Good morning, church. I am Pastor Matt Gillard, and I hope I am familiar to many of you worshiping today. For those who may not know me, I had the joy of serving the Moravian congregations of Heimtal from 2009 to 2020, and Good Shepherd from 2020 to 2021. I now serve in the Lutheran Church in Hanna, Alberta, and it is truly an honour to share a pastoral word with my sisters and brothers across the Canadian District.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday—the day we remember Jesus going up the mountain with three of his closest disciples to pray. And while they are there, something extraordinary happens. Jesus is transfigured before them. His face shines like the sun. His clothes become dazzling white. And suddenly Moses and Elijah appear, speaking with him.

It is a moment of holy revelation—of clarity, presence, and divine nearness.

 But it is also a moment of formation. Because what happens on the mountain is not meant to stay on the mountain. It is meant to shape how the disciples live when they come back down.

And that story made me think about the Moravian Church in the 1720s—about a kind of transfiguration of our own.

After years of exile following the Thirty Years’ War, Moravian refugees from Prague found refuge on the land of Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf. Herrnhut, as we now remember it, was not born as a peaceful or unified community. It was full of tension, clashing personalities, theological differences, and deep conflict. Spiritual wanderers and displaced people lived together, but unity did not come easily.

So deep were the divisions that one Moravian leader went up a hill overlooking the settlement, convinced God was about to destroy the community like Sodom and Gomorrah. That didn’t happen—but it tells us something important: things were not well.

What changed everything was prayer.

Zinzendorf began gathering leaders for disciplined, intentional communal prayer. They prayed for hours a day. They read Scripture together. They fasted. They sang. They listened. They sought reconciliation. And slowly, something shifted. Differences lost their power. Division loosened its grip. And out of that spiritual transformation came mission. Out of prayer came movement. Out of communion came calling.

For three hundred years, Moravians have understood themselves as a missional church. And that matters. But I don’t believe the future of the Moravian Church in Canada is simply to recreate the mission structures of the past.

I believe the future of the Moravian Church in Canada is to become a people formed in communal prayer, shaped in shared discernment, and grounded in spiritual accompaniment—a church that teaches one another how to listen for God together.

The problem is not that we don’t pray.

 The problem is that we no longer pray together.

We have privatized prayer. Individualized it. Minimized it. Reduced it to devotionals, quick words before meals, and whispered pleas in moments of fear. All of those matter—but they are not the same as a community learning to seek God together.

We have forgotten the discipline of shared spiritual formation.

And I want to invite you to dream bigger than that.

Not louder. Not flashier.

Deeper. Slower. Rooted. Communal.

I want you to look around in worship today. In every congregation listening, there are two or three people who are known—quietly, humbly—as faithful people of prayer. And I guarantee you they don’t think of themselves that way. But they are gifted. They are called. And God has already been forming them for this moment.

So here is my invitation:

Take a piece of paper. A corner of your bulletin. Anything you have.

 Write this sentence:

 “I consider you to be a faithful person of prayer in the life of our church.”

Give it to someone.

If someone gives you one, tell your pastor that some foolish person thinks you’re spiritually gifted—and that you’ve been identified as a prayerful leader in the church.

And then let your pastors gather those people—not to create hierarchy, but to create formation. Not to create power, but to create discipleship. Let them begin praying together. And from that circle, let smaller circles form. Groups of two, three, four people. Thirty minutes. An hour. Nothing complicated. Nothing fancy. Just prayer. Presence. Listening. Accountability. Discernment. Learn to pray together, and for others.

Because the church does not need better programs.

 The church needs deeper roots.

 The church does not need louder voices.

 The church needs clearer listening.

 The church does not need more activity.

 The church needs more alignment with the Holy Spirit.

And everything we’ve heard in this sermon series points us there.

From Pastor Mark, we were reminded that human dignity is not earned—it is given. That prayer must be shaped by belovedness, not shame.

From Pastor Jamie, we were invited into “come and see” faith—learning to pray with open eyes toward what the Spirit is already doing in the world.

From Pastor Aaron, we learned to seek unexpected hope, especially in places of grief and struggle—prayer that forms compassion, not distance.

From Pastor James, we were given a vision of expansive grace and subversive hope—prayer that holds grief and courage at the same time.

From Pastor Michael, we were reminded that being salt and light is a communal calling—prayer that says, “Not my will, but yours be done, O God.”

This is not nostalgia.

 This is not survival.

 This is not institutional preservation.

This is transformation.

We don’t need to become the church we were 300 years ago.

 We need to become the church God is forming us to be now.

The question before us is not whether the Moravian Church in Canada will change.

It will.

The question is whether we will allow the Triune God to shape that change…

 through prayer,
 through humility,
 through listening,
 through community,
 through shared spiritual courage.

Will we go up the mountain together?

Will we learn to listen together?

Will we come back down transformed?

May we have the courage to become a praying church again…
 not in fear,
 not in control,
 not in anxiety,
 but in trust,
 in unity,
 and in hope.

"Our Lamb has conquered. Let us follow him.”
​
Amen.

Hello, and welcome to this fifth message in our 2026 Epiphany Series, Manifesting Hope in Darkness. Today our theme is Hope Found in Community.

Most of you won’t know me. My name is Michael Ward, a retired United Church of Canada pastor currently serving Christ Moravian Church in Calgary as interim pastor.

Today’s Gospel picks up right where we left off last week. Jesus has just proclaimed the Beatitudes - those surprising blessings that describe the character of God’s Kingdom or Reign. They paint a picture of what a Jesus-shaped life looks like. And immediately after blessing His followers, Jesus turns from blessing to identity. He looks at this ordinary crowd - fishermen, farmers, mothers, labourers, the weary and the hopeful - and He says:

“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

Not a list of ideals to strive for, but a way of being in the world that reveals God’s presence and purpose.
Jesus begins with salt. And He speaks in terms of how He already sees us.

He doesn’t say, “Go be salty.” He says, “You are salt.”

In the ancient world, salt wasn’t the pure white table salt we know today. It was mined - full of minerals and attached trace elements that gave each grain its own texture and taste. Every handful was different. And no single grain changed anything on its own. It was the collective that seasoned.

Salt works by drawing out what is already present. It awakens flavours hidden within the food - makes it richer, more savoury.

And Jesus says: That’s you.

Your calling is not to impose something on the world. Your calling is to draw out the God‑given goodness already embedded in others and in creation.

When you listen deeply to someone who feels unseen… When you encourage another gently… When you stand with someone in their pain… When you help someone notice the grace already at work in their life…

You are bringing out God‑flavours. You are awakening what God has already placed there.

Then Jesus shifts the image:

“You are the light of the world.”

Light doesn’t create what it reveals. It simply makes visible what darkness hides.

And here’s something beautiful: white light is not one colour. It is the blending of many wavelengths - many colours.
Likewise, the church’s witness is communal. Diverse gifts, personalities, and stories forming one radiant presence.
Light is not meant to be admired. Light is meant to help others see.

When you act with compassion… When you speak truth with gentleness… When you choose justice over convenience… When you forgive when it would be easier to hold a grudge…

You illuminate possibilities others couldn’t see. Your life becomes a window through which God’s grace is glimpsed.
It’s important to notice that Jesus speaks to the crowd. The “you” is plural.

You all are the salt. You all are the light.

Salt works in combination. Light shines in spectrum.

A single grain of salt is tasteless. A single colour band is limited.

But together? Together they transform the environment.

The church’s witness is strongest when we blend our strengths and weaknesses, our stories and scars. We don’t have to be everything. We simply bring our part. God uses the whole community to season and illuminate the world.

Salt and Light Fulfill Their Purpose by Giving Themselves Away

Salt does its work quietly. It dissolves into the food and disappears, yet its presence is unmistakable in the flavour it brings out. Light works the same way. We don’t admire light for its own sake - we value it because it helps us see what is really there. Its purpose is fulfilled when it reveals what would otherwise remain hidden.

In the same way, Kingdom influence is not about being noticed. It’s not about drawing attention to ourselves. It’s about the quiet, steady transformation that happens when God’s love works through us. When we offer kindness without needing credit… when we serve without applause… when we forgive without fanfare… we are giving ourselves away in love. And in that giving, we become most fully who Christ says we already are.

Salt disappears into the meal. Light gives itself to the room. And disciples of Jesus give themselves to the world - not to be recognized, but so that others might taste grace and see hope.

Quiet acts of kindness. Faithful presence in difficult places. Courageous truth spoken gently. Forgiveness offered freely. Hope held on behalf of someone who can’t hold it for themselves.

These are the ways we “lose ourselves” and yet become who we truly are in Christ.

I believe Eugene Peterson captures the heart of Jesus’ words in his paraphrase of the Bible - The Message:

“Bring out the God‑flavours of the earth.” “Bring out the God‑colours in the world.”

God has already seeded the world with goodness, beauty, and possibility. Our calling is to help reveal it - to help others taste and see the goodness of God.

Salt and light are not about superiority. They are about service. They are not about drawing attention to ourselves. They are about drawing attention to God’s presence already shimmering beneath the surface of things.

So hear this good news:

You are already salt. You are already light.

Not because of your perfection, but because Christ has named you so.

Go into your homes, your workplaces, your neighbourhoods with confidence -  drawing out God‑flavours, revealing God‑colours, trusting that God uses ordinary people - people like you and me - to season and illuminate the world.
​
May we live in such a way that others taste grace, see hope, and glimpse the God who is already at work in every corner of creation. Amen.

Today's sermon is offered by Rev. James Lavoy who serves our sister churches, Rio Terrace and Heimtal in Edmonton. If you would like to share this video or watch it again later, you can also access it on YouTube by clicking here.​
​
We are living through a moment that feels heavy with history.

Many of us are watching the news from our neighbors to the south, or perhaps looking at shifts in our own political landscape, and we are feeling a specific kind of dread. It is the dread of recognition. We are seeing a crisis unfold that parallels the great horrors we learned about in school. We are witnessing the fascist use of power—the calculated dehumanization of migrants, the expansion of ICE, the brutality of enforcement, and the suspension of civil liberties to achieve control at any cost.

For many of us in this room, part of our distress comes from a sense of betrayal. We are people of privilege. We are used to having agency. We have spent our lives trusting institutions—government, law, corporations—believing they were, at best, benevolent, or at least stable. But right now, we feel powerless to help the vulnerable because the very institutions we trusted are the ones using this dehumanization to achieve their own goals. That which we once felt was trustworthy is no longer trustworthy.

And we don’t know what to do.

This dilemma causes us to ask serious questions of ourselves. It impacts our identity. Who are we, if the structures that hold us up are crumbling? It is into this exact feeling of displacement—this political and spiritual vertigo—that we must read the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes are often read as a list of "be-attitudes," sweet platitudes for a quiet life. But contextually, they are the thesis for Matthew’s entire Gospel. And Matthew’s Gospel does not begin in a vacuum; it begins in horror.

Remember the prologue. Jesus is born into a world of state-sponsored violence. He is a child refugee fleeing a jealous king. He grows up under occupation. And just as he emerges into adulthood, his teacher, his cousin, his confidante—John the Baptist—is arrested and executed by the state as a political prop.

This tragedy motivates Jesus to turn to the wilderness. And we must remember, the wilderness wasn’t empty. It was full. It was the place where people went when they weren't welcome in the circles of power in Jerusalem or Rome. It was full of the marginalized, the resistance, the sick, and the poor. Jesus had to reconcile with these encounters. Through his own spiritual practices of prayer and fasting, he found this great insight: that when we draw lines in the sand, the Divine is on the side of the oppressed.

From that wilderness, he went to Galilee—not the capital, but the margins—and climbed a mountain to deliver his thesis.

He looks at this crowd of "nobodies" and he calls them "Blessed."

Now, the Greek word Matthew uses here is Makarios. We often translate this as "happy," but that is too small a word. If we look at the etymology, we find something far more robust. Ma means to "lengthen" or "expand." Kar is short for charis—grace, gift.

So, blessing, in this context, means "a lengthened grace." Or perhaps, "expansive grace."

I like to think that Jesus, sitting atop that mountain with the exiles and the gentiles, felt at home with them, just as he did in the desert. He looked at people who had been objectified by the Empire, people whose backs were the stepping stones for the powerful, and he said: You have a right to experience expansive grace. You have a right to take up space.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are those who mourn."

Think about how subversive that is. In our culture, and certainly in the Roman Empire, grief is a weakness. Meekness is a liability. But Jesus reframes them.

Liberation theologians like James Cone remind us that God is found among the lynched, the incarcerated, the detainee. When Jesus blesses those who mourn, he is not romanticizing sadness; he is validating the grief that comes from seeing the world as it really is. As Cone might say, to be "blessed" is to be located where the Divine is located—and the Divine is located with the victims of the state.

"Blessed are the meek."

The Womanist theologian Delores Williams challenges us here. She warns us against glorifying suffering, against acting as "surrogates" who carry the cross for others merely to be crushed by it. She reminds us that Jesus came to show us how to live, how to survive. In this light, "meekness" isn't about being a doormat. It is about a refusal to play the Empire’s game of violence. It is a "survival strategy"—a way of maintaining one’s humanity in the face of a system that wants to turn you into a monster.

To have "expansive grace" when you are being crushed is the ultimate act of resistance. It is saying: You may take my civil liberties, you may threaten my safety, but you cannot shrink my soul.

We know how this story plays out. Jesus leaves that mountain, challenges the powers in Jerusalem, and is executed. But I want to turn your attention to the very last paragraph of Matthew’s Gospel. If the birth is the prologue, and the Beatitudes are the thesis, this is the conclusion.

In Matthew 28:10, the resurrected Jesus tells Mary and Mary Magdalene, "Go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee. There, they will see me."

Note the location. Not Jerusalem, the seat of power. But Galilee. Back to the start. Back to the margins. Back to the mountain where he preached that formative sermon.

So the disciples go. And Matthew 28:16-17 says: "Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted."

That word, "doubted." In Greek, it is distazo.

It doesn’t mean skepticism. It isn't an intellectual refusal to believe. Di means two. Stasis means standing. Distazo means "standing in two places." It means holding two postures.

The disciples stood on that mountain holding their grief, their trauma, their meekness, and their fears of the Roman state. But simultaneously, they stood there with their Makarios—their expansive grace, their comfort, their fulfillment, their awareness that the Community of God had come near.

They were not just hearing the Beatitudes anymore; they were the embodiment of them. They were a living Distazo.
This is where we find ourselves today.

We are watching a world that looks like it is falling apart. We are watching the rise of forces that want to shrink grace, that want to hoard space for the powerful and deny it to the vulnerable. And we are asked to question our own identity.

Are we products of a broken political system that relies on exploitation to wield power? Or are we children of the Divine, full human beings, capable of carrying our grief along with our hope?

What are we to do with this Distazo—this double posture—in this time of crisis?

First, we must be aware of our privilege. We have to admit that, historically, we likely wouldn't have been the people on that mountainside with Jesus. We would have been the citizens in the city, safe behind the walls. But now, we have heard the message. We have been called to the mountain.

To practice "Subversive Hope" is to inhabit our Distazo.

It means we do not deny the horror. We do not look away from the ICE detention centers or the erosion of democracy. We stand fully in the reality of that grief. We mourn. We hunger for righteousness.

But, at the exact same time, we stand in our Makarios. We claim our expansive grace. We refuse to let fear make us small. We refuse to let cynicism make us brittle. We use our privilege, our voices, and our agency to say that everyone—the migrant, the queer person, the poor, the outcast—has a right to take up space.

We must use our whole selves—grief and hope—to show up to that mountain. We go there to be healed of our complicity. We go there to find the Divine in the face of the other. And then, we go on our way, in the community of God, inviting others to follow.

May you be blessed with expansive grace. May you have the strength to stand in two places. And may you take up space for the sake of love.
​
Amen.

To watch the recording of this sermon, click here: https://youtu.be/f4iHbRuvOYA.

Sermon by Rev. Aaron Linville

Hi everyone, For those of you who have not met me, my name is Aaron Linville. It has been my joy and privilege to serve as the pastor of Millwoods Community Church for the last seven years.

It is also my joy to share our third epistle with you on manifesting hope in the darkness. Today, we focus on the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the gospel of Matthew and hope in unexpected places.

There's lots of hope in unexpected places in the story of Jesus. For the second week in a row, we hear Jesus calling fisherman to be his disciples. Most of us don't think about fisherman as sources of hope. We think about them as essential for coastal societies to function, but not a source of hope.

The occupation of fisherman reminds me that Jesus was a craftsman, a skilled worker. Again, very important and essential for a functional society, but we don't think of them as sources of hope. When we look at the occupations of the core group of disciples Jesus is beginning to collect they include day laborers, professional fishermen, and tax collectors. This is not a hope inspiring group, and yet Christians would say that Jesus is the hope of the world, and these core disciples were incredibly influential in that hope surviving the death of Jesus. They are all unexpected sources of hope.

And when we dig into this passage about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Matthew, the unexpectedness of hope increases.

Jesus’ ministry begins when he hears John the Baptizer has been arrested. His ministry begins not in a moment of hope but a moment of chaos and crisis. Also, we would expect his ministry would begin with something public, but it begins by Jesus withdrawing. That's not a very hopeful action.

And, that only increases when we pay attention to where Jesus withdrew to. The territory of Zebulun and Naphtali is the land of two of the Northern Tribes of Israel who were lost and presumably destroyed 700 years before Jesus walked this earth. Jesus withdrew to a place of cultural grief and loss. It wasn’t really Jewish, but neither was it really gentile. The Jewish people would have expected hope to come from Jerusalem or Judea, not the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.

I've often wondered why these fisherman were so ready to leave their livelihoods to follow Jesus. In the gospel of Luke it makes sense because there is a miraculous catch a fish, but there is no miraculous catch a fish in the gospel of Matthew. Why were they so willing to leave and follow Jesus? What unexpected hope did they see to justify such drastic action?

Maybe it was the fact that they really were not fishing for themselves, but for the empire that occupied their land. Yes, they were earning their daily bread by fishing, but every fish they caught was more food for Roman officials and armies. Every fish was more tax paid to Rome. They weren't really fishing for themselves, but for Cesar. Maybe the unexpected hope they saw in Jesus was getting out of that self defeating cycle and the hope of fishing for people, not just to support the economics of an occupying empire.

The story of Jesus is filled with unexpected hope from the nativity, the calling of the first disciples, and the start of his ministry all the way through to the unexpected hope that death does not have the last word. All of these moments of hope accumulate and then spread beyond this unexpected place of origin to the surrounding areas. This hope spread to Jerusalem, Rome, and then the ends of the world.

And even two millennia later that hope continues to show up and we continue to find hope in unexpected places if we have eyes and hearts to see and feel.

For me, I found unexpected hope in the consistent observations and encouragement in the first two sermons of this series. I don't think Mark and Jamie coordinated that. It just happened. It is hopeful to me that our clergy lift up the message that you are God’s beloved. Full stop. No disclaimers. That’s hopeful.

Another moment of unexpected hope for me in these last few months is the recent Knives Out movie. We typically look to Hollywood for entertainment, not hope, but, I found unexpected hope in Wake Up Dead Man.

It does not shy away from the fact that the church has and does cause harm, and yet is hopeful. Neither does it shy away from the fact that it feels like the church is getting pulled in two incompatible directions.

One is to fight the world and everything about it; to insist on it is the Church's way or no way, even if a lot of people get hurt in the process. On the other end of the spectrum, the church is being pulled to reach out and hold and love the world, to embrace and forgive, and to help us all be the people God has created, and called us to be not through force, but by love, peace, and grace. Wake up Dead man even has a very a hopeful depiction of a complete rejection of spirituality and religion. It is a wonderfully hopeful movie for me as a disciple of Jesus even though it’s an entirely secular ‘Who done it’ movie. It is unexpected hope for me and for the church we so dearly love.

After Jamie’s sermon last week, I commented to Millwoods that we need to choose what we are looking for, because we tend to to find what we look for whether it’s bitterness or compassion. Today I encourage all of you to look for hope, especially in unexpected places.

Without trying, we encounter more than enough reasons to despair, so choose to seek out hope. Choose to look for hope, and you will find it, even in unexpected places. And, when you find it, proclaim it and share it.

Our world seems more full of despair and uncertainty than hope right now. That is cause for concern, but it also means that hope shines brighter when it is found. It's the same as lighting a candle and a dark room. A candle may not be all that bright, but it shines in the darkness. Even a little hope shines brightly when there is so much anxiety.
​
Choose to look for hope. Choose to share hope and be a lights to those in darkness. Choose to be a light of hope to yourself, to your neighbor, and in doing so, you'll be the unexpected hope someone else finds. Choose to look for hope, and be a light to the world.

If you would like to view the recording of this sermon, click here.

​Young at Heart Message
 
Good morning! I am Pastor Jamie Almquist and I serve Good Shepherd Moravian Church in Calgary.
 
I am delighted to be a part of this 6-week sermon series on the theme “Manifesting Hope in Darkness.”
 
Today, we heard John the Baptist testifying to and affirming that Jesus is indeed the Chosen One. We follow this with the Gospel of John’s version of Jesus’s first disciples.
 
These disciples have been following John the Baptist, but when they hear John speaking so highly of Jesus, they choose to follow Jesus, seemingly out of curiosity.
 
Jesus asks them what they are looking for, and then he extends an invitation: come and see.
 
Today, we’ll be talking about seeking and finding hope in a world where the shadow of darkness seems to be looming ever larger and more ominously.
 
And as I thought about the theme for today’s sermon, my mind rested on a book I am in the process of reading. The book is called Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle.
 
The back of the book describes Gregory Boyle as “a Jesuit priest and the founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries.”
 
The beginning of his book introduces us to Homeboy Industries and describes Greg’s work with gang members in Los Angeles.
 
The book is beautiful and has brought tears to my eyes multiple times already, and I’m only three and half chapters in.
 
But in the first chapter of his book, Greg (lovingly called G by the Homeboys) shares a story of a dying man and his son.
 
In this story, the son reads every night to his dying father, and the arrangement is supposed to be that the son reading to his father would encourage his father to fall asleep.
 
However, each night, the father repeatedly opens his eyes to gaze lovingly at his son. G writes that “this evening ritual was really a short story of a father who just couldn’t take his eyes off his kid.”
 
There are few things that, I think, could describe our relationship with God better.
 
It is easy for us to imagine a new mother or father, lying their new baby down to sleep at night and being unable to leave the room because they simply cannot cease gazing at the miracle before them.
 
When I was much younger and my father was still alive, I began writing a blog as part of the work I did for a company called Patheos.
 
I shared the blog with my parents because I was excited about the work I was doing. I sent them the link to look at it, not expecting that they would read it.
 
I simply wanted to show them.
 
After I wrote a handful of times, I got busy and admittedly lost interest in the blog.
 
One day, a couple weeks after I had stopped writing, my Dad called to say hi and check in, and he asked me why I hadn’t posted anything on my blog lately.
 
I was shocked to learn that he was following the blog. He read every single post I made.
 
It fascinated him. I was honoured that he was interested in my life in this way - so much so that it still brings tears to my eyes today.
 
And, looking back on that moment, I realize that my Dad was lovingly gazing upon his daughter with pride and joy and a tremendous amount of love.
 
After sharing the story of the father and son in his book, G drops this golden nugget for the reader.
 
He says, “God would seem to be too occupied in being unable to take Her eyes off of us to spend any time raising an eyebrow in disapproval. What’s true of Jesus is true for us, and so this voice breaks through the clouds and comes straight at us.
 
‘You are my beloved, in whom I am wonderfully pleased.’”
 
As the Homeboys would say, “Damn, G.”
 
The Message
 
So, when we meet the disciples in today’s Gospel passage, they are not entirely sure what they are seeking, and they certainly don’t feel this loving gaze falling on them from anywhere.
 
When Jesus asks them what they are looking for, all they can muster is “where are you staying?”
 
It’s as though they desire to know so much more about Jesus, but they are awe-struck and uncertain.
 
When I shared my blog with my Dad, he could have said “great job!” and then never thought about it again.
 
When these disciples start following Jesus, he could have said “nice to meet you. Best of luck to you.”
 
But instead, my Dad read every post. And Jesus extends an invitation. He doesn’t judge them for their question about where he’s staying. Instead, he invites them to “come and see.”
 
And so it is with us.
 
We often find that we are seeking something, but we do not know what that something might be.
 
Perhaps we are seeking reassurance that we are on the right path, or we are seeking affirmation of our gifts. Maybe we are seeking people to make us feel loved, or perhaps we are seeking something that might ease our shame, regret, or hopelessness.
 
Jesus reminds us that it does not actually matter what we seek.
 
We will find it in him, if only we are open to accepting his invitation.
 
“Come and see” – these are not empty words. These are the words of a door opening for us.
 
“Come and see” reminds us that we are worthy, and Jesus beckons us. Jesus is like the father who gazes lovingly and with awe on his children.
 
In him, we find hope. In him, we find a love deeper than the ocean and as vast as the universe.
 
This hope we seek is not beyond our reach. It is easily accessible.
 
Jesus invites us to come close, abandon our fears, and follow his beacon of light as we navigate darkness.
 
He invites us to respond to his question, “what are you looking for?”
 
He does not judge or condemn. He merely sets his gaze upon us and loves us unconditionally.
 
Greg Boyle says the following about God’s love:
 
“I was brought up and educated to give assent to certain propositions. God is love, for example. You concede “God loves us,” and yet there is this lurking sense that perhaps you aren’t fully part of the ‘us.’
 
“The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God’s fingertips. Then you have no choice but to consider that ‘God loves me,’ yet you spend much of your life unable to shake off what feels like God only embracing you begrudgingly and reluctantly.”
 
What if, instead, it has been God’s absolute joy to love you all along?
 
What if, in Jesus’s invitation to “come and see,” he is actually inviting us to experience God’s love on a much deeper level?
 
What if Jesus is inviting us to see that when God looks lovingly on his Son, he also looks lovingly on each one of us who was also created to be here in this very time and place?
 
We spend our entire lives seeking, and Jesus tells us “hey, come and see. I’ve got what you’ve been looking for.”
 
Suddenly, with a jolt, you realize that you’ve found it.
 
God is gazing upon you with an unimaginable, unchangeable love. A love that is capable of bringing us out of the deepest caves and darkest nights. A love that shines upon us brighter than the brightest star in the sky.
 
So, may you accept God’s loving gaze. May you look upon yourself the way God sees you – brilliantly and beautifully made.
 
You are God’s beloved, in whom God is wonderfully pleased.
 
Come and see. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. From a young age, I adored my dad and I wanted to be just like him.
 
When I was four or five years old, I wanted so badly to learn to ride a bike so I could ride with my dad.
 
My parents started me on training wheels, but I hated them. They scared me.
 
Yes, I was afraid of falling, but I was far more afraid of those training wheels.
 
The training wheels created a level of uncertainty and surprise that I couldn’t stand.
 
You’re riding along and then all the sudden you start leaning to one side. Yes, the training wheels catch you, but before they do, you feel like you’re falling.
 
Then, you’re stuck riding off to the side, and you’re too afraid to try to right yourself for fear of leaning too far to the other side and then waiting for the other training wheel to catch you.
 
No thank you.
 
But, I also didn’t want to fall and skin my knees.
 
So, my ingenious solution was to practice in the grass. That way, when I inevitably fell, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
 
It also forced me to learn quickly because I didn’t want to keep falling, even in the grass. But more importantly, I wanted to be able to ride on the sidewalk or the road with my dad.
 
It did not take me long at all to learn to ride a bike. Soon, my dad and I were riding around the block, to the cemetery down the street, and to church.
 
Eventually, I was able to ride by myself on our street. I wasn’t afraid of falling anymore, and I loved being outdoors.
 
One day, I was riding along, just about back to my house from down the street, when I felt my shoelaces get caught up in the pedals.
 
Kids bikes have the brakes on the pedals, or at least they did at that time. You pedal backward to brake, so you couldn’t pedal backward to unloop your shoelaces from the pedals.
 
I had no choice. I had to fall because both my feet were stuck to the pedals. I was scared.
 
I pulled over to the side of the road, found what I thought would be the softest grassy area along the curb, and I fell. Disgraced, I took my shoes off and got the laces free.
 
I was afraid of that happening again, so I learned how to tuck my laces into my shoes so they couldn’t get wrapped up in the pedals. Problem solved, and fear abated.
 
When my family moved to a new house in a rural area, our house was the second one built on our street, which was a cul-de-sac.
 
Unfortunately for me, the cul-de-sac met up with a busy rural road, and I was still young, so I was only allowed to ride my bike on our short street.
 
I was riding one day, and my dad came home from work and drove into the cul-de-sac. The road was newly paved, and they hadn’t built the gravel shoulder up yet, so there was about a 5-inch drop-off from the road to the gravel shoulder.
 
As my dad pulled in, I tried to move over to make sure I gave him plenty of room on the road, and my back tire slid off the pavement.
 
I went down hard. I skinned my knees and I had a huge scrape on my chin.
 
I was distraught, not just because it hurt but because the next day I had my very first day of school at a brand new school. I was starting third grade.
 
This felt like the end of the world. I was afraid of what the other kids would think about this new girl with a huge band-aid on her chin.
 
Weirdly though, I don’t remember being afraid to get back on my bike. I loved riding so much, and I just learned to steer clear of high shoulders.
 
As I got older, my dad and I started to ride together on the busier rural roads.
 
I was afraid to ride alone, and I am sure my parents were afraid to let me.
 
One day, my dad asked if I wanted to ride and I must have said no because he left without me.
 
But then, I must have changed my mind. I hopped on my bike and followed him.
 
But, my dad was too far ahead. The wind was in his ears, and he couldn’t hear me yelling at him.
 
I pedaled harder than I’d ever pedaled, but I couldn’t catch up to him. My bike was smaller than his, and even though by this time I had a bike with gears and handlebar brakes, it still wasn’t big enough and didn’t have enough gears for me to be able to catch him.
 
I rode the entire way with him about half a mile ahead of me, no idea I was behind him.
 
My fear of riding alone on the rural streets was dissipated because, after all, I could see my dad ahead of me. (If anything happened to me though, he never would have known, but that didn’t occur to me.)
 
We got home and I pulled into the driveway after him, out of breath and sweaty.
 
Surprised, he said well, I guess we don’t need to be afraid of you riding alone anymore!
 
As I got older, I rode more and more, and most often I rode alone.
 
In university, I decided I needed to buy myself a decent bike if I was going to take riding seriously.
 
I bought myself a Giant brand road bike. This thing was fancy, and it was expensive.
 
It had the curved handlebars, 21 gears, and… it had pedals that I needed special shoes for so I could clip my feet to them.
 
I hadn’t had my feet stuck to bike pedals since my shoelaces got wrapped around my pedals as a kid.
 
I was scared to try these new shoes. I mean, who wants to be stuck to their pedals when something comes up and you need to take your feet off the pedals unexpectedly?
 
But, this bike was SO cool, and I was so excited to ride it. I set aside my fear and I practiced clipping and unclipping each foot.
 
Then I rode around large parking lots, practicing clipping and unclipping while I was riding.
 
Soon enough, I was riding and I wasn’t scared of getting my feet stuck.
 
Until one day, it happened. I took a turn wrong, couldn’t get my feet unclipped, and took a huge fall.
 
I don’t know if you know this, but falling as an adult hurts a lot more than falling as a kid.
 
You’re a lot farther off the ground, and I was moving fairly fast.
 
But, the fall didn’t stop me, and fear of falling again didn’t keep me from getting back on the bike.
 
Now that it had happened once, I guess I figured I knew what it felt like. I had learned more about the clips and how to use them, and I loved riding so much that I didn’t want to give it up.
 
I have a million more examples of the fear that has come along with riding my bike.
 
People would often ask me, “aren’t you afraid of getting hit by a car riding on the road?”
 
My response would be sure, if I think about it, I should be scared. A lot of bad things could happen when you mix bikes and cars on the road.
 
But I don’t think about it. Because if I think about it too much, I would never do it again.
 
And that’s where the lesson in this small story lies. There are many, many things that, if we think too hard about all the bad things that could happen, we would never do them.
 
But if we let fear overwhelm us, we would never do anything in our lives, either.
 
Fear can paralyze us. Fear can consume us.
 
And often, we can let other people’s fear become our fear.
 
The Message
 
And this is where we find ourselves in scripture today.
 
Once again, today’s passage starts with a reminder that Herod was king at the time Jesus was born.
 
Sharing this is like asking me “aren’t you afraid of getting hit by a car on your bike?”
 
Everyone knows that Herod is dangerous, violent, and paranoid.
 
Just offering that reminder would fill anyone living in that era with fear.
 
Meanwhile, the magi hear about the birth of Jesus, king of the Jews, and wish to worship him.
 
When Herod hears about this “king of the Jews,” he becomes worried – not because he’s worried for the child, but because he’s worried about the threat to his own reign of power.
 
So Herod calls these magi to him.
 
He lies to the magi and tells them that the reason he wants to know as soon as they find him is so that he can worship him, too.
 
Luckily, the magi were warned in a dream not to take the news of Jesus’s location back to Herod.
 
The scripture doesn’t speak of their fear, but they must have been filled with fear.
 
They were defying the orders of Herod, a ruler known for violence and vengeance.
 
The magi couldn’t possibly have known what was coming next.
 
They could not have known that their act of defiance would cause Herod to order the murder of all the young boys living in or near Bethlehem.
 
And yet, they had to have known that there would be consequences to their actions.
 
And they bravely chose love over fear nonetheless.
 
Their choice could have been the end of Jesus’s life. His life could have ended before it began if they had chosen to give in to their fear.
 
Instead, they chose love. Instead, they chose hope for a better world.
 
They did not allow their fear to stop them from doing what the angel in their dream told them to do.
 
They did not allow fear to paralyze them.
 
And really, when it comes down to it, they did not allow Herod’s fear to become their fear.
 
Herod’s actions – his violence and paranoia – also stemmed from fear. Fear of losing power and control. Fear of someone who may one day be able to turn people against him.
 
Fear of loss of control or power is a major driving force for those who oppress others. It is a contributing factor in many, if not most wars.
 
The magi were certainly afraid, but they did not allow their fear to paralyze them, and they did not allow Herod’s fear to influence them.
 
This is the power of epiphany: the beginning of a new path.
 
The magi do what Herod and his allies refuse to do: they seek, they kneel, and they listen.
 
So, on this Epiphany Sunday, may we wonder how the story of the magi might guide us in our own lives.
 
Like the magi, let us kneel in awe, not before the powerful, but before the powerless Christ, whose birth marks the beginning of God’s peace campaign.
 
Let us believe, with trembling hope, that fear does not have the last word.
 
Because we cannot allow fear to stop us. We cannot allow the fear of others to become our fear.
 
Instead, may love lead us forward. May love lead. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of the Stars, like the magi, we come to this place searching for you. So today, just like every day, we ask that you would remove any barriers that keep us from your Spirit. Clear out the distractions. Wipe away the doubt. Open up our hearts.  
 
And as you do, help us to keep walking. As you do, help us to move toward you. With hope we pray. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
I want to start today’s message by showing you some drawings.
 
These drawings were originally commissioned by Armand Gervais, a French toy manufacturer in Lyon, for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.
 
They were intended to imagine what the future would look like in the year 2000, 100 years after the World Exhibition.
 
The first 50 of these “paper cards” were drawn by Jean-Marc Côté, and they were designed to be enclosed in cigarette boxes.
 
However, Armand Gervais began producing them in 1899 but died during production, so they sat in the closed-down toy factory for nearly 100 years.
 
So, the cards never saw the light of day until 1986, only 14 years from the year 2000.
 
Let’s look at a few of these cards to see what people in the year 1900 thought the future might look like.

It’s an interesting exploration, and I wonder how we might depict the year 2125 if we were asked to draw what the world will be like then?
 
Of course, the people in 1900 could only imagine a world based on what they knew about their current world.
 
And, we could imagine some things based on our current world, but technology changes so quickly now that it’s difficult to predict.
 
The world is constantly changing, and we are constantly changing, too.
 
We can’t even fully predict how tomorrow will go for us.
 
We can make plans, and we can assume things will go to plan, but until reality actually occurs, it’s impossible to know for sure what tomorrow will bring.
 
The Message
 
And this is where we encounter the Magi in our scripture today.
 
Their world was essentially turned upside down when they saw the star that they followed to find Jesus. That journey wasn’t originally in their plans.
 
And then, once they made the journey, they planned to travel back by the same road because they believed Herod when he said he wanted to go and worship the new “King of the Jews.”
 
But then an angel came to them in their dreams and told them that Herod had different intentions.
 
So, to protect the baby and his family, they chose to change their plans and go home by a different road.
 
The scripture doesn’t give us a lot of details, but I imagine that changing their plans in this way was not an easy decision.
 
They were in a foreign land, and they didn’t have access to GPS like we have today.
 
They had to choose to take an unfamiliar path – one that could be dangerous for them and filled with the unknown.
 
The path they thought they would walk was no longer an option to them, so they had to re-evaluate and make a decision that they were not expecting to make.
 
And that is the lesson I want to focus on in today’s scripture.
 
The paths we walk are not straightforward either.
 
Many of us were taught to stick to the “straight and narrow” path growing up.
 
But what does that even mean?
 
Most of us have had enough life experience now to know that the path is never straight.
 
No matter how hard we try to plan our route, to plan our future, to anticipate what’s coming next, we never really know.
 
And closing ourselves off to the possibilities also closes the door on what God may be wanting for us.
 
If we live our lives in such rigid ways, we may miss some beautiful opportunities for personal growth and evolution, but we may also miss out on things that could make our lives better.
 
One thing I continue to learn and be reminded of as I do the pastoral work that I do is that we are never guaranteed tomorrow.
 
Tomorrow may come, but what we had planned may not be what happens.
 
Life can change in an instant, so expecting our path to be ”straight and narrow” just sets us up to be unable to cope when the path suddenly turns in a different direction.
 
Being aware of the possibility of our path changing unexpectedly helps us to be grateful for where we are on the journey, and reminds us not to take our present moment for granted.
 
Experience has told us that the road is never straight, no matter what people might want us to think.
 
So, if we keep this in mind, we know not to take for granted what we have today.
 
Knowing that the path isn’t straight helps us remember to do things like love more deeply and to tell people we love and care about them.
 
Because we don’t know what tomorrow holds and we aren’t guaranteed that our path will continue in the same direction tomorrow that it’s going today, it is helpful to live in the moment rather than living too much in the past or the future.
 
The Magi demonstrated for us this notion of living in the moment and not being so dead-set on following the straight path they thought they would be walking.
 
Instead, they were able to show Mary and Joseph a profound love for the baby Jesus that ultimately saved his life.
 
They remind us that it’s OK if our journeys haven’t looked like we thought they would.
 
So, as you navigate twists and turns, stay curious and open to where God might be leading.
 
May you find the courage to explore new routes and the wisdom to follow the One who will never leave or forsake you.
 
May each new path be a chance to trust God and discover deeper truths about the love that will never let you go. Amen.
 
God of starlight, We long to follow you. Like the Magi, we want to pick up the hems of our robes and run in your direction. Like the Magi, we want to kick up dust with our feet and make a joyful ruckus following your guiding star. Unfortunately, the stars can be hard to see from here. Your still, small voice can be hard to hear from here. So just as you guided the Magi, guide us, so that we can follow you. With hope in our hearts we pray, Amen.

Sermon References:
Commentary by Kayla Craig | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.
Prayer by Rev. Sarah (Are) Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.