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.

Cool. Now We Have a Sword.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 25, 2024
Proper 16, B
Ephesians 6:10-20
Psalm 34:15-22
John 6:56-69

Put on the whole armor of God, Paul writes. Armor is a defensive tool, meant to keep us from harm. Armor up. Get yourselves ready, each day, for everything that’s gonna be coming at you, and let’s face it, on any given day, there’s a lot that may be coming at us. Bad news, loss, shouting and anger, physical attacks, sexual assault and rape, eviction, theft, derision, scorn. 

The armor of God is meant to protect us from these attacks. More accurately, the armor of God is meant to protect our spirits from these attacks, to keep our hearts and our minds from being beaten down and broken by the assaults we face every day. 

Paul writes that “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this present darkness; against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Physical attacks are going to come. They are going to come. They’re going to hit us. They’re going to hurt us. The armor of God is meant to protect us from the spiritual attacks which come along with those physical attacks. 

Look at the armor and protection that Paul writes about. The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and whatever shoes will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 

So, look first at the belt of truth. Among the countless lies we hear, we are often told in a thousand different ways how worthless and terrible we are. If we believe those lies, then we begin to believe that we are, in fact, worthless and terrible. We hate ourselves, we hate the world around us, we live in darkness and fear. We’re also often told that various other groups of people are worthless and terrible, and if we believe those lies, well then we begin to believe that we can treat those other groups of people as terribly as we want to. With these lies of how terrible and worthless we and others are, we can have a pretty dark view of the world and take out our wrath on everyone around us. We see this a lot.

Against such assaults, Paul tells us to wear the belt of truth. If we believe the truth that we and all people are beloved and beautiful, made in God’s image and infinitely valued by God, then those terrible and worthless lies we are told will fall away, unheard. We won’t end up attacking ourselves and one another because we believe the truth of all of our blessedness and belovedness.

Look at the breastplate of righteousness. The more harm we do to others, the more our spirits are fractured and broken. The more we figure, “my life, my world, my way,” the angrier and more resentful we get when things keep not going our way. 

The breastplate of righteousness, then, allows us to give up the belief in “my life, my world, my way.” Rather, the breastplate of righteousness reminds us that the world is Gods, our lives are Gods, and the way is the way of Jesus. Living God’s life, in God’s world, following the way of Jesus, we get to give up the anger and resentment of me and mine. We get to live the harmony of letting go, of choosing to be righteous rather than getting what we think is righteously ours. 

The shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. We believe in God who is good and who is for us. We believe in life lived in unity with God, and we believe that life of unity with God continues on even after our mortal bodies die. With that faith, though many assaults may happen to our bodies, we still walk in this world with God. We can let that peace rule in our hearts, and heal the bitterness and anger over the things that have been done to us. 

Then there are our shoes, as we walk through this life with the armor of God, we can let people know how we can find peace amidst hurt, how we can find acceptance when things don’t go our way, how we can find worth in ourselves and love of others in a world full of people who tell us hate. As we walk through the world, we can let people know that our peace, acceptance, worth, and love come from our belief in God, walking in the ways of Jesus. 

Finally, there is one last piece to the armor of God, and this is the one piece that can be used both for defense and for offense. That is the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Cool. Now we have a sword. Now we get to attack people. 

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not what that means. Considering all the armor that has come before, suddenly getting to attack people doesn’t really make sense. What is the sword of the Spirit, and how do we use it?

The sword of the Spirit is the word of God, which doesn’t mean that it’s the Bible. Remember, the Bible as we know it didn’t exist yet when Paul wrote these words. It was centuries before Paul’s letters, the Gospels, other writings of the Christian scriptures and the writings of the Hebrew Bible were all collected together into one agreed-upon book. 

Also, if we look at the Bible itself, the books of the Bible aren’t the Word of God. Jesus is. So, Jesus is the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit. 

As offense weapons go, Jesus doesn’t seem like the best thing in the world with which to harm others. If we’re actually using Jesus, the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit, then we would be doing as Jesus did: caring for people, healing people, “loving one another, just as Jesus has loved us.” That is how we use the sword that is Jesus. Love, healing, caring, compassion and communion.

What about using Jesus to attack people in an argument, like a keen and bloody sword? Well, again, our enemies are not flesh and blood. Our enemies are not people to attack. Jesus is a sword against spiritual forces of darkness, and the way to attack spiritual forces of darkness is love, healing, caring, compassion, and communion with others. 

With the whole armor of God, we won’t feel the need to lash out and attack others with the sword of the Spirit. Rather, we’ll see other’s hurt, others’ brokenness, and we’ll want the sword of the spirit to attack what’s hurting them, and that is done through healing. The sword of the Spirit only attacks the spiritual forces that are harming people. As we give compassion, love, and healing, and caring in community, the sword of the Spirit defends people. 

So, armor up. Every day, we can help each other put on the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and whatever shoes will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Finally, walk with Jesus, the sword of the Spirit to attack spiritual forces of darkness by defending, loving, and healing one another. 

Wine Coolers? Really?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 18, 2024
Proper 15, B
Ephesians 5:15-20

Psalm 34:9-14
John 6:51-58

“Give thanks to God at all times,” Paul said. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” Jesus said. I wonder if those two things might be related. It’s a good bet, since I brought it up, that I believe they are. 

For weeks we’ve been talking about Jesus as the bread of life, and I’ve been talking about ways in which Jesus is that bread of life and ways that we receive that bread of life. So, today we get to add “giving thanks to God at all times” to the ways that we receive Jesus as the bread of life.

So, of course, that means we can’t get sad, or if we do, we have to give thanks about the fact that we’re really sad and miserable. I hope it’s obvious that I’m joking. Giving thanks to God at all times is not just a rule that needs to be followed. Jesus as the bread of life is not just some rule to be followed. 

Jesus as the bread of life is a way of life. If we’re looking at eating the bread that is Jesus’ body as a rule to be followed, then we’ve got plenty of systems and commands within the various parts of the church for how exactly we’re supposed to follow that rule. 

We share the sacrament of communion, we get baptized, we make an adult profession of faith, and on and on. If we follow these rules about Jesus, then we have life within us, so some teachings within some parts of the church would go. We get eternal life. We get to go to Heaven when we die. All of these rules for how we receive Jesus as the bread of life are fine, I suppose, but a lot of them tend to miss the point. The rules would say, receive Jesus as the bread of life in this particular way, and then you get to go to Heaven. The point of Jesus as the bread of life, however, is that the life of Jesus, the eternal life of God is what we get to live now in this world, following Jesus as a way of life, not just as a rule to be followed. 

Following Jesus, living the eternal life of God here and now, we live the truth that there is more beyond this life, so we needn’t fear death, nor be overcome by grief. Receiving Jesus’ bread of life as the way of letting go of our anger and desires for vengeance, we can let our anger turn to sadness, and our sadness to acceptance, trusting in God’s vengeance. Even though there are plenty of people whom we feel definitely deserve vengeance, and yet are obviously fat and happy in this life, we can trust in God’s justice, God’s vengeance, even as we trust in God’s mercy. That life of trust and acceptance, and the resulting peace that comes is the eternal life that Jesus gives as the bread of life.

If we look more at this way of life that Jesus is, we heard Paul say in Ephesians chapter four, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” Well, if we look at this simply as a rule, then if ever you get drunk with wine, then you’ve done wrong, and you must repent. “I’m never going to do that again,” you say the next morning. Then of course, you do get drunk on wine again, at some point, and it becomes this cycle, eventually figuring, “Eh, I’ll be forgiven; I don’t need to take that rule too seriously,” or we take the rule way too seriously and not only do we not drink, but we say all drinking wine is wrong and evil. 

Even further, if we look at not getting drunk off wine as a rule, well then we get to say, “Paul only mentioned wine, so getting drunk with beer and liquor is ok.” Wine coolers? They’re

obviously not ok, but they don’t break the rule. Do we really have to make a rule for each type of alcohol? 

Then, we have other drugs that Paul didn’t mention. Do we have to make rules for each of them? Do we have to make individual rules about not getting high or stoned off weed, heroin, cocaine, crack? We’d have to keep making up rules forever, wouldn’t we, because even 20 years ago, Fentanyl wasn’t a thing, so, now we’ve got to make a new rule against that.

Hopefully, all of that is obviously ridiculous. The way of life Paul describes points to the problem not of one substance or one time of getting drunk. Paul telling us not to get drunk off wine addresses how we can use everything I just mentioned: drugs, alcohol, and so many other things. When we’re using these things to escape reality, to feel better regardless of the consequences, that’s when Paul is saying we’re having a problem. When we use alcohol, drugs, sex, money, whatever else to feel better and escape reality, and we lose control and do other harmful things, those are the problems Paul is talking about. Wanting to feel better, heedless of the cost and consequences.

Trying to escape reality, rather than living in reality, that’s the real problem. Becoming addicted to changing the way we feel, rather than working with those feelings and working with others in the world, that’s the real problem. 

Enjoying oneself with friends, while “getting drunk with wine,” as Paul said, but being safe, not driving, enjoy the evening, and yes, feeling a little more tired crummy in the morning than you otherwise would, I’m not sure that’s what Paul was talking about. Ok, you enjoyed time with friends; that’s a good thing.

When you start doing it every night? Doing it to numb your life? Doing it so you can make bad decisions and not really care? That’s where the “getting drunk off wine” becomes a problem. That’s where it becomes a way of life that brings death. 

So, “Do not get drunk with wine” is not just some rule to be followed, but a way of life in which we seek to deal with life and handle life with the help of others, not just numbing away our feelings to trying to feel good so we don’t ever have to feel. 

Part of life is pain and having to deal with that pain, and following Jesus as the bread of life helps us deal with that pain.  “Give thanks to God at all times,” Paul wrote. That’s part of how we deal with the pain of life, again, not as a rule, but as a way of life. 

Consider the way of gratitude. Following in this way, we work at finding things for which to be grateful, and then we give thanks. We practice living gratitude every day. That doesn’t mean we ignore the bad or push our sadness aside, saying “thank you,” to God just because we’re supposed to. Practicing gratitude means even in the midst of suffering, we look for something for which we can be legitimately grateful. Our sadness is still there, but there’s a little bit of hope too, a little bit of peace. 

Following the way of gratitude, we can choose, to some extent, what the world looks like. If we only focus on the negative, the problems, the complaints, then those things become our food.

If we practice gratitude, on the other hand, focusing on the good, giving thanks for blessings we see, then that becomes our food. Feeding off of gratitude, and the goodness in the world, and the blessings we see, that sounds like the bread of life which came down from Heaven. Feeding off that bread of life, we find Jesus is right there with us in our suffering, strengthening us, holding us, helping us join with others. We can practice gratitude, and let that be our food. Doing so, we can receive Jesus as the bread of life, and we can “be filled with the Spirit, as we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among ourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in our hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What Does Life Sound Like?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
August 11, 2024
Proper 14, B
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Psalm 34:1-8
John 6:35, 41-51

“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” That sounds like life to me. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” and the way of Jesus which Paul described in that passage from Ephesians sounds like the bread of life that Jesus is. 

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” Forgive one another for the sins committed against one another. See, God has already forgiven us of all our sins committed against God.  That was done by Jesus on the cross; any sins we commit against God, God has forgiven. No more sacrifices for sin. We’ve been made right with God. Done. Finito. We’ve received that bread and that life so that we can work toward loving one another. 

That is what Jesus gave his life for, so that we might be freed from the bondage of our sins, freed from the ways we’ve acted inhumanely, and with that freedom, we may try again to act more humanely the next time. Then, following in the way of God, Jesus taught us to forgive one another the sins we commit against each other. 

That sounds like life to me.  

We are all beautifully and wonderfully made beloved children of God. We are good. We are made good, and we are blessed. If we look then, at the idea of sin, we need to remember that the word for “sin” in scripture is an archery term, meaning “missing the mark.” 

You know what happens when you miss the mark? You get to try again. Jesus came to free us from sin so that when we miss the mark, we may be healed and try again. Jesus is the bread of life to get us back to the archery range, heal our woundedness, and strengthen us to hit the mark next time. When we don’t, we aren’t beaten by Jesus, we’re given correction, helped to hit the mark the next time. That’s the bread of life. 

Unfortunately, the ways we often treat one another when we sin, when we miss the mark, look more like this.

The archer shoots and shoots pretty well. Then, the archer misses once, and he’s punished. Now, he can’t shoot as well. He misses more and more often, and he’s punished more and more. Eventually, he’s imprisoned for how badly he shoots. In prison, he grows weaker and is injured further. Then he can’t even get his arrows to the target. He’s beaten even more. Does that sound like life to you?

In another case, the archer again shoots pretty well, but then when he misses, others really like it. It was a really great looking shot, and the plunk it made in the tree beyond the target sounded really cool. He keeps shooting at the tree, he keeps missing the target, he keeps getting rewarded for it, and others who are actually hitting the targets, they get ignored. Does that sound like life to you?

Some are punished for missing the mark. Others are rewarded, and we get so used to it all that we don’t even recognize the harm we cause each other because we’ve been beaten down and broken.

That doesn’t sound like life to me. It sounds like how we live a lot of the time, but it doesn’t sound like life. Unfortunately, pretty much of the time we see people routinely rewarded for ways they miss the mark, and we see people beaten down for ways they miss the mark. That’s not the bread of life.

For Jesus’ part, his way is to forgive us and correct us. That’s the bread of life, and yet even in the church, we often follow the way that is not the bread of life. We often follow the way of reward and punishment both for hitting the mark and missing the mark. What have we been doing for centuries in the church when people mess up? We’ve been threatening them with eternal torture.

Threatening people with eternal torture is beating people down for missing the mark. It’s traumatic, and as we beat people down with the trauma and fear of eternal torture, people become less and less capable of hitting the mark. So, they get more and more threats. That’s not the way of life. 

To be clear, Jesus does talk about punishment after this life for those who are cruel to others and for those who are indifferent to the suffering of others. 

What Jesus doesn’t do is give us a clear set of rules to know who deserves God’s punishment, who doesn’t, nor even what exactly that will look like and what the final purpose may be. We’re given glimpses. We’re assured that even when justice doesn’t happen here on earth, God will take care of that justice.

We don’t have a clear picture of what that will look like, and when we claim to know God’s judgement will be like, and when we claim to know who will and who will not be judged by God, we’re putting ourselves in God’s place, turning ourselves into our own idols. We aren’t given the tool of God’s judgement to beat one another down with when we see others missing the mark. We are given the bread of life. 

So, does the bread of life look like assuring those we feel are wrong that they will be punished by God while we will not? No, that does not look like life. When Christians make claims about who God will punish and who God will reward, what we’re doing is beating down and further breaking folks who we think are missing the mark. 

What we’re called to instead is to seek healing. We’re called to remember what sin really is.   

We aren’t forever corrupted and damned in God’s eyes. I know there are parts of scripture, particularly parts of Paul’s writings which, when misunderstood and read out of context, seem to say that we are broken and damned, but we are not.

We are God’s beloved children, and when God became human, God joined with us fully, so that we will know that we are blessed and wonderful.

In the book “To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking,” Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote, “For Judaism, sin is a deed, not a condition…a sin is not an offense against God, an act of disobedience. A sin is a missed opportunity to act humanely.”

We miss the mark by acting inhumanely, and we don’t heal acts of inhumanity by acting inhumanely ourselves. We heal acts of inhumanity by responding with the very best of our humanity, offering correction with love and helping each other hit the target next time. 

That is the bread of life which Jesus gave. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus said, and Paul described one way we eat the bread of life, by “putting away from us all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us.”

Many Ways to Receive Jesus as the Bread of Life.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
August 4, 2024
Proper 13, B
Ephesians 4:1-16
Psalm 78:23-29
John 6:24-35

Lord of the Streets, Houston

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry,” and ever since he said that, his disciples and later the church, have been trying to figure out exactly what he meant by that. Some have thought he was talking about the sacrament of the Eucharist, Communion, sharing the bread and the wine which becomes his body and blood in the sacrament. Some have said that it’s not about that at all. Apparently there have been legitimate long-standing arguments in the church over this. I once heard a twenty-minute sermon about how Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life,” is all about the sacraments and how we have to receive communion in order to receive Jesus as the bread of life. The sermon ultimately sounded like, “convert to (their) brand of Christianity or you can’t know Jesus.”

It wasn’t a very good sermon, and I didn’t agree with it, but at the same time, I don’t really need to argue against it. With the whole, “how is Jesus the bread of life,” question, do we really have to come up with just one way? Do we really have to argue over it, with who’s right and who’s wrong?

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians tells me, “No, we don’t.” “Speaking the truth in love,” Paul writes, “we must grow up in every way…into Christ, from whom the whole body…promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.”

We are all part of Christ’s body. All of our various churches in our various ways are part of Christ’s body, even the weird ones. You know which ones I’m talking about (everyone’s got a different answer for that, of course). There aren’t multiple Jesuses, Jesi(?). There’s one Jesus. There’s one God. So, there’s one church.

Paul writes about each part working properly, all the different parts of the body. Thank God the church has so many parts, so many ways that we look really different from each other. Like I said, some churches, to me, they just seem weird, and they probably think we look weird in here doing what we’re doing. We need all of these different varieties of churches in the one worldwide Church, because we people are all so different.

A great church with a great worship, and a great way of learning, and a great way of living the life Jesus has called people to live, that kind of church ain’t gonna work for everybody. For a lot of folks, they need a different church that’s also great at those things, just not for everybody. Then you got the weird churches because some of us are weird.

What this means is that there are many different ways we come to Jesus as the bread of life.

So first, let’s look at why we come to Jesus as the bread of life. What are some of the ways we hunger? Well, we get hungry for all sorts of things. Some of us hunger for success. Some of us hunger to prove ourselves. We hunger for security, for enough. We hunger for release from fear and anxiety. We hunger for purpose and meaning in our lives. We hunger to be accepted, to be important. We hunger to be a part of something.

In all of these parts of our lives, with all of the things for which we hunger, Jesus makes the claim, “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.”

So, let’s look at some of the ways we come to Jesus and eat the bread of life.

When we love others, we come to Jesus, we meet Jesus in each other, and we share the bread of life. When we serve others as they are in any kind of need, we come to Jesus, and we eat the bread of life. When we study scripture and we marinate ourselves in the word of God spoken through scripture, we come to Jesus who is the Word of God, and we eat the bread of life.

When we pray, sometimes together with others, sometimes by ourselves, in the quiet of meditation, giving thanks, asking for help, joining ourselves to God in prayer, we come to Jesus and we eat the bread of life. When we join with others in worship, the whole community together, in whatever way we worship, even the weird kinds of worship, we come to Jesus and eat the bread of life.

When we receive communion, when we share the sacrament of Jesus’ body and blood, we come to Jesus and eat the bread of life.

When we take Jesus’ teachings seriously, making the changes in our lives we know we need to take, when we know we’re going down a path that is harming us and harming others, and turn around and ask for God’s help, and begin following again in the way of Jesus who is the way, and the truth, and the life, then we eat the bread of life.

When we seek to do good for others, rather than just trying to feel better ourselves, when we step out of our own stuff for a little bit and we help someone else, we find that we are fed by Jesus, the bread of life, and our stuff isn’t quite as bad as it had been. We are healed when we help heal others.

When we realize that we are Christ’s body, all of us together, each of us individually, we are all Christ’s body, and we give our lives with Christ to be blessings for others, we find that we are feeding others with the Body of Christ, and we are being fed with the Body of Christ.

We find our sustenance together in Jesus, who is the bread of life, and we are bound together as one. We are bound together in Christ as his body. We find our belonging in Jesus’ Body. We find our peace in Jesus’ body. We find the blessings for which we are longing, the purpose God has given us, the acceptance and love we need. As members of Jesus’ body, bound together as one, we find our release from fear and anxiety, we find the fulfilment we need. As members of Jesus’ body, bound together as one, we find that we are fed by the Body of Christ, the bread of life. 

All People Are of Infinite Value to God. Nations, Not So Much.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Lord of the Streets
July 21, 2024
Proper 11, B
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

 

When Jesus saw a great crowd, hungry for his teaching, he taught them because he had compassion on them. When people heard that Jesus was near, they brought to him those who were sick and in need so that he would heal them. Jesus spent a huge amount of his time healing people, teaching people, sometimes in crowds like we heard today, and sometimes with individuals, like we also heard today.

The Jesus revolution, the world-healing movement of Jesus was lived through healing and teaching people. He taught people to came to him and wanted to hear what he had to say, and he healed people who came to him and wanted to be healed.

Jesus didn’t topple King Herod’s corrupt government. Jesus didn’t raise armies to destroy the oppressive nation of Rome. Jesus changed the world through the lives of people. Jesus truly loved and cared for people, and his desire for us, his teaching to us, was that we would do the same.

This is in stark contrast to King Herod whom we heard about last week and the ancient kings of Israel who had led them so poorly. The ancient kings amassed great wealth for themselves, partly to show power and strength to other nations. The ancient kings dealt unjustly with the people. They cared for those with wealth, power, and influence to increase their own wealth, power, and influence, and at the same time they ignored and worsened the plights of those with less, those who seemed unimportant in their eyes.

Herod did the same. As king of an occupied nation, semi-autonomous, kinda, he was supposed to be leading his people according to the ways of God, but he was trying to keep Rome happy and keep the people from rising up against Rome. He of course, then had his courtiers and officials to placate, his influence to maintain, so, John peacefully spoke out against the crown, he had him beheaded on the whim of a young alluring girl and her mom. Amidst so many powerful forces and the pressure of everything weighing on him, Herod led his people further down the path of destruction, dealing in the same injustice and oppression of the kings before him. Herod cared for those with wealth, power, and influence and ignored and worsened the plights of those with less, those who seemed unimportant in his eyes.

I’d say there’s still plenty of that going on today in plenty of places, with plenty of rulers and leaders. Now, I’d guess that folks all along the political spectrum could hear my words and think I’m preaching against the particular politicians or candidates they don’t like.

I’m not.

I’m not preaching for or against governmental powers. They all have their place in seeking justice and wellbeing for all, but when I look for how to truly love and care for people, I don’t look to our government because Jesus didn’t set up our government to live out God’s mission in the world. For Jesus, shepherding the people wasn’t about setting up his new dynasty on the throne. Jesus shepherding the people was about caring for all people, poor and rich, exalted and lowly. Jesus’ way was to love and care for others, not to increase his power to impose his will in the world.

Jesus saw Rome as an occupying nation over Israel. He knew Rome was going to overtake and destroy Israel, and he let it happen. Jesus didn’t lead his people into an armed revolt against Rome. He didn’t sacrifice others’ lives to make the nation secure. Jesus cared for the lives of those who were there. Whether Israel was its own nation, or whether they were oppressed by Rome, or even if they were destroyed by Rome with the people of Israel scattered, Jesus cared for the people in the same way.

Rather than bring about some greater good for “the nation” by sacrificing the lives of the people, Jesus let destruction happen to the nation, choosing instead to love and care for people, not treat them as tools for his purposes.

Amidst Rome rising up and threatening to destroy Israel, Jesus’ way of healing and teaching folks may seem a bit small and unimportant. Shouldn’t he have made the nation great? Well, trying to make the nation great was certainly the way of the previous kings, but that wasn’t the way of God. Nation will rise against nation, God taught, and in the midst of nations rising and falling, God’s way for us is to love and care for one another. It may seem insignificant, but the key is that all people, each person, are of infinite value to God. Nations, not so much.

Great tumultuous upheavals are going to happen. We’re not going to prevent such things. God hasn’t taught us to. In the midst of great upheaval, God has taught us to love one another.

Late Archbishop of Canterbury Arthur Michael Ramsey wrote,  

Amidst the vast scene of the world’s problems and tragedies you may feel that your own ministry seems so small, so insignificant, so concerned with the trivial. What a tiny difference it can make to the world that you should run a youth club, or preach to a few people in a church, or visit families with seemingly small result. But consider: the glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man, the one woman, the one child are of infinite worth to God. Consider our Lord himself. Amidst a vast world with its vast empires and vast events and tragedies our Lord devoted himself to individual men and women, often giving hours and time to the very few or to the one man or woman.

Loving one another is how we can bring about change in the world. If we set our minds on bringing about some greater good, but sacrifice loving and caring for individuals to bring those greater goods about, then we’re following the ways of Herod and the kings of old. Preaching, teaching, forcing change without genuine love for the people involved is to scatter God’s flock, to drive them away. The way of Jesus is to love and care for others. No good that we’re trying to achieve can come at the expense of people. Jesus showed us that in the infinite value he placed on each person whom he taught, the infinite value he placed on each person he healed, the infinite value he placed on each person he just had a conversation or a meal with.

No act of love or caring that we give to another is every too small to matter. Even the smallest act of love that we give can be the greatest thing in the world.

We Don't Have to Live That Way

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
July 14, 2024
Proper 10, B
Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Mark 6:14-29

King Herod had a right rough time of it, didn’t he? He was king of an occupied nation; semi-autonomous, kinda; and he was supposed to be leading his people according to the ways of God, even as he was trying to keep Rome happy and the people from rising up against Rome. He of course, then had his courtiers and officials to placate, his influence to maintain, all of which was meant to help him lead his people well according to the ways of God…giving Herod the benefit of the doubt.

With the pressure of all of those forces upon him, Herod seemed to be straying a bit from the ways of God. He wasn’t supposed to have married his brother’s wife, but hey, he was king. He had a lot of pressures on him. He had to be given some slack with such a big job. Then, when his wife wanted John imprisoned, well, he had to go along with what she wanted. He couldn’t have a split in his royal household, could he? How would that look to Rome and to his courtiers and officials? So then finally, when he gave his oath to Herodias’ daughter for anything she wanted and she asked for John’s head, how could he refuse? He had the pressures of all of these forces weighing on him, and John was, after all, just one weirdo, poor-boy prophet with no power or stature to compete with the powerful people of influence all around Herod. 

So, he had John executed for peacefully speaking out against the crown, beheaded on the whim of a young alluring girl and her mom. Trying to lead his people well, amidst so many powerful forces and the pressure of everything weighing on him, he led his people further down the path of destruction, going ever further from the ways of God in order to keep his people free to follow the ways of God. Oddly enough, God wasn’t particularly fond of that approach.

As with kings hundreds of years before him, God wasn’t overly fond of the powerful oppressing the week for the sake of some perceived greater good. If only Herod could keep the powerful and influential happy with him, then he’d have power enough to do the right things for Israel. Rather than be a light to those powerful and influential people, showing them a better way, and maybe disappointing them, however, Herod chose injustice and oppression. 

In the days of the prophet Amos, kings of Israel had been doing the same thing, and God had had enough of it then too. Amos starts with God’s indictments against. The nations around Israel, followed by an indictment against Israel herself, for the injustice and oppression she had been living. We heard part of God’s words against Israel for her injustice through the prophet Amos today. “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

The king and the priest weren’t real thrilled with hearing that, and they threatened Amos. John wasn’t the first prophet who was condemned for speaking out against the injustices and atrocities of people in power, and Herod wasn’t the first leader to bow to the pressure upon him and do terrible things. He certainly wasn’t the last.

So, what about us and our lives? I think most of us could find plenty of leaders and rulers nowadays and apply this lesson to them. We could find all sorts of Herods doing all sorts of terrible things, turning away from the ways of God and following the ways of injustice, oppression, and bowing to pressures all around. I’d further guess that folks all along the political spectrum could hear my words thus far and think I’m preaching against the particular politicians or candidates they don’t like. 

I’m not. 

I’m not preaching for or against our governmental powers. They all have their place in seeking justice and wellbeing for all, but when I look for how to heal damage from the Herods in our world beheading the John the Baptists in our world, I don’t look to our government because Jesus didn’t set up our government to live out God’s mission in the world. Jesus set up his church to live out God’s mission. 

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us and to all of God’s church to live out God’s mission of justice, peace, reconciliation, and love. 

The work is ours to do with God’s help. Our challenges in doing the work are many. The pressures on us all are many. Families to care for. Jobs. Places to live. Much to lose. Friends and co-workers, family, neighbors, whom we want to keep good relationships with, and living out the work of God’s mission of justice, peace, reconciliation, and love can have challenges for all of that.

Heck, I offered a prayer on Facebook last night, which I almost never do. At this point, I tend to reserve Facebook for the proverbial cat videos, just offering something lighthearted and fun. After the assassination attempt on former president Trump last night, I offered prayers for him, giving thanks that he was ok, prayers for all who were keeping people safe, prayers for those who had died, and even prayers for the shooter. Prayers for peace, for love, and for healing. 

I got one comment on the prayer, which noted that I hadn’t offered prayers after the hurricane and other recent events, and so I was turning Trump into an idol. Now, I understand what he was saying. There’s a lot of folks who seem to think that if their candidate doesn’t win, the world will crumble. That’s not why I was offering that prayer. It was not about supporting Trump or not supporting Trump. I offered the prayer because I wanted to help lead people in prayer, particularly with so much anger and animosity in the nation today.

When I offered that prayer, I wasn’t turning Trump into an idol. In fact, the man who tried to kill Trump turned himself into an idol. The gunman had pressure on him. He apparently thought a Trump presidency wouldn’t be good, and he felt the pressure of that so intensely, that he went Herod’s route. He felt the world would be terrible if it didn’t go the way he knew was right, and so he decided to force his way on the world. It's not his world. It wasn’t Herod’s world. It’s not any of our world.

Whoever wins the presidency, I’m pretty sure it’s still gonna be God’s world. Our faith is in God, not in any presidential candidate, not in any government, and certainly not in ourselves to force our will and our way onto the world. That would be to turn ourselves into idols, which is what Herod did.

Faced with pressures from Rome, pressures from his own people, pressures from his family, pressures from his officers and courtiers, Herod decided to kill a man so that he could keep his own power and influence to try to make as much of the world go the way he wanted as possible. 

Where do we find good news in this story of Herod’s self-idolatry? We find good news in Herod being a dark, opposite reflection of the good news. We realize, we don’t have to live as Herod lived. 

We look to Jesus who chose not to force his will on the world. With the pressure of Rome threatening Israel, Jesus chose not to start an insurrection. He knew Rome was going to destroy the nation of Israel, and he let it happen. He’d been offered power over all of the nations of the world in his temptation by Satan in the wilderness, and Jesus turned that power down. He wasn’t going to force his way on the world through violence, and destruction, injustice, and oppression. 

Jesus chose instead to live the way of love, the way of justice, mercy, peace, and reconciliation. Jesus worked to invite and influence as many people as he could to join him in living the way of love, in living the way of justice, mercy, peace, and reconciliation. His faith wasn’t in Rome or any governmental power. His faith was in God and the ways of love that are God.

For us, our faith is not in any governmental power. Fearful as many are, fearful as some of us may be, that the country is going to hell in a handbasket or that if one person or another gets elected that the country will go to hell in a handbasket, we don’t have to bow to that fear and those pressures as Herod did. We don’t have to make ourselves into idols.

We can instead follow the way of Jesus. We can accept that the wrong people just may get elected. We can accept that terrible things may happen to institutions that we love. Our faith in not in those institutions, and it isn’t our world to force our will upon. We are not God. Our faith is not in ourselves and our own power. Our faith is in God, and we get to live the ways of God, the way of love, of justice, mercy, peace, and reconciliation.