Walking In the Glory of God

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets, Houston
March 2, 2025
Last Epiphany, C
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
Luke 9:28-43a

If you’ve ever had a “mountain top” experience or been astounded at the greatness of God, then you may have some idea of what Peter, James, and John felt up on the mountain with Jesus or what the crowds felt after witnessing Jesus heal the boy with the demon. Awe, wonder, hope, joy, peace? Sometimes people have these blow your socks of kinds of experiences of some great encounter with God where they feel or see something miraculous in the world. Sometimes it’s a sudden spiritual awakening, a massive awareness of God’s presence and the guidance of God’s Spirit. 

Now, I say sometimes because these experiences of God don’t happen all the time, and they don’t happen for everyone. Peter, James, and John were up on the mountain witnessing the full divinity of Jesus shining through. It was a massive encounter with God, and it only happened to those three guys. None of Jesus’ other disciples ever saw that, and even for Peter, James, and John, it was only once, and it was very brief. Once the encounter was over, they went back down the mountain to continue their lives. They couldn’t stay on the mountain forever basking in the glory of God. 

So, what did they do when they went back down the mountain? They went about their daily lives, probably not basking in the glory of God, but they certainly were living in the glory of God.

See, Peter, James, and John were thoroughly Jewish, as were Jesus and all of Jesus’ disciples. So, when they went back down the mountain, they continued living the Torah. Torah is the first five books of the Bible, and Torah is the written law given to the people of Israel through Moses. So, when I say that Peter, James, and John lived the Torah after they came down the mountain, I mean they lived the way of life given to them by God.

Torah is more than just a bunch of laws. Torah is the way the people of Israel came to know God and to walk alongside God. Torah is understood by some rabbis to be created by God before all else and that creation itself was made through Torah. So, when Jews live according to the ways of Torah, they are coming to know God through that way of life, quite literally living in the glory of God throughout their daily lives. That’s what Peter, and James, and John did when they came back down from the mountain. While no longer basking in God’s glory, they were living in God’s glory every day as they lived and walked in the way of Torah.

Now for us who are not Jewish, who are followers of Jesus, we don’t live according to Torah. Many of us have heard of the 10 Commandments, and we follow them more or less; I’d recommend more than less. Instead of following all of the laws of Torah, however, we follow Jesus and seek to walk in his ways. When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, with Moses and Elijah next to him, God’s glory shone through Jesus himself, as the living embodiment of Torah, the living embodiment of the Law and the Prophets. What some rabbis say of Torah, Paul wrote of Jesus. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created…”(Colossians 1:15-16)

So for us, when we walk with Jesus, seeking to live according to Jesus’ teachings and ways, we are walking in the glory of God as well. Very few of us may have mountain top experiences, grand encounters of God’s miraculous presence, and yet we can still walk daily in the glory of God. When we trust in Jesus and follow in his ways we come to know God more and more. Like the Jewish people coming to know God through Torah, we come to know God through Jesus, through his life and teachings.

For an example, Jesus taught not to seek revenge, but rather to pray for our enemies and bless those who curse us. When we do so, we can find peace, giving our anger over to God. We also find life in Jesus’ teaching because when we don’t seek revenge, we have a better chance of not being killed. Last week, a 17-year-old was shot and killed by some fellow students in a pickup truck. The groups of teens had gotten into an argument the day before, and then, rather than letting it go, praying for his enemies, and giving his anger over to God, the teen and his friends began the fight again, and the young man was killed. When we say Jesus’ ways are ways of life, sometimes we mean that very literally.

Refrain from anger, leave rage alone, and instead, pray for your enemies and bless those who curse you. Following in those ways of Jesus, we come to know God, and we find life. Jesus said we find our lives by losing our lives, and this is part of what Jesus meant. Letting go of anger, forgiving others is a way of letting go of our life, letting go of our desires and trusting not in ourselves, but in Jesus and in Jesus’ resurrection. Letting go of our lives also means literally letting go of our lives believing that life continues on even after death. Letting go of our lives doesn’t mean that we seek death, but that we accept death and no longer fear death. Accepting and losing our fear of death, we may find forgiveness and blessing our enemies to be easier too. In all of this, we walk daily in God’s glory, coming to know God through Jesus.

Now, following in Jesus’ ways is not an automatic thing. Like most things in life, we can’t just say we’re gonna follow Jesus and then, poof, it happens. We gotta train, and practice to daily follow in Jesus ways.

So, we have the season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday. Lent is a season of prayer, a season of turning our lives back around towards God’s ways, and a season of giving things up in order to strengthen ourselves. We give things up for Lent to train ourselves to tame the desires of the flesh. By giving something up during the 40 days of Lent, we learn to master our desires, seeking God’s help in little things so that we become stronger to follow in God’s ways when it really matters. 

When temptations come for us to fight or get revenge. When temptations come for us to feel better or numb out in harmful ways: drugs; casual sex; drinking to oblivion. We practice resisting temptation during Lent so we become used to giving our harmful desires over to God and taming our flesh. The trust comes that if we give up those ways, if we give up always satisfying the desires of the flesh, then we can be strengthened for greater love and peace, walking with God, and knowing God. Note that giving into our desires doesn’t make us terrible people, giving into our desires usually does harm us and harm others, and then we find we’re walking in darkness, rather than God’s glory.

So, what are the ways of Jesus in which we want to walk? I’d say the baptismal covenant pretty well tells us how to walk in Jesus’ ways. We promise, with God’s help, to join with others in learning and following Jesus’ teachings, to pray together, and to enjoy life together. We promise, with God’s help, to turn away from ways of harm and destruction, and to return to God when we realize we’ve gone down those destructive paths. We promise, with God’s help, to live and talk about the life we have found in Jesus and the way of love which we follow. We promise, with God’s help, to love all people, realizing God dwells in all of us, and so we will seek justice and peace, honor and respect.

We don’t exactly need a mountain top, massive encounter with God to realize that walking in the ways of our baptismal covenant, walking in the ways of Jesus, we will find greater life and love than when we follow in the ways of our anger and our desires for vengeance. Following in the ways of Jesus will bring greater life and love than when we follow the desires of our flesh with no regard to the harm it may cause ourselves or others. 

That may sound good here, but the challenge is to trust in Jesus’ ways beyond here, in the moment, when we really want revenge or the desires of our flesh. That’s when the true trust comes that we will find greater light and life denying the desires of our flesh, denying ourselves and following instead the teachings and way of Jesus. That trust and will bring us life, walking daily in God’s glory. That trust and faith also brings peace amidst our fears as we believe that even death is not the end, but that life continues on in Jesus’ resurrection, living forever in the glory of love of God.

Walking with God in the Way of Love

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston

September 1, 2024
Proper 17, B
James 1:17-27
Psalm 15
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Hey guys, don’t think about kittens jumping around in front of a scared looking puppy. Stop, I said don’t think about it. No kittens jumping. No scared puppy. Keep it out of your mind.

Failures. Kidding.

It’s hard not to think about something when you’re focusing on not thinking about it. Ok, now think about Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel we just heard. ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ Spending time in worship can be really good for us, and the worship God truly wants is caring for one another. Loving one another. Think about someone in need and choosing to help them out. Think about a time you were in need and a kind and loving person came to your aid. I’m guessing you weren’t just thinking about cats and puppies anymore, were you?

Jesus said that the things that defile a person are the harmful things that come out of our hearts. Fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly, these selfish things that we do are what defile us, not doing our religion wrong. 

So, I could preach about not doing those things, talking about each one in detail, and saying “That’s bad; don’t do it.” The problem is that sometimes the harder we try not to do something, the more we fixate on it and the harder time we have not doing it. Don’t think of the kittens and the puppy, right? And as soon as I tell us not to, we start thinking about it. 

Jesus giving us this list of things not to do is important and teaching we often need to realize that these things are harmful, and there’s more to the story. Jesus didn’t just say, “This stuff’s bad; don’t do it.” Jesus gave us a way of life so that we would not just fixate on harmful behaviors and end up doing them anyway. The way of life that Jesus gave us is the way of love. 

Now, following the way of love is part of why there so many are religious practices. Religious practices, at their best, are meant to help train us, to keep us walking with God in the way of love, walking with one another so the thought of harming one another would go totally against who we are. Unfortunately, we often forget that, and religious practices end up being ways we try to please God. 

As far back as human history goes, people have had belief in one type of god or another, and along with all of our various beliefs about God or gods, people have continually sought ways to please God. People have tried to get God on their side against others. People have tried to gain God’s favor so that crops will grow or natural disasters won’t happen. In all sorts of societies, people have done all sorts of things to appease their gods. 

Folks have sacrificed animals and various food on altars. Folks have burned things, said particular prayers at particular times, cut themselves, had ritual dances, even left out milk and cookies. 

What we find over and over in scripture is that God was never all that interested in any of that stuff. 

In Jesus’ day, the some of the religious leaders were pretty adamant about doing everything they could to try to please God. We heard today about the Pharisees who even went beyond the actual laws that they were supposed to follow and said that Jesus and his disciples were displeasing God because they were eating without washing their hands. There were a lot of laws about washing, about being ritually clean before God, but washing your hands before you ate wasn’t one of those laws. By tradition, they had added hand washing to the ritual purity laws. 

On the one hand, it was really helpful in keeping disease down. As far as societal health went, handwashing was fantastic. It just wasn’t going to make you more or less righteous before God.

All of those rituals and religious laws weren’t bad, but folks could miss the point, thinking the rituals were there to please God, rather than to be helpful for the people. The practice of keeping the laws, of following the ritual, with a mind toward connecting with God and trusting in God, can be helpful. You’re training yourself to trust in God in all things. The rituals and laws are like daily practice of trusting in God, unless they become things you must do lest God be angry with you.

Look at modern Christianity, guilting people for not showing up for church on Sunday. No wonder people don’t want to come…as though coming to church pleases God in and of itself. Worshipping together is meant to be helpful for us, joining together with one another, taking some time to pause in the business and struggle of life, to rest together, connecting with God. That’s a good way to practice religion…and it’s not going to make God happy with us.

What is the religion that pleases God? Taking care of one another.

The more we take care of one another, the more we see the absolute beauty and divine worth of every human being. When we see one another’s divine worth and care for one another, then we end up not falling into those destructive ways Jesus talked about: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly. Rather than not thinking about kittens and puppies, we focus on loving one another.

Those vices that Jesus mentioned are all about selfish pleasure seeking with no regard to the hurt we do to others. Gaining immense wealth with no regard to how it hurts others. Taking and taking and taking, with no regard for anyone else. Taking people’s things and livelihoods. Taking the truth from people. Taking life from people. 

All of these desires we have within us, and acting on these desires is what defiles us, Jesus says. Acting on our selfish desires with no regard for others is what makes us ‘stained’ by the world, as James says. 

Look at religious hypocrites, which we all are at times, but think about the big examples. Huge mega-pastor televangel-whatevers who have an enormous following. They’re great at showing how religious they are and demanding that same religious purity from others, and then they get brought down by some big financial or sex scandal. We tend to call such people hypocrites, but the real problem is not the hypocrisy, but that they were chasing after the wrong things in the first place. It’s not as though their super religiousness was stained by their misdeeds. The point is that all of their religiosity that looked so impressive never much mattered in the first place.  

They were hearers of the word and not doers, at least in part because of a focus on doing all of their religiousy stuff right, trying to please God (or at least show off about pleasing God), rather than simply trying to love and serve other people.

True religion, according to James, is to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Being here, following other religious practices is training to trust in God, to love ourselves, to love others. When we do that, those selfish desires which live within us tend to fade away. We love and care for others, and that makes our religion true. Loving and caring for others is the religion that pleases God.

We don’t need to make grand gestures to appease God. We don’t need to be super religious. Just go with the simple notion that we all matter, that we all are of divine importance, and treat one another accordingly.

Be a Friendly, Neighborhood Spider-Man

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
October 17, 2021

Proper 24, B

Mark 10:35-45

Be a Friendly, Neighborhood Spider-Man

In the movie Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker, desperately wants to be an Avenger. The Avengers, such as Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow, are Earth’s mightiest superheroes. Their base of operations is Avengers Tower, they are known throughout the world, and they are the ones you call when the really big bad stuff happens. 

Spider-Man has superpowers, and at the same time, he’s a teenager, Peter Parker, still in high school. His quest to be an Avenger keeps being denied, and he is discouraged because he has lofty ambitions, and wants to do more than just help the people of his neighborhood, Queens, New York. He wants to be saving the world. He wants a spot at Avengers Tower.

Well, through all the twists and turns of the movie, eventually, he is offered a place among the Avengers, but by that time, he’s come to see the value not only of “saving the world,” but also the value of being there for the people around him. He turns down the offer to be an Avenger, saying, “Well, I mean, I'd rather just stay on the ground for a little while[, be a] friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Somebody's got to look out for the little guy, right?”

He didn’t need glory. He didn’t need fame. Look out for the little guy, and be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

When James and John, the sons of Zebedee asked Jesus to sit next to Jesus when he came into his glory, they were basically wanting to be Avengers. They thought Jesus was going to rule over Israel as king, and so they wanted to sit on either side of his throne. Of course this first meant fighting a war against Rome with Jesus at the helm, and after destroying the Romans and avenging Israel, they would rule over Israel with Jesus. 

They misunderstood of course one thing, that Jesus wasn’t going to be fighting any war against Rome. They also misunderstood their role, their importance, and their need for a throne in order to be effective as disciples of Jesus. Notice that Jesus didn’t rebuke them for their request. The other disciples did, they were pretty hacked off about it, but Jesus saw that James and John were actually thinking too little of themselves, as if they didn’t matter without some throne, as if they couldn’t really make a difference without a throne. So, Jesus calmed his disciples, called them to him, and taught them a lesson about who they were and what their ministry really was.

“You know that among the Gentiles,” Jesus said, “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…” He didn’t say “it should not be so among you;” that you shouldn’t be tyrants over each other. Jesus said, “it is not so among you.” “You are not tyrants over each other.”

Rather than rebuke James and John, Jesus looked into their hearts and saw not a desire for tyranny or greatness for their own sake. Jesus saw a desire for good, and in his response, Jesus is basically saying, 

Y’all are asking for greatness, and knowing your hearts, I can see that you aren’t asking to be tyrants over others. Your hearts are in the right place. What you are asking for is a serving role, but you don’t need a throne to do that. You already serve, even in seeming lowliness. The service you are doing is just as important and often more important than that of lords of rulers. 

Keep your feet on the ground for a while. Be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

That’s where we find the most effective and Christ-like ministry has been throughout the church. The church as Empire is not what grew disciples of Jesus and healed peoples’ lives. The church as mighty and ruling over others has actually ended up causing a lot of harm in the name of Jesus. No, the real ministry of Jesus through the people of his church happened in the people of the church serving with each other and serving with those in their neighborhoods, looking out for the little guys. The same is true in our world today. 

Now, this is not to say that there is not good ministry being done by the church on an institutional, organizational level. There is much good ministry being done through the organizations and institutions of the church engaging with other organizations and institutions, even globally. There has just been formed an Episcopal Church delegation to the United Nations for an upcoming UN conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Ellen Singer, from our diocese, will be part of that Episcopal Church delegation to the United Nations. That’s pretty cool. That’s global-level influence of the Episcopal Church.

Now, when I first heard of that UN Delegation, my reaction was about like Spider-Man wanting to be an Avenger or James and John wanting to be next to Jesus in his glory. I thought, “I want to go to the United Nations,” but then I quickly realized, “Yeah, actually I really don’t.” I’m glad for those who do. There is great ministry that is done within large bodies, organizations, institutions, and that’s a good thing for the church to be able to offer counsel for those making decisions that affect many, or most, or all. Not to be in charge as Lords over people, but to counsel those who are.

Even so, the majority of Jesus’ ministry through the people of his church happens in the neighborhood. The majority of Jesus’ ministry through the people of his church happens in the relationships we have and the relationships we continue to cultivate and form. We don’t need titles, or thrones, or global-level influence to do important ministry as disciples of Jesus. 

Helping the kids and teachers at Rhoads Elementary is important ministry, looking out for the little guy. Ministering to people with Alzheimer’s and Dementia through The Gathering Place is important ministry, looking out for the little guy. Calling your friend or neighbor who is having a rough time and having some coffee or lunch together to connect and go through that time with that person is important ministry, looking out for the little guy. 

No one needs to be an Avenger to be a disciple of Jesus. We just need to look out for the little guy, keep our feet on the ground, and be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.