Hi everyone,

Welcome to worship for this 4th Sunday after the Epiphany, landing on February 1st, 2026!

The bulletin for this service can be found here. In it, you will find the order and words of worship and the full sermon. You can use the bulletin to follow along with the service, but the words that you need to know will also appear on your screen, and the sermon is also included on this page below the video.

If you’d like to enhance your online worship experience, you are invited to have a lit candle in your space for the duration of the service, and it can be extinguished near the end when the altar candles are extinguished after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you are comfortable, by having something small to eat and drink ready for the appropriate time. Further instruction will be given then.

May God’s blessing of love and peace be upon you, this day and always!

Holy God, your blessings are abundant and reach every person.  Fill us with your Spirit that we might hear you speaking, see you working, and lean on your everlasting and eternal wisdom and love, through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

As you may or may not know, I love movies.  I love being able to unplug for a little bit and get lost in the story, the cinematography, and the overall production of a well put together film.  I’m not a super hardcore cinephile or whatever they call those movie buffs, but I can be a little more critical than your average movie-goer, especially when the movie is based on something that I’m really familiar with, like the bible, comic books, or a TV show from my childhood.  Because it seems like more often than not, when such movies come out, they tend to lean heavily on their “artistic license” and totally butcher their source material.  So often I go to these movies with my back somewhat raised and I’ll judge it by a higher standard than I would with a totally original movie based on a totally original idea. 

For example, there is a new live-action He-Man movie, called Masters of the Universe, set to release later on this year.  I’m pretty sure you’re all super familiar with He-Man in general, but just in case, let me get you up to speed real quick.  It is basically a toy-line from the 80s that turned into a Saturday morning cartoon/commercial.  It takes place on this far-off planet called Eternia, where its main character, Prince Adam, has fabulous powers revealed to him the day he held aloft his magic sword that he has for some strange reason, and instinctively and inexplicably said, “By the power of Grayskull!”  That somehow turned him into He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe, which really just means above-average human strength in an insanely muscle clad body.  He-Man and his equally impossibly muscular-but-not-as-strong friends defend the planet from the evil forces of Skeletor, the main villain of the series, who is able to function completely fine despite having only a skull for a head.  I know, it’s all really cool stuff, so you can see why I’m such a fan.

But because I’m such a fan, and for reasons I already mentioned, when they announced the movie, I kept my expectations low and my critical eyes of criticism up.  I was ready to tear this movie apart, as I was pretty sure it’ll be awful.  But then, the trailer dropped a week and a bit ago, and I have to say, so far it looks not bad, not bad.  I was pleasantly surprised with how closely they are honouring the original with the costumes and overall look and feel.  So maybe this movie will be ok after all… except for one small thing.  See, the trailer starts with Adam on Earth, living as a regular human. 

It also shows that he makes it back to Eternia and it looks like that is where most of the movie takes place, but why have him on Earth at all to begin with?  And I know, the true fans out there would know that Earth does play a very minor role in the original, no need to blast me in the comments.  I am fully aware that Adam’s mom is from Earth, but that is a pretty obscure fact and Earth is barely ever mentioned.  So would they now?

I guess it’s to make the movie more relatable?  At least that’s what a lot of people online say.  But what’s not relatable about an alien planet with magic swords, mysterious creatures and powers, and close to 0% body fat ratios?  That’s like my every day life.

Really though, I don’t like it but it makes sense.  If it’s not relatable, then people can’t relate to it.  They will lose interest regardless of how interesting it could be.  You can make the greatest movie ever made, but that means nothing if no one pays attention to it, watches it, or receives what it has to offer.

Sounds kind of like the bible now, doesn’t it?

I mean, this book that we read out of at least once a week is pretty old.  It comes from a far-off place.  And it talks about a culture that is very, very different from our own.  How can it be expected of us to relate to it in any way whatsoever?

Take the text that we get for today, for example.  It’s a very well-known portion from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, called the Beatitudes.  Why they were so named or if we should still refer to them as that isn’t as important, I think, as what these verses are saying to us.  Because as they are, what they’re saying doesn’t really seem all that relatable to our current worldview.  And to be honest, I can’t see them being relatable in any worldview of any time and/or place and/or culture.

What I mean is, Jesus here is lifting up traits that no one is really trying out for.  Jesus honours these personality defects that are more of a woe than anything else.  Jesus says “blessed are” these types of people that honestly none of us are actually hoping to become, even if we say we are.

If anything, we do everything we can to not be these things, be it for our own protection, our own image, our own integrity, perhaps.  I mean in all our programming and teaching and ministry in our churches, don’t we try to get people to be stronger, bolder, and more enriched in their faith and spirit?  Don’t we fight those who fight us, protest against those we disagree with, and persecute anyone who doesn’t fit our image of what we think God calls us to be?  And if we don’t do all this, don’t we admire and look up to those who do?

Now I’m not saying that it’s bad to do these things or that we shouldn’t do them, but I’m saying that what Jesus declares as blessed are not at all these things.  Jesus’ list, at its very core, is foreign to us, different from what we’re used to, and unrelatable to say the least.

So what does this mean?  That we aren’t blessed?  That we’re woe’d?  That God doesn’t love us as much because we’re not lost, we’re not weak, we’re not… for the lack of a better term… unsaved?

Well, of course not.  We know that’s not at all true.  But what I think is going on here is that Jesus is revealing to his disciples, the crowd within earshot, and to us, how those that we might assume aren’t included in God’s plan actually are included.  The point of this portion of his sermon is to show how those who we think don’t belong actually belong.  I think we’re being taught that those we feel aren’t deserving of blessing are actually blessed anyway.  Mind you, not any more than we are blessed, the text doesn’t say that, but just as we are blessed when others might not think we deserve it either.

Again, this isn’t to say that we should stop our learning, our proclaiming, or our justice-seeking.  But it is to say that God’s love for us isn’t dependant on these things.  God’s presence among us isn’t evoked by any of that.  God’s blessing isn’t something that we can choose for ourselves or earn or ever deserve.  It might not even seem relatable to us.

But we get it anyway.

We are blessed by God’s choice out of the richness of God’s character.  We belong because of God’s unending welcome that includes us all in community and fellowship.  We are saved by God’s care and compassion that covers each and every one of us, not because we have a certain level of education or understanding, not because we have accomplished, done, and said all the right things, not because we force ourselves into some box and mold that really isn’t us, but because God is God: full of grace, mercy, and love.

Love for you.  Love for me.  Love for all people wherever or however they may find themselves.

So again, I’m not saying that we should stop doing what we’re doing or start doing what we’re not.  I’m not saying that we aren’t good people and we need to be better.  I’m not even saying that this He-Man movie will be the greatest release to ever be released, because it probably won’t be.

But what I’m saying is that we needn’t judge others or ourselves based on who we are or our merit.  We needn’t be disappointed in ourselves or others for what we’ve done or left undone.  We needn’t ever  be worried about or question our position in God’s family and love.

Because, my friends, we are blessed.
When we are strong or when we are weak.
When we are knowledgeable or when we are ignorant.
When we are in plenty or when we are in want.
When we are in control or when we’ve totally lost it.
When we are all that we are and when we aren’t quite.
When we totally get it, and when we can’t at all relate.
When we are this or that and anything in between.
We are blessed. 

Thanks be to God.  Amen.