Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship for this 6th Sunday after the Epiphany, which will land on February 16, 2025!
The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use it to follow along with the service, or just utilize the words that will appear on your screen. The sermon manuscript is also included on this screen below the worship video.
For an enhanced worship experience online, you are invited to have a candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you’re comfortable, by having something small to eat and drink prepared. More instructions will be given at the appropriate time.
May God’s unending love and grace be with you, this day and always!
God of all creation, by the power of your Spirit, may your Word be heard in this place, that we might be reminded of your promises and blessing, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
So with the very dramatic and mostly disheartening political landscape currently in North America, I thought we should talk about some other really important issues… like you know, Marvel movies. I admit, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about the MCU specifically, and I’m sure all of you have been longing for more comic book news, but honestly the main Marvel movie genre, i.e. Disney’s stuff not Sony’s, didn’t really release anything lately that was worth talking about.
Until… it’s been a long time coming as it was in the works since like 2021. But with delay after delay after pandemic after strike, the fourth Captain America movie was finally released this past Friday. And again, being the super nerd fan that I am, I made sure to watch it on Thursday.
How could I not? Like I said this particular installment was in the works for like 4 years almost, and not to mention that it’s been like a year and a half since any really official MCU movie came out, and maybe like 3 years since an actually good official MCU movie came out (if you know, you know), so I HAD to watch this movie as soon as I could. I mean the trailers looked pretty good to me, and it was the first kind of “down to earth relatable” movie from Marvel in a while.
So what did I think? Well, from 1 to 10… I’d give it a solid “meh”.
Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. And as the super fan that I am, that is hard to admit. I should have known though, as the early reviews were already not that great, I found myself not always agreeing with them in the past. It’s just that… this time I do. While it was a big budget movie, it didn’t feel like it. To me, this was the movie that was supposed to bring back the MCU of old before they spread themselves out too thin with those less than stellar movies and series that I was talking about, but it totally wasn’t. I was left still wanting more.
It wasn’t enough. It didn’t do what it was supposed to. It was just… not good.
Now, I realise that while I and many of the reviewers out there might have this sentiment toward the movie, not everyone will share it. Some would say that it was actually worse, but then there will also be a certain group of people that will go to great lengths to talk about how great this movie is, how no other movie was better, how people are saying that the movie was the greatest and how anyone who says different is just a fake news anti-marvel hater… and so forth.
Well, I’ll have them know that I’ve been a fan of the MCU since like maybe it’s 4th or 5th movie and I’ve been watching like 90% of their movies on opening day or before since almost around then, so really you can’t find a much bigger fan than me… if you don’t look that hard past maybe these church walls, that is. Any way, the point is that I think I know what I’m talking about. And that’s what makes it so hard to say.
But thing is, we can all have our opinions, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to objectively right. Right to us, of course, but not universally. Sometimes movies are really good. Sometimes they’re not. And sometimes really good movies have their bad points that could have been different to make that movie even better. And vice versa, a really bad movie can have some good moments. And sometimes really good movie producers like Marvel and Disney can have a history of making good or even great movies, but then they miss the mark a couple times and a couple more times and then well, nothing is all that good anymore. But that doesn’t mean they’re bad. It just means that their best might be behind them.
Now you might be wondering, what does this enthralling conversation about the MCU have to do with today, the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C? Well, believe it or not, this is actually my sixth 6th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C at Grace Lutheran Church, so you’d think I’d know this text really well. But this time around, something new kind of popped out at me. I heard a sermon by a Rev. Marquis Hunt of Little Rock, Arkansas, on these very texts for this very day. His sermon focussed on the seasons as mentioned in the Psalm. I know, we never talk about the Psalm and we really aren’t going to now, but there is a quick “blink and you’ll miss it” line that says God’s teachings “are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season.”
Due season.
And so I was thinking, with Pastor Marquis’ help, how the different seasons of the world affect our lives. Like right now for instance, we’re in the thick of winter, just passed our annual snowfall, and many of us might spend a bit more time worrying about proper footwear and when it would be a good time to wash the road salt off our cars. And like that, the different seasons of our lives are also worth noting as well. Like the seasons of adolescence to early adulthood to full blown adulthood and everything in between.
And just like the seasons that might come for tv series or movie franchises, sometimes good comes, sometimes bad. Sometimes life is great, sometimes it’s difficult. Sometimes we are blessed, and sometimes we are given woes.
But none of us are ever 100% always on the polar ends. None of us, ever, will always be right about or the best at everything. None of us will always be blessed or always be not. None of us.
This is what Jesus was talking about in our gospel reading for today. In Luke’s Sermon on the Plain as it’s called, he doesn’t just rehash the Beatitudes we find in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, but he adds this list of “woes” after it, to serve as sort of a warning that things aren’t always going to go your way, even when they are going your way.
Rather, we have seasons. Times of good and then bad. Stages in which we produce good fruit and others in which we wait. And through all this up and down, God is there with us as the stable rock and foundation to which we can cling and trust.
See the first and second readings for today talk about that trust, and warn us that when we trust in the things that are fleeting and ever changing, then we will inevitably be left disappointed. When we give too much clout to the promises of the world, we’ll eventually find ourselves wanting. When we look to ourselves and our own vices for strength and redemption, then we’ll lose sight of who we really are as God’s people, who are, by God’s grace, forgiven and saved into the righteousness and community of the Spirit.
But I get it, sometimes the world gives us the promise of a better life. Sometimes we’re told that following a certain path or making a certain decision will take away all our problems. Sometimes we believe in something or someone or a whole movie franchise so much that we fail to recognise how even they could have any faults whatsoever.
In those times, Jesus says woe. Woe to you who trust in the world. Woe to you who put God aside for your own desires. Woe to you who would equate God’s gospel of love and mercy with anything but God’s divine, merciful, and eternally true Word.
But blessed are you who trust in God even when times are tough. Blessed are you who recognise that God won’t leave you when things are difficult. Blessed are you when not a single thing is going your way, but you see God present with you regardless. God with you, holding your hand, and leading you to peace.
This isn’t to say that our problems will go away and stay away forever. This doesn’t mean that we will never feel hungry or sad or alone again. I’m not even saying that Marvel won’t put out another bad movie as much as I hope that isn’t the case.
But I’m saying that in our problems, God is with us and promises us that we’ll eventually make our way out of them. In our hunger, sorrow, and loneliness God doesn’t leave us but reveals to us God’s ways of faith and justice. Throughout our lives, God remains trustworthy and true, promising us peace and blessing, and shows us a steadfast love that knows no end.
In this season after the Epiphany, may we continually see and recognise God in our lives, warning us when we’re too comfortable and blessing us when we’re not, that we might always trust in God’s truth of forgiveness, God’s promise of salvation, and God’s character of love. Thanks be to God. Amen.