22.01.2026
Saint Francis
Rev Christian Jennert
Second Sunday after Epiphany (Year A)
January 18, 2026
Isaiah 49:1-7 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 John 1:29-42
It does not take much effort to know that the world is fragile.
This past week has confronted us with scenes of grief and unrest close to home and far away. In Minneapolis, the death of Renee Goode during a federal law enforcement operation continues to shake communities in Minnesota (where roughly one in four residents identifies as Lutheran!) and beyond. Across the globe, people in places like Greenland and Denmark have taken to the streets to assert their dignity and self-determination, while in other nations civilians continue to suffer amid repression, violence, and fear. The details differ, but the ache beneath them is the same: human lives caught in forces larger than themselves.
Even when the headlines change, the questions do not.
What are we to say?
What are we to do?
For people of faith, looking away is not an option. Silence, when it turns into indifference, is not neutrality -- it is abandonment. Our baptismal calling places us squarely in the world God loves, not above it or removed from it. As Isaiah proclaims, God's servant is given, "... as a light to the nations that God's salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Light does not exist for itself. Light is meant to shine. Yet shining light does not mean having all the answers.
We are not call to fix everything that is broken. That would be an impossible burden. What we are called to do is to stay present -- to engage, to care, to speak truthfully, and to refuse the temptation to turn away when the world becomes uncomfortable or painful. Faith is not escape. Faith is engagement.
Swiss theologian Karl Barth once reminded the church that Christians are always citizens of two realms at once: citizens of God's reign in Christ and citizens of the world as it is. Holding those two together is not easy, but it is faithful. The one who became flesh and lived among us did not remain distant from human suffering -- and neither can we.
When Jesus begins his public ministry, the very first question he asks is disarmingly simple: "What are you looking for?" It is not a test, It is an invitation.
The disciples respond with a question of their own: "Rabbi, where are you staying?" In other words: Where do you live? Where can you be found? Jesus answers, "Come and see."
That phrase sits at the heart of Epiphany. Come and see -- not just with your eyes, but with your life. Come and see where God chooses to dwell.
Church, at its best, is one place where that invitation is honored. It is a place of rest and renewal, where Scripture is opened and bread is broken, where familiar hymns and new songs carry us when words fail. It is a place of beloved community, where we are known and cared for. But the church is also something more.
It is a place of moral reflection and faithful wrestling -- a place where we dare to ask hard questions without rushing to easy answers. A place where we learn to see the world through God's eyes, not our own fears or personal preferences. Jesus himself lived this way, constantly drawing people into conversation, challenge, and transformation. We follow not because we already know the way, but because we trust the One who does.
In John's gospel for today, the language of dwelling runs deep. On Christmas Day, we heard that the Word became flesh and pitched a tent among us. When the disciples ask where Jesus stays they are being drawn into something far more profound than a residential address. They are being invited into a new way of life.
And over time, the Gospel reveals something astonishing: Jesus is not merely someone who has a home -- Jesus is the home. The dwelling place of God is no longer confined to stone and sanctuary. In Christ, God has chosen to make a home among mortals.
Paul echoes this in the letter to the Corinthians, reminding a struggling church that they are called into fellowship with Christ and sustained by God's faithfulness -- not by their own perfection or strength. God makes a home with imperfect people, and that is very good news. Our faith, no matter how strong or feeble, shapes how we see the world. It teaches us to cling to hope when despair feels easier. It send us into places of darkness carrying light we do not generate ourselves.
This weekend we remember the witness of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr, who understood deeply that faith must take flesh in public life. His dream of equality and equity for all races was not rooted in naive optimism, but in a convectin that God's justice and mercy demand embodiment. But history also reminds us that transformation is rarely carried by famous names alone. Have you heard of Claudette Colvin?
Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin was a fifteen-year-old Black girl in Montgomery, Alabama, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. She was arrested, jailed, and largely forgotten -- deemed too young, too outspoken, too inconvenient to become the public face of the movement. Yet Claudette's courage mattered. Her case helped lay the legal groundwork for dismantling bus segregation.
It is often the less-known, the unnamed, the quietly faithful who change the world in ways both small and enduring.
The work of justice does not rest only on the shoulders of charismatic leaders of history's heroes. The Spirit is given to each of us. Christ's light shines through ordinary lives, faithful choices, and acts of courage that may never make headlines -- but still matter deeply in God's reign.
So I return to Jesus' question: What are you looking for?
If you are looking for certainty, you may be disappointed.
If you are looking for control, you will not find it here.
But if you are looking for meaning, for belonging, for a place to stand when the world feels unsteady -- Jesus says, Come and see.
Jesus chooses to dwell with us. And in doing so, he sends us to make homes of light and grace, of truth and love, wherever we are. On this Second Sunday after Epiphany and on this MLK Day weekend, we remember those who suffer, those who mourn, and those who long for healing -- in their bodies and among peoples, nations, and races -- trusting that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and light of the world, is even now making all things new.
