Today we have two strange stories about glowing faces. Moses and Jesus both shine so brightly they are said to be transfigured. Jesus and Moses don’t change into different leaders with different faces and different values. Rather these are stories about human beings who suddenly are **more** visibly, more recognizably who they are.

Why love your enemies? Because practicing love, in the end costs you less than practicing hate. Hate consumes us. Hate embitters. Spending your energy practicing hate will not help you to grow as a person. Hate shrinks us. God does not want you to be smaller. You were made not for hate, but for love.

Jesus’ beatitudes name some of the very fabric of who we are meant to be, in a world too often deaf to that call. Jesus calls us to the Great Reversal.

In her first sermon as our Associate Rector, the Rev. Simone Drinkwater sits with the story of Jesus calling the disciples from their nets, to become fishers for people.

To be a spiritual person, in times of outrage, is watch patiently for the signs of hope. To be a spiritual person, in times of outrage, means never letting go of joy. To be a spiritual person, in times of outrage, means never letting the outrage win

After hearing Bishop Budde's words to the president in Washington this week, a sermon about the connection between our faith and our work for justice. If hearing Bishop Budde’s words this week gave you a new sense that faith might be a viable option for you, if hearing her name so clearly that it was because of her faith that she needed to plea with this president for mercy, you are not alone. 

To confront the realities of our day, we will need resilience. Build power not panic, as immigration advocates say. Because whatever the future holds, God will be there, the Spirit will lead us. Water can still become wine.

Together we can keep going. When the going gets really tough. Together we can live together. Think more clearly. Feel more deeply. Love more extravagantly. Live more fully. Because we are planted in deeper ground.

This Epiphany season, take permission to lessen the busyness. If you’re holding on to anger or bitterness, let that relax as well. Loosen the knots between your shoulders. Know you can do so and strengthen your resolve at the same time. 

Trust God is out there, working beyond our boundaries, beyond our grudges, beyond our sense of rightness or wrongness. God is out there, beyond our political orthodoxies and our faith traditions. God is waiting to be manifest to us, and for us to show up resolved to make a difference for the sake of love. 

On the first Sunday after Christmas, the Rev. Lee Lowery preaches about the meaning of the Word Made Flesh.