As we continue our series on prayer this Epiphany, one of the ah ha’s we are invited to have by the Lord is that prayer isn’t just about us. A life with God is very much about a life with others. This should come as no surprise to us, as Jesus once responded to a question about the greatest commandment with two: love God with all that is within you and love your neighbor as yourself. Our scriptures this week are from 2 Corinthians, where Paul writes to a church about what it means to pray for and suffer with your neighbor and the second is from Micah, where God rejects our empty attempts at piety and demands that what God truly desires is for us to do justice, to love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Justice and kindness and humility are acts we do with one another, like those neighbors Jesus told us to love as ourselves. A life of prayer, we discover, is a life with God and with our neighbor. Join us this Sunday, as we listen for God to speak, baptize a child, and install and ordain our leaders. God is speaking through all of it! See you then.

This week, we will continue to lean into the season of Epiphany through prayer. Last week, Pastor Jake invited us to see prayer as a constant engagement with the Lord, which allows God to shape us day to day. This week in worship, we will tackle the question that always arises when we talk about prayer: what is it supposed to do? When we pray, are we hoping for a change in our circumstances or a change in God’s decision making? Or does prayer work on us as much as anything else? Join us for worship as we continue to put our lives in Jesus’ way!

This Sunday, we enter into a season that the church has dubbed “Epiphany.” It’s a time of exploration of who God is and how God is as we see the un-seeable and know the unknowable in the person of Jesus Christ. As it is, knowledge about God cannot be divorced from knowing God. Jesus resists being studied as under a microscope as a specimen of spirituality, but is always available for a dinner invite and a conversation. Therefore, in the gospels, Jesus invites prospective disciples to “Come and See.” So, we will take these next four weeks and receive the invitation to come and see by leaning into the practice of prayer. What is it? What is it supposed to do? Let’s venture our first answer to this by coming to see.

This week, we celebrate Baptism of the Lord Sunday with a baptism of our own. As we prepare to baptize a child of the church, we will consider the grace that saturates this gift from God. It isn't only a symbol of sins being washed away, though it is that. It isn’t only a sign of the beginning of something new, though it certainly is that. It isn’t only the model of dying and being raised to new life with Jesus in his own death and resurrection, but it surely is that. It is a mystery that is more than its component parts. So come on, brothers and sisters, siblings all, let’s go down to the river to pray.

This Sunday we end the Christmas season celebrating the epiphany, when God “shined on us” in the form of Jesus Christ himself. God is a god who wants relationship with us, so much so that God gave us signs and wonders to guide us back towards the Light. As we celebrate the new year, we will pick “Star words” as a way to guide us, just like the Wiseman followed the Star towards Jesus.

We are grateful to welcome the Reverend Sarah Crowther-Dixon into the pulpit this Sunday! Sarah is the Campus Minister & Executive Director of UKirk TCU. She started this campus ministry of Grace Presbytery in January of this year. She has been shaped by her experiences at Oklahoma State University, her Young Adult Volunteer year in Denver, Austin Seminary, and her amazing home church, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Flower Mound, TX. She is grateful to be back at Trinity this Sunday!

Every Advent, we read the prophecy of Isaiah in which he declares that the Messiah will call a truce with the fire ants. This is something to give thanks for! Yet, our world seems to be in open rebellion against us: increasing global temperature, tornadoes, earthquakes, and all. Inspired by Isaiah and John the Baptist (who would absolutely fall into the category of “granola”), we are going to hear Advent’s joyous call to a connectedness with all creation. If the gift of Christ is joyous harmony, how can we embody this gift even now, and what does creation have to do with that? (Also, can someone let the fire ants know?)

This Advent season, we are talking about the gifts that Christ has already given us. Far be it from me (Pastor Jake) to take the prayer “Fix it, Jesus!” out of your repertoire, but I am suspicious of the ways that we sometimes duck from responsibility in the hopes that God will clean up for us. In fact, that intuition motivated this whole series. Advent is a time of waiting, yet, but it is an active waiting! Jesus, the Messiah, has already come to bring peace to the world. He is “The Prince of Peace,” inviting the world to walk in the ways of peace. This Sunday, I hope that we will be inspired by the opportunity to join with the Peacemaker and use our own imaginations, our power, our strength, and all our love to join with God in creating a powerful witness to a world of peace. This week in worship, the choir will present part one of their cantata “Night of the Father’s Love.” Join us in joyful worship this week!

Christmas is a season filled with traditions and symbolism. As we celebrate the “hanging of the greens,” we will break open the signs and symbols of Christmas and prepare our hearts to listen to the story of Christ’s birth. However, how do we hear a story that has already been told again and again? What do the signs and symbols of Christmas point us toward today?

This Sunday, we celebrate 100 years of the Feast Day of Christ the King. Pope Pius XI instituted the day on December 11, 1925 in response at once to both the rise of secularism and, importantly, the increasing popularity of nationalism in a post WWI context. In 1969, Pope Paul VI changed the title of the day to “The Feast to Our Jesus Christ King of the Universe,” and moved it to the very last day of the liturgical year. So, this Sunday, we will celebrate communion, recommitting ourselves to the worship of the King of the Universe who stands above every earthly commitment and power, and let our Christian year be summed up in such a commitment. It is a timely commitment, as Christian Nationalist voices rise in our country and ultra-nationalist movements gain popularity around the world. Let us take our lead from the One who reigns in power by virtue of love!