FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Micah 6:1-8

Psalm 15

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Matthew 5:1-12

Prayer of the Day: Holy God, you confound the world’s wisdom in giving your kingdom to the lowly and the pure in heart. Give us such a hunger and thirst for justice, and perseverance in striving for peace, that in our words and deeds the world may see the life of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.

It’s not rocket science. God does not need sacrificial slaughters, well choreographed liturgies, glamorous praise bands accompanied by hundred voice choirs. God does not need anything from us, thanks just the same. Our neighbors, however, do have many needs and that is where God would have us direct our attention. If you want to serve God, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, welcome the alien (legal or illegal, God makes no distinction and neither should we), care for the sick and defend the poor from oppression. Love God by loving your neighbor. That’s the law and the prophets, says Jesus. Matthew 22:34-40.

But that is not as simple as it might seem. While it is true that the biblical understanding of love is grounded in deeds rather than mere sentiment, it is also true that there is an affectional engine that drives love toward action, a “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” a love for God’s promised reign and a longing for the day when God’s “will is done on earth as in heaven.” Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, teaches us however that love frequently goes off the rails. He maintains, rightly I think, that love drives both righteousness and sin. Our problem is that our love is disordered. Instead of being orientated toward the God who directs God’s own self-giving through us and to our neighbor, we love first what is not God, the creature rather than the creator or, in other words, an idol. According to Augustine, an idol is often not evil in and of itself. Familial love, love of one’s homeland, and love of one’s profession are all well and good, provided they are subject to one’s primary love toward God. When any one of these loves displaces love that must be directed to God alone, it becomes distorted. Love of spouse and family becomes possessive and controlling. Love of country degenerates into nationalism. Work becomes obsessive, burdensome and exploitive. Misdirected love distorts our sense of right and wrong and disorients our consciences.

Love, like faith and hope, is a habit of the heart. It is not something we are born with. Love is learned through practices of the communities in which we live. Our consciences are formed through teachings and examples absorbed through the institutions of government, education and religion. As these institutions are broken and misdirected, so are the consciences formed therein. In Mark Twain’s classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,[1] protagonist Huck Finn experiences a crisis of conscience illustrating the point. For those few who might not be familiar with the book, it narrates the story of Jim, an enslaved man living in the pre-bellum south, seeking to escape to the north and gain his freedom with the assistance of an orphaned boy, Huckleberry Finn. As the two draw nearer to Ohio and Jim’s hope for freedom seems within reach at last, Huck begins to experience profound guilt for his involvement with Jim. His conscience, shaped as it is by the culture of the southern slave states, cannot abide aiding and abetting a runaway slave. Huck regrets facilitating Jim’s escape from his enslaver, a widow of whom he says, “she tried to be good to [me] every which way she knowed how.” He says, “I got to feeling so mean and miserable I must have wished I was dead.” From his perspective, helping Jim escape from his enslaver constituted theft.

Caught between the promise of loyalty and friendship he made to Jim and the morality inculcated by the community in which he was raised, Huck nearly succumbs to the societal moral imperative demanding that he betray Jim. But the thought of breaking his word and violating his friendship to Jim seems equally appalling, even though Huck lacks the conceptual tools for justifying such fidelity. In the end, Huck abandons his intent to inform on Jim. He concludes, “what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” He decides that a conscience is unhelpful and bothersome and that henceforth he would “always do whichever came handiest at the time.” If there is a moral here, it is that a conscience is only as reliable as the morality of the community in which it is formed.[2] Though he does not put it in such terms, Huck’s conscience has been stretched in a new direction through his friendship with Jim and his participation in his quest for freedom.

In his book, Desiring the Kingdom,[3] professor of philosophy James K. Smith reminds us that we are and act in accordance with what we love. The question, then, is “what sort of community shapes and directs our love?” Or, to put it another way, what sort of community shapes our consciences?” There are plenty of communities of which we are part and which shape our desires, our moral values and our priorities. There are numerous liturgies in which we participate that shape our characters for better or worse. Take, for example, the community formed by the Superbowl. Thousands will gather on February 8^th to watch the Seattle Seahawks square off against the New England Patriots.[4] Millions more will be watching remotely. This community assembled for Superbowl will witness a military show of force, rise to salute the flag and join in the singing of the national anthem, the teams will take the field to roars of applause and there will be a spectacular“half time” show. Oh, and did I mention that there will be a football game?

Another example of communal liturgy shows itself in national political conventions, the purpose of which is ostensibly to nominate a presidential candidate. Such conventions have all the hallmarks of a religious rite. The nomination is usually a done deal and the convention merely a celebration and proclamation of the party’s candidate and agenda. Still, the symbolic and persuasive power of the accompanying patriotic speeches, entertainment and formal nomination ceremony cannot be denied. Both these communities and their “liturgies” reflect and reinforce values, convictions and cultural assumptions. I am not suggesting that being a football fan or a member of a political party is necessarily idolatrous. I do believe, however, that our participation in their liturgies and practices is capable of influencing us in ways we might not even recognize. Thus, it is important that one be mindful of the communities of which one is a part and aware of the truth claims, explicit and implicit, that they are making.

The liturgies and practices of that community called church are grounded in Jesus’ obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection. Just as Huck Finn’s conscience was transformed through his relationship with Jim and his quest for freedom, so the consciences of Jesus’ disciples are formed by their relationship with him mediated by the worship and practices of the communion of saints. This is the context in which the Sermon on the Mount must be understood. It does not represent an aspirational morality for which humans must strive, but can never hope to realize in the world as it is. Rather, the sermon lays out the blueprint for the life Jesus actually lived in the world as we know it. It is also the life into which Jesus invites us to join him, a life that necessarily takes the shape of the cross in a world hostile to it. Consciences formed in the community of Jesus know better than to fall for quasi religious ideologies such as our nation’s gun fetish, American exceptionalism, capitalism, white supremacy and the numerous conspiracy theories that seek to give them credibility.

Our consciences and our beliefs about morality are not usually matters of choice. As I noted before, we are shaped by the communities in which we live. We can, however, be intentional about the communities by which we choose to be shaped. We can decide how much or our lives are spent on social media with various interest groups, how much time we give to watching news media, which media we watch and how much attention we give to “influencers” of various stripes. We can be intentional about the depth of our involvement with our church, its ministries and our fellow disciples. While we might be involved with communities other than church, we can be attentive to the ways in which their practices share an affinity to the church’s witness to Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims and critical of any claims, assumptions and practices contrary to that witness. A conscience painstakingly shaped by such discipleship is positioned to “do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with [] God.”

Here is a poem by Jan Richardson addressed to disciples formed by Jesus who “bear the light,” reminiscent of Jesus remark in the Sermon on the Mount that his followers are “the light of the world.” Matthew 5:14. They are the ones in whom “the brightness blazes.”

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light

Source: Circle of Grace, (c.  2015 by Jan Richardson; pub. by Wanton Gospeller Press) pp. 47-48. Jan Richardson is an artist, writer, and ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. She grew up in Evanston, a small community outside of Gainesville, Florida. She is currently director of The Wellspring Studio and serves as a retreat leader and conference speaker. In addition to the above cited work, her books include The Cure for Sorrow, Circle of Grace, A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, In the Sanctuary of Women, and Sparrow: A Book of Life and Death and Life. You can learn more about Jan Richardson and her work on her website.

[1] The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain (New York Post Family Classics Library, c. Paperview).

[2] I note with some trepidation that the author’s notice prior to chapter one reads in pertinent part, “persons attempting to find a moral in [this narrative] will be banished.”

[3] Desiring the Kingdom, by James K. Smith, (c. 2009 by James K. Smith; pub by Baker Publishing Group)

[4] Full disclosure. I have an interest in this upcoming contest, two actually. As a kid raised in the shadow of Seattle, I have always backed the Seahawks. Nevertheless, as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I feel a certain affinity for the Patriots as well. I actually do have a preference-which I am not inclined to disclose. Whatever the outcome, I will at least have the satisfaction of being able to say that my team won.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

Isaiah 9:1-4

Psalm 27:1, 4-9

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, your lovingkindness always goes before us and follows after us. Summon us into your light, and direct our steps in the ways of goodness that come through the cross of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

^“From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew 4:17.

“As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.” Matthew 4:18-22.

Alfred Loisy, French biblical scholar, linguist, philosopher and a founder of the modernist movement within the Roman Catholic Church is credited with saying that “Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God and what came was the church.” In his view, as in the view of many other modernist scholars since, the church was an unintended consequence of the historical Jesus’ prophetic ministry and preaching. In its creeds, theology and various institutional forms, the established church represents a betrayal of Jesus’ insistence upon the nearness of God’s impending reign that promises to transform human existence.

I have in previous articles expressed my views on the futility of chasing the so-called “historical Jesus” supposedly lurking behind the New Testament witness. I am far from the only one to have observed that the Jesus such people find turns out to be remarkably amenable to their own social, religious and political preferences. In my view, the only Jesus we have is the one to whom the New Testament witnesses in all of its textual messiness, theological diversity and cultural bias. Do these diverse voices witnessing to Jesus in this remarkable document nevertheless faithfully portray a coherent testimony to him as God’s Son and the world’s savior? That is a question neither historical criticism nor any other hermeneutical method can resolve. We are left with the Apostle Philip’s invitation to Nathaniel: “Come and see.”

While Jesus is no doubt dismayed with much of what the church is today, I do not believe it can be said from the perspective of the New Testament witness that the church was a mistake or unintended. In Sunday’s gospel, Jesus begins his ministry by announcing the nearness of God’s reign. In the very next breath the evangelist Matthew narrates the call of the first disciples. The church, albeit in embryonic form, and the kingdom are together from the beginning. They remain so throughout the gospel narrative. Sometimes the church is manifest in the work of the twelve, the faithful women who supported them and nameless others who followed Jesus throughout his ministry. Sometimes it is glanced fleetingly as in the people touched, instructed and healed by Jesus whose identity and destiny we never learn. Sometimes the church is found lurking on the sidelines in people like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea who will not openly identify with Jesus, but show up unexpectedly for Jesus when his own closest disciples have abandoned him.

The New Testament reflects a church whose borders are porous. That comports with my experience of church. In every church to which I have belonged, there was a faithful core of disciples who were always present to assist a family coming to the sanctuary with needs for food, clothing or heating bills. If the discretionary fund was exhausted, they reached into their own wallets. They were the first to volunteer for every church ministry and event and the last to leave after the cleanup was done and the lights turned off. There were folks who worshipped regularly, contributed modestly but seldom, if ever, showed up at any other time. There were people who attended sporadically, never contributed significantly and disappeared for months at a time. But they returned often enough for us to know them by name and understand a little bit about their circumstances. There were folks who showed up only on Easter and Christmas. Finally, there were people who never showed up until someone needed to be baptized, married or buried. Yet even these folks had a sense that this church was “theirs” in some attenuated way. All of them belonged to our part of Christ’s Body in some sense.

I think the church has always been uncomfortable with its “open border” policies. Throughout the church’s history, there have been movements with leaders intent on closing the borders, drawing clear lines between the church and the world, the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned. The church, they argue, is to be counter-cultural, formed by thick practices and the teachings of apostles and prophets. Church is the furnace in which a new way to be human is forged. It is to be a community that operates as a “demonstration plot” for the reign of God, as Clarance Jordan once observed. I agree wholeheartedly with Jordan on this point. I would add, however, that the chief characteristic of God’s reign is inclusivity and hospitality. Those same attributes must also be present in the church. What distinguishes the church from a cult is its openness. Anyone can come in off the street and into our worship services. There is no secret initiation rite. Baptism, holy communion and confirmation are all public events. There are no secret esoteric teachings known only to the inner circle. What we believe is set forth in creeds that are confessed publicly at our public worship services. What you see is what you get.   

It is important to point out that there never was a “golden age” of the church. The New Testament does bear witness to great acts of faithfulness and courage by the church and its leaders. That, however, is far from the whole story. In the gospels, Jesus’ disciples consistently misunderstand him and the reign of God he proclaims. They argue and quarrel over which of them is the most important. They show a nasty intolerance for small children, Samaritans and foreigners they regard as unworthy or simply not important enough for Jesus’ attention. One of them betrays Jesus, all of them desert Jesus in his time of greatest need and the one he considered his “rock” denied knowing him when the pressure was on. The Book of Acts is rife with ethnic tensions, disputes over doctrine and practice as well as personality conflicts. Saint Paul’s letters to the various churches he founded and served demonstrate that these communities, too, fought over money, power and ecclesiastical order. In short, the first century church looks very much like the church of the twenty-first century. It was a mixed bag then as it is now.

The church is not the reign of God, but only its less than perfect witness. Confession of sin is a central part of Christian worship and a reminder that disciples are no less in need of God’s redemptive love than the rest of the world. The diversity and inclusiveness confessed for the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” is frequently more aspirational than real. But aspirations are important. If a student’s aspiration for achieving an A in physics results in receiving a B instead of a C, the student’s efforts were not in vain. The reign of God is revealed in the lives of those who believe in it, love it and live for it. Though painfully aware that their lives do not measure up to the new humanity revealed in their Lord, they nevertheless discover at times that they are capable of doing more and being more than they ever imagined they could do or be. Like John the Baptist, the church is not the savior of the world or the reign of God. Yet, again, like John, it is always pointing beyond itself to the one who is the savior of the world and who announces the nearness of God’s reign. In their flawed witness, the world sometimes gets a glimpse of what God has in store for it.

Here is a poem about the church’s imperfect but precious witness to God’s reign.

Prayer at the Closing of a Church

Source: Anonymous      

EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD

Isaiah 60:1-6

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

Prayer of the Day: Everlasting God, the radiance of all faithful people, you brought the nations to the brightness of your rising. Fill the world with your glory, and show yourself to all the world through him who is the true light and the bright morning star, your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Acts 10:34-43

Matthew 3:13-17

Prayer of the Day: O God our Father, at the baptism of Jesus you proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit. Make all who are baptized into Christ faithful to their calling to be our daughters and sons, and empower us all with your Spirit, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“….this grace was given to me to bring to the gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ and to make everyone seewhat is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in^[g] God, who created all things, so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 3:8-10.

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:34-35.

“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

     We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” Nicene Creed.

Preachers have three choices for the coming Sunday. We can celebrate the Baptism of our Lord that falls upon Sunday, January 11^th, we can bump our observance of the Epiphany of our Lord from January 4^th to Sunday or, as I would humbly suggest, we can celebrate both feasts this coming Sunday. Matthew’s gospel has Jesus accepting John’s baptism, thereby identifying with the marginalized outcasts that responded to John’s proclamation of the nearness of God’s reign. Matthew also testifies to the faithful response of the gentile magi to the sign of Jesus’ birth in the heavens. So, too, Saint Paul declares in his letter to the Ephesians how the unity of the church and the diversity of its members witnesses to the unity of all peoples, nations and tongues God desires for the world. This message is of great importance today as it addresses a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel prominent throughout western Christianity.

As pointed out by New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright, “The problem is that most Western Christians today think that the whole point of Christianity is for our souls to go to Heaven when we die, whereas the New Testament concentrates on God coming to dwell with us.” See interview with the Christian Post, December 1, 2025. In short, the gospel with which many of us, including me, have grown up offers only a life raft to rescue a few faithful souls from a sinking ship. According to the biblical witness, however, God’s intent is to save the ship. Thus, baptism is not to be understood as an individual fire insurance policy for the hereafter, but rebirth into the community that follows Jesus known as church. Furthermore, the church is not to be understood as the singular elevator to heaven outside of which there is no salvation. Rather, the church is the community that witnesses in word and deed to the salvation God offers to the whole world. Just as my baptism is far bigger than just me, so salvation is much bigger than the church.

Unlike the paltry salvation that preserves only a ghostly, immaterial and invisible soul, the salvation Jesus proclaims embraces all of creation, its air, water and mud; every creature that mucks about in it; every plant that springs from its soil; and, yes, every human being made in God’s image-however distorted that image may have become. Like the motto of the United States Marines, “nobody gets ‘left behind.’” In the biblical view of salvation, the world, its oceans, rivers, fields and forests are not merely temporary staging for God’s dealing with humanity. They are the objects of God’s redemptive love no less than the human beings charged with its care. The future holds not merely a haven for disembodied souls, but a new heaven and a new earth in which God’s good and gracious will is done.

The scriptures for Epiphany and the Baptism of Jesus testify to the physicality of God, which is another way to speak of the Incarnation. It was a star that led the pagan magi to Jesus, whereas the bible jocks in Jerusalem are caught completely off guard by his coming. The Spirit proclaims Jesus’ sonship in the muddy waters of the Jordan River. The scandal of the gospel, a stumbling block for so many (including Christians!), is that God has a body. When Saint Paul says to the doctrinally confused, morally compromised and deeply divided church at Corinth, “now you are the body of Christ,” he is not speaking metaphorically. The church, for all of its flaws, failures and sins, is nonetheless Christ’s body. It is through the church that God means to demonstrate God’s will for all creation. For that reason, it is critically important that the church both be and testify to the diversity, equity and inclusion that are the salvation of the world, so that “through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known….”

We need to be clear that it is not God’s intent to rapture a few disembodied souls to heaven and leave God’s beautiful world to the ravaging violence of some antichrist. Too many believers are caught up in just such misguided beliefs. We need to be clear that believers confess the resurrection of the body, not the immortality of the soul. To be honest, I am not even sure there is such a thing as a soul, if by that one means the survival of some part of the self following death. I am quite sure I will not survive my own death. That’s OK with me. I have no desire to continue on as a disembodied ghost. Thankfully, God promises much more. God has pledged to me in baptism that God’s love for me will survive my demise. What I do believe is that God is bringing all of creation to an end in God’s self where God will be “all in all.” Jesus’ resurrection is, among other things, God’s pledge that there is a place for me in that “life of the world to come,” along with birds of the air, fish of the sea, beasts of the forest, the mountains, valleys, oceans, lakes, rivers, a new humanity and, of course, the communion of saints.

Here is a poem by the nonbinary poet, K. Iver. Though highly critical of the church and its exclusion of gay, lesbian and non-binary folk, the poem takes seriously the humanity of God and addresses God directly through the “Body of Christ.” In a strange and perhaps unintentional way, Iver testifies to the physicality of God through the miracle of the Incarnation. The poem also illustrates the toxicity of the kind of Christian teaching against which N.T. Wright warns us. 

god

So we, being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another.
ROMANS 12:5

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off,
and cast it from thee.
MATTHEW 5:30

Source: Poetry (December 2025). K. Iver was born in Mississippi. They earned their PhD in poetry from Florida State University. Their debut collection Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco (Milkweed Editions, 2023) won the 2022 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry, selected and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. The collection was also named a Best Book of 2023 by the New York Public Library. Iver’s poems have appeared in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review of Books. They have received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico.

Iver is currently the Roger F. Murray Chair in Creative Writing at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.