, that man may have been doing the best he could do at that point. He seems to have been under far too much stress to condemn him simply as bad. He’d obviously been hurt in his life and dealing with so much that when he felt disrespected, he couldn’t do much of anything other than attack. He still had to go, but that doesn’t mean we condemn him. Hopefully he can come back.

Now, some might say that man is like the chaff which will be burned with unquenchable fire. Maybe, but again, if we make that determination, we make ourselves equal with God. Perhaps, instead of the man being the chaff to be burned, the brokenness and hurt within the man is the chaff to be burned with unquenchable fire, and the healed, beloved, forgiven man is the wheat that will be gathered into God’s granary.

We don’t know, but that certainly seems possible, considering how even God chose to be baptized for forgiveness of sins, not because he needed the baptism, but because we do, and God didn’t find joining with us in our baptism to be beneath him. Rather, God chose to be with us and for us, showing us that we can be with and for one another as well. Even if being for one another means we walk into water that is dirty as sin, we can be for one another, knowing Jesus is there with us to gather us together with God.

Love Is Our Religion

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

July 19, 2020

Proper 11, A

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

“Love Is Our Religion”

I spent last week at Camp Allen for Jr. High camp, and it was a great week.  There was lots of physical distancing, masks worn by all, and activities done outside which had previously been inside.  They did a great job of safety while still making it feel like camp; it was really wonderful, and kids who had spent years away from or largely ignoring their faith were brought back to their faith in powerful ways.

Our theme for the week was The Way of Love, which is Presiding Bishop Curry’s way of talking about they way of Jesus.  Our teachings at camp were about turning back to the way of Jesus when we realize we’ve been living in a way that isn’t really about love.  We talked about how we can continue to earn together the ways of Jesus, and how we can bless others and share with others the healing we have found through the way of Jesus, the Way of Love.

I taught on how we can be a blessing to others, and noted that the first thing we need to do is to recognize our own blessings.  In order to be a blessing to others, we can ask ourselves every day, for what am I grateful?  These daily gratitudes can be grand in scale or very small and simple, and if we write them down and then make a practice of sharing these gratitudes with others we begin each day by blessing others and being blessed by them.  

Then we also get to work daily on what we’re wrestling with.  What’s got us upset, angry, anxious, resentful, afraid?  Then, rather than focusing on some other person or situation that’s got us upset, we look inward to understand “What’s going on inside of me that I’m so bothered by whatever it is.”  We work on healing ourselves so that we can then bless others with peace in our hearts.  Otherwise, acting out of our anger and our hurt, we tend to fight against someone or something and bring more harm and hurt into the world.  In the Way of Love, we’re called to recognize our blessings, find peace within ourselves, and then be a blessing to others.  

The campers seemed to really dig that idea and seeking to be healed within oneself before trying to be a blessing to others, and one night, one of the boys cabins asked me to do “priest on a hot seat,” where they asked me any questions they wanted so they could learn more about the faith and hear some thoughts on issues they were wrestling with.  

What do I think about Christians who are against various groups of people?  I said, “I believe they are faithful in their beliefs, faithful to what they’ve been taught, faithful to their understanding of scripture.  I may disagree with them and often do, but I am not going to condemn them or declare them not to be Christian.  I will say that while I think they are wrong, they are also striving to be faithful.”  Now, that response goes against my initial instincts which are to fight against them and start a ruckus over how wrong they are. 

It is easy to feel righteous and even to feel like we’re doing good by fighting and speaking against those whom we feel are wrong and those we perceive as being hateful to others.  Speaking against those others and spending all our time fighting against them however, is not the way of Jesus, the way of love.  

If I’m spending all my time fighting folks who are against people that I claim to love, then I’m not spending that time loving those whom I claim to be defending.  

So, back to the question I was asked at Camp, rather than spend my time condemning the groups of Christians whom I felt were wrong, I spoke out for those people who were condemned by other Christians.  That was a loving response which may have helped some of the campers themselves realize they belonged to Jesus and weren’t condemned or cast out.

Let the weeds grow along with the wheat, Jesus said, so that we don’t all get damaged by pulling the weeds out.  Imagine if everyone who wanted to pull the weeds out of society or out of the church was able to do so.  There wouldn’t be any wheat left.  Everyone would be pulled up and cast out because everyone is a weed in someone’s eyes.  So, Jesus said to let them grow together, and leave the weeding to God at the end of the age.

We’re God’s garden after all, and rather than leave the weeding to us who are tossed about by our emotions and our brokenness, we leave the weeding to God who is not only loving, but who is love itself.  I can trust love to do the weeding.  There are parts in me that need to be weeded out.  There are parts in all of us that need weeding.  There are certainly parts of society that need weeding, so we leave the weeding to God who is love, and we follow in the way of Love, focusing on loving and blessing, rather than constantly fighting against others.  

So, in that vein, one final story from camp.  For one of our prayer activities, we taught the campers about and had them walk a labyrinth.  Now, many of the campers walked the labyrinth in a slow, fairly contemplative way, traditional of a labyrinth walk.  Some of the Jr. High boys, however, kind of skipped through it, walked backwards, shuffled, and goofed their way through it.  

My initial reaction was, “Well, they’re doing it wrong; they’re not taking it seriously, and I should correct that.”  Thankfully, I didn’t.  Rather than see them as weeds in the Labyrinth walk, I pointed out that for some of them, goofing and enjoying their was through the labyrinth was prayer.  I realized that the traditional ways and structures of prayer in the church don’t work for everybody.  Some of these kids needed to have fun, and that fun with their friends was prayer.  What those kids then heard was not, “we’re weeds and doing it wrong.”  Instead, they heard that they are wheat, and they belong just as much as their friends who could walk more contemplatively.  

Later that night, one of the boys talked with his counselor, his cabin mates, and me about how he had felt God walking along side him during the Labyrinth walk.  His full group of cabin mates all got to be there with him in that.  They all got to be wheat together with him.  If I had declared some of them as weeds?  How much would have been missed, how broken would that cabin had been with some of them feeling like they didn’t belong when their friend told that he had walked with God?  

We’ve all got weeds within us.  We are also all wheat.  God, who is loving and who is love itself will sort that all out.  We are not weed pullers; that is not our religion.  As disciples of Jesus, (and quoting Ziggy Marley), “love is [our] religion.”  Our place is to love one another, both the weeds and the wheat, and to grow together in the Way of Jesus, the Way of Love.

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.