Pr. Joseph Crippen

You and I are called – the whole point of faith is that you and I go out as God’s love in the world, for the healing of all things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 3 A
Texts: Matthew 4:12-23; Isaiah 9:1-4

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

This week our Minneapolis Bishop Jen Nagel recalled Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a message she sent to our rostered ministers.[1]

She said Bonhoeffer identified three ways that the church can respond to oppression: “by holding our government and leaders accountable to their commitments, by tending to the direct needs of those being crushed under the wheel of oppression, and finally by driving a spoke into the wheel itself.”

We are under an occupation here. There’s no other way to describe it. Yesterday’s sickening public execution of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti just underlines it. We are under occupation by government sanctioned bullies and thugs who are defended at the highest levels, completely unaccountable. These people delight, take joy, in brutality, cruelty, and humiliation, going far beyond anything law enforcement has ever been permitted to do in our nation. And so our neighbors stay locked behind doors. Preschool children are snatched in arrests or gassed in their parents’ car. People are disappearing. We are the people walking in deep darkness looking for light that Isaiah speaks of.

But our bishop is right. Bonhoeffer is right. There are these things we can do: hold our government and leaders accountable. Tend to the direct needs of those being crushed under the wheel of oppression. And drive a spike into the wheel wherever we can.

Which actually brings us to this scene by the lakeshore with four people who fish for a living. Because there’s a lot more to this story than you might think.

To see it, we need to help Matthew a little with his fellow Evangelists.

See, Luke starts this story earlier than this moment we heard. Peter and Andrew have fished all night, caught nothing, and when they come into shore, Jesus asks to use their boat for a pulpit. When he’s done teaching, he tells Peter to cast his net one more time. Peter does, and the net’s so full it nearly swamps their boat, and James and John have to help. And that’s when Jesus calls them to fish for people.

John provides the next crucial part of the story. After Jesus’ resurrection, a few disciples return to Galilee and go fishing while they wait for Jesus’ instructions. Once again they catch nothing. In the morning, someone calls from shore, and tells them to throw out their net one more time. Once again, the net fills to overflowing. John recognizes it’s Jesus, Peter swims to shore. And Jesus serves them all breakfast. And that’s when Jesus reveals what their calling truly is.

Because Jesus always called people for a purpose.

He didn’t come to start a club, or seek members to something. Or invite people to believe in God so they’d know they were somehow on the right side.

He always called them to a vocation. Every time. He said, “follow me, and I will have work for you to do.” With these four, he used fishing – their livelihood – to help them understand: I’ll send you out to fish for people. To draw people into God’s love by dragging a huge net of welcome and teaching and love through the world, catching as many as you can.

The faith Jesus invites in people is always the way for them to become who God needs in the world, for the sake of others, not an exclusive possession. So they, so we, radiate God’s love in our own bodies and voices and actions and words. Like Jesus. To draw all God’s children into the abundant life and love of God. That’s why Jesus came.

But this doesn’t seem to be how many understand Christian faith these days.

For many Christians today faith is something you own, it’s personal, centered on a hope in heaven in the next life, and it’s not about how you live here, not a calling. Many Christian voices today proclaim a way of life so radically divorced from Jesus’ teachings it’s apparent that what Jesus said, what he taught, how he lived, loved, died, doesn’t matter much to them. If you know you’re a Christian, that’s apparently enough.

But not for Jesus. He calls people to follow him so that they become God’s love in their lives. Sending out a dozen, then 70, while he’s still teaching. Filling hundreds with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and sending them out to bear God’s love.

If your faith is only for your own good, your trust is in something completely different than Christ.

John’s part makes this all clear.

These four fishermen have no clue what’s coming when Jesus first calls them today at that lakeshore. They follow, but they know nothing of what this Teacher is going to ask of them.

But by this second miraculous catch of fish, they’ve seen God’s love in person, teaching with love, healing with love, welcoming all kinds of people into God’s heart who weren’t considered worthy. They’ve seen God’s love go to the cross and suffer and die. They’ve seen God’s love rise from the dead. Now Jesus can show what “fishing for people,” what this calling really is.

Three times after that breakfast Jesus calls Peter – and you and me and everyone else who follows – to this calling: If you love me, feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. Three times, the call is to care for the ones Jesus cares for. Jesus’ sheep who need to be tended. Fed. Protected. By you. By me.

That means what people are doing in these awful days to care for all God’s children is exactly what they are called to do. What you are called to do.

With all these terrible things happening to our neighbors, Jesus says: Care for them. Feed them. Protect them. Be my love for them. In person. That’s why I called you.

And all three of Bonhoeffer’s things are how we will answer that call. And all three are being done right now, in this city. Holding leaders accountable, tending to the direct needs of those crushed, finding ways to put a stick into the wheel itself. That’s the amazing thing. Tens of thousands gather Friday in peaceful protest downtown, thousands sing in the streets day after day, or stop abductions of neighbors, including one in our neighborhood Friday. Hundreds drive, feed, care for their neighbors in any way they can. Millions refuse to believe lies and instead believe what they see and know as wrong and evil and then find a way to be love.

That’s caring for Jesus’ sheep. Doing what you’re called to do. The whole point of your faith. A calling to be God’s love in this world, outside your own self interest and for the good of the world.

But don’t forget the bursting nets.

The call is to put the nets out into the world. God’s power filled them then and will fill them now. The call is to love God’s sheep. God’s love will empower that care and protection all around the world.

This is our time, our moment, to be Christ. Perhaps never before have we in our own lives seen so clearly and close by Christ’s sheep, God’s beloved, who need love, care, food and shelter, protection from the wolves.

Follow me, Jesus said, and care for all my beloved ones. And in your loving faith and trust, and mine, and countless more, God will break the rod of the oppressor as Isaiah promises. In your love, and mine, and countless more, God will fill the nets to overflowing.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

[1] Email to Minneapolis Area Synod (ELCA) rostered ministers, Wednesday, January 21, 2026.

You are called in baptism to be Christ’s light in the world, and you will be enough, with the help and grace of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, Lect. 1 A
Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Since the Day of Pentecost, the Church claims we share the same call and purpose as Jesus.

That we are Christ, Anointed, in our baptism, God’s Beloved, just like Jesus was. That Isaiah’s promises to and about the Servant of God today, which we easily connect to Jesus, also apply to you. To me.

It’s audacious to say. That God has given you as a covenant, you as the sign in the flesh of God’s promised love for all things. And that God has given you as a light to the nations. To help people who cannot see to see, to bring the light of God’s justice to the world.

From the beginning of this liturgy, when we blessed waters and gave thanks to God for this gift, until the end when we are sent out in peace to love and serve as Christ, this day claims this is your call, the life you are meant to be for the world.

But today it not only feels audacious to say this. It feels a little naïve.

We can barely breathe this week for anguish and despair, anger and sadness. For the second time in six years our neighborhood is a national focus point because of government sponsored murder and once again we feel helpless to change anything. Agents of our government shoot and kill just blocks from this building. Even that we have to say Renee Good was innocent, which she was, is jarring. Would it have been OK if she wasn’t? Is that now the world we live in? Evil and wickedness work freely in our world and threaten our neighbors, our friends. Us. It’s overwhelming.

The idea that you or I could be God’s covenant in the flesh, God’s light in such darkness, seems laughable. How can we make any difference for God in this? As we mourn Renee and all those who are being disappeared by ICE, as we mourn the absence of safety for nearly anyone these days, it’s hard to see what we can do.

And yet: in a few moments we’re going to affirm our baptism and the promises made there, however audacious or naïve they might be. We will do four important things that will show a way forward.

First, we will renounce evil.

Loudly, with passion, like you always do. We will claim in no uncertain terms the ground on which we stand. That we renounce all spiritual and satanic powers of evil, all evil powers of the world, even any evil within us that works against God’s love and will for the world.

You promise today to work against any evil, denounce and renounce it, and pray to have removed. You commit to never make accommodations with evil, or ignore it, or believe its lies and the stories it spins to deceive.  

What can you do in these days? Stand up against evil as a beloved child of God, and let the world know where you stand.

Next we will confess our faith.

Using the ancient baptismal creed, we will claim our trust that God’s grace has come into the world and still comes. That we believe in a creating God who lovingly made all things, and who came to this world in person to bring love to bear against all the sin and evil of the world, even breaking death, so all God’s children could know the love of God.

We will claim we believe God’s Spirit calls us together as a people of God, enlightens us with the light of God so we can see in the world’s darkness, and makes us God’s holy people. Even when we doubt we are.

What can you do in these days? Claim the love of God that made and saved the universe and belongs to you and to all people. And let the world know that love.

Then we’ll promise to live as Christ.

We will promise to be God’s covenant and light in the world, as Isaiah said. To stay in this community of faith and be fed in Word and Sacrament for our mission. To proclaim God’s Good News in all we say and all we do, and to serve the world as Jesus did, working for justice and peace wherever we can.

Today you will claim your baptismal mission to be God’s Light in the world for love and Good News and justice and peace, however you can be.

One of our four year olds at Mount Olive – if you’re not asking these questions, our children are – one of our four year olds stopped me after church a couple weeks ago and said, “I want to know how Jesus is the light of the world.” And I told him that whenever he was kind and loving to someone, that showed them God’s love. It was like a light in a dark place. And that when Jesus has him doing that, and the person who was standing with us doing that, and me doing that, light spreads in the world.

How is Jesus the light of the world in this terrible time? When you are. It’s that simple.

And last we will pray for the Holy Spirit.

For the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God, the Spirit of joy in God’s presence.

You will ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and understanding when all you know right now is confusion and fear. To give you counsel, advice, when you don’t know what steps you can take, and the strength to do what you are called to do. To give you joy when despair fills your heart.

God promises to give you all this. How can you live in these days? Go into your baptismal mission with the Holy Spirit giving you all you need to be who you are called to be.

There is no easy answer for how things will get better.

But we all will do what we can as Anointed Ones, some going to protests and vigils, some working on the politics, some organizing. Some doing the many things our Neighborhood Ministry Coordinator Jim suggested in an email last week, like helping people get their groceries, or watching out for neighbors. All this is good.

And it all starts with your baptism. You are anointed as Christ for the world. Not to fix everything. But to be God’s covenant promise that others can see, as Isaiah said, God’s light that pierces the darkness.

And that’s enough. Nothing more is asked of you than you bring whatever light you can shine today. Whatever kindness or love you can bring today, as Christ in the world.

That’s how we will live in these days. And God’s light will shine.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

God’s people have often lived in deep darkness, in the time of Herod, so our hope is their promise: God’s light still shines, and now in and through us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Epiphany of Our Lord
Texts: Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“In the time of King Herod.” That’s all Matthew needs to say.

And now all Matthew’s readers know this story of the visit of eastern strangers to the Christ child won’t end well. It happened in the time of a tyrannical, paranoid despot who saw threats everywhere, and ruled by violence and fear.

There is a little hope in the story. The magi are warned to take another road home. Joseph is warned to flee to Egypt with his family. The Magi are safe. The Child is safe.

But. This is the time of King Herod. Vulnerable, weak, powerless people are never safe. And the town of Bethlehem weeps at the death of their children, mothers and fathers inconsolable.

Darkness shall cover the earth, in our lives, Isaiah says, and thick darkness the peoples. It’s reality.

Nothing Isaiah says is news to us.

Our ancestors in faith, from the Hebrew people to the early Church lived under various Herods, under unjust governments, threatened by people who abused power and worshipped violence.

Our nation is defined by this. Today’s threats to immigrants and people of other faiths, disdain for those who speak truth about what is happening, organized attempts to disenfranchise, outright and open attacks of hate on people who are different, are deeply embedded in our history. Ask the Cherokee and Choctaw nations whether King Herod can be trusted. The president on our twenty dollar bill forcibly removed nearly 60,000 Native Americans from their homes, forcing 13,000 Cherokee and 17,000 Choctaw to march from the east coast to west of the Mississippi, and thousands died on those Trails of Tears.

Or ask our Black siblings in our country who in our history always have had to keep an eye on King Herod, from slavery to lynching to Jim Crow to redlining to today’s disenfranchisement.

Darkness will cover the earth, Isaiah warns, and thick darkness the peoples. Expect this, Scriptures say.

And yet Isaiah also declares a wonder: Arise, shine, for your light has come!

God enters this thick darkness and brings light through this Christ to enlighten all peoples. This is our hope tonight. But this is critical: remember how God’s light shines. It shines in darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it, John says. But it’s still darkness where the Light shines.

Jesus escaped Herod, but the children of his village did not. King Herod lived at least a few more years after these events. Christ’s coming didn’t stop him.

But Isaiah says: lift up your eyes and look around. God’s light shines, even in the darkness, even if it looks weak. Even if this child escaped King Herod only to run into the power of Rome and a Roman cross. Even if this child fled Israel for Egypt only to be turned over by his own people for death. Even so, we declare that this Christ, this light, still shines. Even in persistent darkness.

That paradox is our hope.

God chooses the way of the weak to come to us, Paul has said, and shames the way of power. God’s true power is revealed in that cross, in that vulnerable refugee family fleeing Herod. God’s light is seen not as a day of sunshine but as a lone candle shining in a vast place of darkness.

But that one light is enough to see by. When you’re walking on a path in the dark with a candle, there’s a lot you can’t see. But you can see the two steps in front of you, and you can take those steps. And if someone joins you with their candle, there’s a little more light, and more wisdom about which steps to take. And if you are joined by more and more and more, the darkness has no chance of stopping you.

This is the way God is bringing light to overcome the darkness of this world. And from the beginning of his life, this is the only way Jesus operates, under constant threat of the Herods, by being light. And when Jesus is finally killed, God stuns death by breaking free of its hold. God’s light cannot be extinguished by darkness, not even by death.

And so Isaiah says, “See and be radiant.”

See God’s light in the darkness. And be radiant. Shine yourself.

You are the light of the world, Jesus said. It is who you are. So you leave here and when you see the darkness, you don’t pretend it isn’t real, or despair that there’s no light from God. You don’t have to fear the time of King Herod.

You leave here as light. Maybe tiny, weak, trembling, but that’s the way God’s light works. Even a tiny candle can be seen from a long distance in the dark. You are a light someone else might see, and be drawn to. Like those strangers from the east, someone might come to you and say, “We have seen this light from a distance, and have come.” To find God. To find hope.

And imagine what others could see when you and I join our lights, when we all join all our little lights together. We may not see the end of darkness in our days. But we witness by our light that it cannot overcome God’s light, its days are numbered.

Lift up your eyes and look around: it’s already happening.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen