Mercy. Letting People Be. God Is With Us.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
December 21, 2025
4 Advent, A
Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
Matthew 1:18-25

When Mary ended up pregnant with a baby that wasn’t Joseph’s, he could have called for Mary’s death. Such was his right under Jewish law in Deuteronomy 22:23-27. Mary could have been stoned to death for being pregnant because she was engaged. Even if she had been raped, if she hadn’t screamed out loudly enough for someone to hear and stop the rape, she still could have been killed. We don’t know how often such killings took place in 1st century Israel, but we do know that Joseph had every right to have Mary killed. Some might even say he had a responsibility to fulfil the righteousness of the law, to have Mary killed. Joseph decided to go a different way.

He and Mary were probably both in their early teens, their marriage arranged by their parents, with Joseph and Mary still living with their parents at the time. So, when he found out she was pregnant with someone else’s baby, he could have, at the very least, called off the wedding. That was, in fact, what he planned to do. He would tell Mary’s family that since she was no longer a virgin and had been impregnated by another man, he would no longer accept her as his wife. 

Had that played out, Mary would have likely continued living with her parents. She would have had her baby. Maybe one day she would have gotten married, though her prospects for security and a husband weren’t that great. 

Then, of course, Joseph was visited by an Angel of the Lord who told him to take Mary as his wife because the child was given to her by the Holy Spirit, not by another man. Now, when Matthew wrote this story of Jesus birth, we find that it reminded Matthew of Isaiah 7:10-16, where the young woman gave birth to a son and the son was named, “Immanuel,” meaning God is with us.

Reminding us of that story, Matthew was telling us that God is with us in the birth of Jesus. God was with Mary as he chose her to become pregnant with Jesus and to raise him as her beloved son. God was with Joseph as he assured Joseph of his plan, that the pregnancy was God’s doing. God was also with Joseph before the angel visited him, when Joseph chose to let Mary go quietly.

If Joseph had had Mary killed, he would have fulfilled the letter of the law, but he would have missed God being with us, not to mention murdering an innocent young woman. Instead, Joseph chose to let Mary be, and God is with us.

God was with Mary when Joseph chose to simply let her go, rather than enforce upon her the full weight of the law. Even though she had seemingly broken the law. Even though she was engaged to him and gotten pregnant by some other dude, he thought, Joseph simply chose to let her go. 

She won’t be a part of my life, he figured, and that will be that. There had been a civil contract between his and her families, one’s daughter and one’s son, and since that contract had been broken by Mary, the two were no longer going to be married. That was all. No death. No condemnation. No public outcry. God is with us.

Now again, some would say he should have publicly disgraced Mary. She had done wrong, and they needed to keep Israel pure from such immorality. How could they be God’s people if they allowed such terrible behavior as Mary the tramp getting knocked up by some random dude? If they allowed that, how could God be with them? If they allowed Mary and others like her to live, wouldn’t they be making God angry with them as a nation? How could God be with them if they did not follow God’s laws of purity and sexual morality?

That could have been Joseph’s response, but again, he went a different way. Joseph chose mercy, and as it turns out, God was with them because of that mercy. God is with us because of that mercy.

So, trusting that God is with us, even when people do things that are considered unrighteous and immoral, how might we follow the example of Joseph? How might we show mercy, too?

Well, Joseph thought Mary had committed sexual immorality, and we have laws being proposed and passed aimed at what some consider to be sexual immorality. I am thinking of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters who are being targeted by laws written to uphold some people’s ideas of Christian sexual morality. Repealing marriage equality. Preventing doctors from helping transgender people transition. What if, instead of writing laws against our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, people just let them be?    

I’ve heard concern by some Christian preachers that God is angry with the United States for allowing LGBTQ people to have the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. That’s kinda like thinking Mary had to be killed to keep God from being angry with Israel. Turns out, despite what the law said, God wanted mercy, not murder.

Well, if we look to Joseph, his righteousness came not by enforcing the punishment of God’s law. Josephs’ righteousness came by showing mercy. Joseph’s righteousness came by simply letting Mary be. What if people who consider LGBTQ folks to be sinners just let them be, trusting that God is with us. 

What if Christians in general didn’t force their ideas of morality on others, but simply let people be? Could we still trust that God is with us? That would be following Joseph’s example of righteousness, showing mercy, trusting that God is with us.

What about other ways that people might show mercy, trusting God is with us, rather than enforcing punishment for doing wrong? What about when we lose our tempers, wanting to shout at or fight with someone because they did something against us? We’re so pissed off, and we want to teach the, to make them know they were wrong, to admit it, and to make it right. We want punishment and justice.

That is presumably what an 18-year-old wanted when he stabbed his 16-year-old classmate in the neck, killing him. The 18-year-old couldn’t find his vape pen and was convinced the younger man had taken it. A fight ensued and because of that, one young man is dead, and the other is in jail, facing murder charges and decades in prison. 

I don’t know what was going through his head at the time, but it’s a good bet it wasn’t mercy. A $21 vape pen, an assumption of theft, no mercy, and a young man is dead. That’s what could have happened to Mary. An engagement, an assumption of adultery, no mercy, and Mary would have been killed, but Joseph chose a different way, and God is with us.

Joseph choosing mercy was probably not an accident. He had probably been shown mercy himself, had been taught mercy. Vengeance is easy. All we have to do is listen to our emotions, get hurt, get upset, and do exactly what our emotions tell us to do. That’s what Cain did when he killed Abel. Be angry and do exactly what that anger says to do. That’s what Derek Chauvin did when he murdered George Floyd.

Vengeance is easy, and vengeance tends to rest on the idea that we’re alone. Vengeance is a fearful response that we have to take care of whatever problem ourselves. Judgment, justice, all up to us. Vengeance can also be a fearful response that if we don’t hurt the people we think are wrong, then God may hurt us. Neither of those were Joseph’s response. Joseph chose mercy and found that God is with us.

Mercy is taught and practiced. Mercy takes trust that God is with us, and so we don’t need vengeance. 

For the young man who killed his classmate over a missing vape pen, mercy does mean that he’ll need to be in prison if he’s convicted, and that he’ll need to be shown mercy when he’s there, helped to heal, not just beaten down and punished forever.

God is with us. Always and everywhere. God became human so we would know that he is with us. God became human to show us mercy. Mercy helps heal the world. May we follow Joseph’s example. May we follow the way of God. May we show mercy.

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.

Sharing the Music that Is in Us

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets
March 17, 2024
5 Lent, Year B
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-13
John 12:20-33

Sharing the Music that Is in Us

Jesus’ response to the news that some Greeks were looking for him seems odd. Really, most of Jesus’ responses to people in John’s Gospel seem odd. In this case, his disciples tell him some Greeks are looking for him, and he says, “The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.” 

Just before this, Jesus had come into Jerusalem, and huge crowds had been cheering for him. While he was riding into town, the Pharisees looked to one another and said, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him.” The fact that some Greeks had come to speak to Jesus seems to confirm what the Pharisees said. “The whole world has gone after [Jesus].” As much as they’d wanted to keep the whole Jesus movement from spreading, the cat was officially out of the bag and there was no stopping it now.

They were right. Early church had no buildings or organized support. They could not worship in the synagogues, nor in the Roman temples, and yet the church, spread like wildfire. People believed in Jesus. They trusted him. They found healing in Jesus. They found love. So, they ministered to others out of that same love, offering that same healing. 

As God had said through the prophet Jeremiah, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God. I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” People were loved, forgiven, and healed, and God’s law, God’s love, was written on their hearts. 

See, there’s hearing and learning about the way of God’s love, and then there’s living the way of God’s love. As a musician, I think about the practice that goes into playing songs, getting them fully under your fingers and into your voice. You practice, and practice, and practice, and eventually, you leave the practice room, and you play the songs for others. There’s risk in that, risk in offering that music to be received by others, but it’s also a beautiful offering. When you’ve worked at it so the music is written in your heart, then it’s a beautiful offering and sharing of song and story. 

I saw Guy Forsyth play a show last week, and boy does he play. He practices a lot, and then he risks the stage. He plays those songs written in his heart, and his risk is worth it. His connection to the audience is beautiful. The stories he tells through his music, the human connection he brings, receiving his offering of music is healing.

When the music is written in your heart, then you can play, you can risk, and that brings healing and love to the world.

That healing and love is what happens when the Gospel of Jesus is written in our hearts. We leave the practice room, we risk, we play, and that brings healing and love to the world. 

Jesus talked about the risk of playing the Gospel. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” he said, “it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Early followers of Jesus risked for the sake of the healing and love of the Gospel. They risked being kicked out of their synagogues, and they were kicked out of their synagogues. Gentiles risked being ostracized, and they were. 

The Gospel of Jesus demands risk. It demands being booed off stage, and if we are, ok. We practice some more, we allow the love and healing of Jesus to be written even more fully in our hearts, and we risk again. We risk not only for our sake, but for the sake of others.

We risk being peacemakers. We risk connection with one another. We risk offering the faith that is in us. We risk trusting in Jesus and following in his ways, rather than holding on so tightly to our lives out of fear of loss, that we end up hurting others and ourselves in the process. 

Our futures are uncertain. Jesus told us they would be. Following Jesus means risking that uncertainty. Jesus risked everything for our sake, for the sake of all people. “’Now is the judgment of this world;” Jesus said, “now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.” (John 12:33)

How did Jesus know that he would be raised and lifted up from the earth after he was crucified? My guess is he didn’t know it. He believed it. How did Jesus know that he would draw all people to himself? My guess is he didn’t know it. He believed it. How did he know that people wouldn’t simply forget, not believe, or ignore his life, message, and resurrection? My guess is he didn’t know it. He believed it. Jesus believed that people would receive his offering, receive his way of love and forgiveness. Jesus believed that people would receive the healing he offered and that they would then risk as he did to offer that same healing of forgiveness and love to others. 

Jesus believed in God, in forgiveness and love, and because of that belief, he risked everything for the sake of all humanity. He invites us, then to risk as well, for the sake of his Gospel and for the sake of humanity. Jesus invites us to risk for the sake of people who may hear, receive, and live the forgiveness and love of Jesus through the risks we take. Jesus invites us to risk forgiveness and love of others.

If we just talk about Jesus’ forgiveness and love to others, just tell people about it, then we’re really still in the practice room. If we mostly talk about Jesus’ Gospel, then I’m not sure it’s truly written on our hearts yet. When we live Jesus’ forgiveness and love, that’s when Jesus is written on our hearts. When we truly forgive and love others, that’s when we’re risking. Living Jesus’ forgiveness and love is when we’re out of the practice room and on stage, offering our music to others, making that connection, sharing the beauty and healing of the music that is in us.

“This Is the Way” (sorry, but it fits)

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

St. Mark’s, Bellaire
August 27, 2023
Proper 16, Year A
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20 

“This Is the Way” (sorry, but it fits)

So, I’ve been a huge Star Wars fan since I was a little kid. 

When I moved into my office at Lord of the Streets, I brought my Mandalorian Naboo Starfighter LEGO set and the rest of my LEGO Star Wars sets first. The Darth Vader helmet looking over me on the wall. Then I eventually brought in the crosses for the walls and my ordination certificate. 

So, right now is a really good time to be a Star Wars nerd. We've got the new Ahsoka show on right now, the Mandalorian before that. Baby Yoda, or as dorks like me know him, Din Grogu is from the Mandalorian show, and a catch phrase of the show is, “This is the Way.” That means the Way of the Mandalorian, a group of warriors and protectors, and the Way they follow is their code, their Way of life.

So, being a huge Star Wars nerd, I’ve been trying not to use “This is the Way” in a sermon or even in everyday conversations, and until today, I’ve been mostly successful.

Today, however, it just fits as Jesus told Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Looking at the ideas of the keys and the binding and loosing, Jesus was talking about how we live out God’s kingdom on Earth. For the people of Israel, living out God’s kingdom was and is tied to how they live out and follow God’s laws. Following God’s laws is often referred to as walking in the way of the law.

Over the centuries, Rabbis have determined how the laws will be binding on people, and even which laws are binding on people’s lives and which are not. For Orthodox Jews, there are more laws that are binding on them than for Reform Jews. Their leaders have determined which laws are binding and how the laws are binding.

In Jesus’ day too, the religious leaders determined how the laws were to be lived out, and we know Jesus often disagreed with them, even saying in Luke that some were locking people out of the Kingdom because of how they were enforcing God’s laws. Think of last week, when the Pharisees insisted that Jesus’ disciples were doing things wrong by not washing their hands before eating, and Jesus was having none of it, saying that the point of the laws was not to follow them for the sake of following arbitrary rules, but the point of the laws was to heal us so that we would live in the way of love, the way of mercy, and the way of justice.

Justice, mercy, love…this is the Way of Jesus.

So, disagreeing with the religious leaders of the time over how and which laws were to be binding on people, Jesus told Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” In other words, Peter and the apostles were given the authority to determine which laws were to be binding on the people and how they were to be binding. Peter and the apostles were to determine how people were going to walk in the Way of Jesus.

Very early on, in the book of Acts, we see the apostles determine that for the non-Jewish followers of Jesus, the laws of Israel were mostly not binding. Gentiles didn’t have to become Jewish in order to walk in the Way of Jesus.

Over the centuries, we’ve continued to have leaders determine what ways of life are binding on us in order to walk in the way of Jesus. We have our church councils, our prayer book, our church constitution, and our bishops who determine our Way in the Episcopal Church.

Our way is to walk in justice, mercy, and love. Our way is to spend time daily in prayer, to spend time daily in the scriptures. Our way is sacramental, having ordinary things become ways that God is being encountered in our world in countless ways. Our way is to forgive, to serve, to make do with less so that others may have what they need. Justice, mercy, and love.

 Of course, for any of us to truly walk in the Way of Jesus, the Way becomes something that is internalized by us. Why do we pray and read scripture every day? “Because the priest said I had to.” No, we pray and read scripture every day because that’s our Way. Sometimes we may be doing it simply because it is our Way and we’re walking in that Way, but we keep daily prayer and scripture reading as our Way because that Way of life brings healing.

The way of Jesus is ultimately the way of healing. Why would any of us do with less so that others may have what they need? Because we see our brothers and sisters working and not making enough to pay rent. We see our sisters and our brothers getting sick for two weeks and then being evicted because those two weeks without wages kept them from being able to pay that month’s rent. These are the folks I minister with every day, and once folks end up on the streets, it is frightfully hard to get back.

When you don’t have daily access to a shower and don’t have a place to launder your clothes, getting a job is almost impossible. If you have any mental illness and don’t have a job that pays enough to have good medical insurance, and then enough for co-pays and prescriptions on top of that, then keeping a job can be frightfully difficult. There is a lot of suffering in our world, in our city, and our Way, the Way of Jesus, is to help soothe that suffering.

When we do, we also find that our own suffering is soothed as well. Times when we don’t quite see it, all we can do is trust. Trust in the Way of Jesus, trust in how Jesus’ way has been handed down to us in the Episcopal Church. Then there are times when we recognize the healing that has been brought by walking in the Way, and it becomes internalized by us. The Way of Jesus becomes our Way, the Way of healing, the Way of justice, mercy, and love.

Bath Bombs and Cookies: A Loving Response

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

October 25, 2020

Proper 25, A

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Matthew 22:34-46

Bath Bombs and Cookies:  A Loving Response

The way of our whole lives is love.  “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment,” Jesus said, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Love is the guide through all of the laws and situations in our lives.  

Last week, I said that everything we do, we do to God.  Every kindness we give one another, every act of cruelty or disgust, every word we utter, and every action we take, all are done and given to God.  Little wonder Jesus says to act out of love.  Love is the summation of the law and the lens through which we view the law.  If we read the law and do not first and foremost read it out of love, then we’re reading it wrong.  Some of the law is hard to read through a lens of love, and you’ll notice that sometimes Jesus broke the law in order to follow the law of love.  

When Jesus didn’t stone to death a woman caught in adultery, he was breaking the law.  Stoning the woman to death, murdering her, was not just the actions of an angry mob.  Those were the actions of people who were following the letter of the law.  By not killing this woman, Jesus was breaking the law.  He was, however, following, the law of love, the law of compassion.  “Go and sin no more,” he said to the woman, after he convinced the crowd that they had all sinned and messed up in their lives too, and so they didn’t need to act as some holier than thou executioners, ignoring their own faults while killing a woman for hers.  Jesus saw this law as not fulfilling the law of love.  Jesus saw this woman and realized that her life had more value than the poor choices she’d sometimes made.  Go and live your life with that value and the possibility of what may be; go and live a life of love as one who is beloved of God.

Like the woman in that story, we’re all God’s children, eternally beloved of God and eternally worthy of each others’ love.  When we break our own modern laws and when we harm each other, we’re still worthy of each other’s love.  That includes the people we really don’t like and the people who have really and truly hurt us.  Jesus said to love our enemies, and he even broke laws in order to give compassion and love to others, even those who were criminals and notorious sinners.  

Act out of love toward all people, Jesus taught, for all that we do for or against others is done for or against God.  All that we do for or against others is also done for or against others, other people, people who matter eternally, people whose live and possibilities matter more than their misdeeds, people whose misdeeds may be cries of hurt or brokenness.  

I read a story last week of a mom whose young daughter is completely worn out by COVID life, school, stress, all of it.  The mother recounted how her daughter came home in tears because she was so exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.  She said this exhaustion sometimes come across as anger, and I’m guessing disrespect and poor behavior at home, but she said she understand that it is exhaustion.  So, on the day she recounted, she “listened for about ten minutes, held her [daughter] tight and scratched her back, and told her to meet [her] in [the] bathroom in five minutes.” 

Cue: Awesome Bath. Big clawfoot tub, gorgeous bubbles, delicious bath bomb, her favorite candle next to the tub, sweetened iced coffee in a pretty glass, [she] teed up Alexa to play her best music ("Fly Me to the Moon" by Frank Sinatra LOL) and put fresh cookies on a little table. I threw a towel in the dryer to get warm and cozy and dimmed the lights. [Her daughter] took one look at it all and grinned from ear to ear.   (https://www.facebook.com/jenhatmaker/)

Now that was a loving response.  She saw her daughter hurting.  Past the tears, anger, and probable shouting and disrespect, this mother saw her daughter in desperate need of some soothing, some love, and some being cared for.  Past some possible misdeeds, this mother saw a cry of hurt and brokenness, a loving response.  

This particular loving response, however, is not some a new law.  We’re not just going to start drawing baths for each other anytime someone is upset, rude, or disrespectful.  For one thing, not all of us are going to have fresh baked cookies and bath bombs on hand, every time we see someone stressed out and in need of some soothing, and for another thing there are a whole lot of us for whom the bubble Frank Sinatra cookie bath would not be a pleasant, soothing treat.  The bath was given because this mother saw a cry of hurt and brokenness, a loving response, not a law.  

Laws make response easier because a law is something of a formula.  This transgression equals this punishment.  This situation equals this treatment.  Stressed out person?  Have a bath.  Angry person?  Have a bath with lavender.  You were disrespectful?  Go to your room for 30 minutes and think about how to behave better.  Well, for some, that would be a great cool down period.  For others that would be a great building a strong resentment period.  

The formulas of the law can be helpful guides, jumping off points for how to handle difficult situations, but laws are not written or meant to apply to every situation perfectly.  What is going on within each other that we hurt one another, that we break our various laws?  That’s the question that the law often doesn’t ask.  Our laws say, “You did this, and so your punishment is this.”  

Further, we sometimes follow the strictures of the law because we just don’t know what the hell else to do.  As parents, as friends, as teachers, as employers or employees, as police, as lawyers, or even as lawmakers, we often don’t know what the hell to do, as a loving response, when people are behaving terribly and harmfully.  We don’t know how to respond in a loving way, so we do the best we can figure with the laws that we have.

There is an organization nationally and here in Houston call ReVision which works with youths who are in or recently out of the juvenile justice system.  These are kids who have broken laws and so they have gone to juvenile detention centers, been put on probation and the result is that these kids often end up remaining in the criminal justice system through adulthood.  The criminal justice system itself, try though it might, can’t do the work of loving response, and so these kids’ value and possibility as beloved children of God are lost to the law.  

So, ReVision works with these kids with paid staff and with unpaid ministers and volunteers to mentor these kids, to love these kids, to help guide these kids into their value and possibility as the beloved children of God that they are.  That is a loving response.  That is the law of love.

The law of love or a loving response says, “What cry of hurt or brokenness am I hearing within you that you did this harmful thing?  What response might actually bring healing to you and maybe even to me?”  “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment,” Jesus said, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’