Sermons

At the beginning of creation, God put everything into perfect balance, each part of creation connected to the whole, and everything supporting and supported by everything else.  God made conditions ideal for all of creation to grow and to thrive.  We all live within a great web of life.

But depending on conditions within the web, growing and thriving may be compromised. 

I want to tell you about the African violet I got from a friend. 

Periodically, I find that one of its leaves has dropped. If I just left it where it fell, the leaf would die.  But if I place that African violet leaf in water, it will start to root.  And if I leave it in the water long enough, the one leaf will get more leaves. 

But for this leaf to thrive and to grow into a plant,  I need to plant the leaf with its new roots and leaves in some dirt, because water, by itself, doesn’t have everything this plant needs to grow and thrive. 

So here’s a plant that I grew from one leaf.  You can see that putting the roots in dirt meant that the plant could grow. 

But dirt is not all the plant needs.  At first, as the plant put out new leaves, the leaves grew long and scraggly and were more yellow than green. 

What do you think my plants lacked? 

They lacked light!

So then I got a grow light.

With enough light, the leaves became green, and then, to my surprise, my new African violets bloomed!

So with the right soil, enough water and enough light, these African violets are growing and thriving. 

God made each one of us with the hope that we will grow and thrive, for after all, we are part of God’s creation.  We are like the leaves that fall from my African violet.  Without the essential things we need to live and grow, we just wither away.  But when we have all we need, we too can grow and thrive and live in a thriving community with one another, in the human web of life. 

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Sermon, Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A 2023
I Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

“Calling of Peter and Andrew” – Caravaggio 1602

“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

So begins Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth, a diverse and contentious group of people, called together by God into the fellowship of Jesus Christ our Lord:  called to be the church, to be God’s light in the world. 

Paul’s enthralling words remind us that God calls us too—you and me– to be saints, that is, to follow Jesus and to witness to God’s justice, power, mercy, healing, and love in this world. 

That is why we’ve chosen to be here today, because we have heard God calling us to be part of this fellowship of the saints that we know as the church. 

Here, God reminds us, through scripture and prayer and song that we are not alone in this calling to follow Jesus. 

Jesus is not just a prophet with tremendous healing power and a mighty heart, willing to go to death and beyond as he does God’s will in this world, someone to admire and emulate.  Jesus is more than all of that, as wonderful as all of that is. 

Jesus is God’s Son.

So when we follow Jesus, God’s Son,  we enter ever more deeply into the heart of God, even in the ordinary things that we do, which can grow into the extraordinary things that God calls us to do, the things that we never believed possible—Glory to God, whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we could ask, or even imagine. 

God imagines our lives—magnificent, challenging lives that reveal God to those around us! 

God has already imagined the life that God is calling you and me  and this church, St Peter’s, into.

God wants our imaginations to expand, so that ultimately, God’s imagination for each of us and for this church, and for this world, can and will  become reality. 

The clue to how we even begin to live into God’s imagination is to have the desire to know God more deeply, to want to live in the heart and mind of God, which is what the two disciples in today’s gospel realized they wanted. 

They were followers of John the Baptist.  But when they saw Jesus walk by and heard John say, “Look!  Here is the Lamb of God” these two disciples of John followed Jesus. 

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The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Matthew. 

“Adoration of the Magi – Jan de Bray, 1658

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'”

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The gospel of the Lord. 

When the wise men arrived in Jerusalem after following the star across untold miles, they had only one question for King Herod. 

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”

That question struck me as one that we should always be asking.

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”

“Where is our Lord and Savior in this world?” 

Where should we be looking? 

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