Download Sermon TextJanuary 25 2026, The Urgency of Clarity
The Urgency of Clarity
The Urgency of Clarity
Homily by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn for St. John’s Episcopal Church
Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 25, 2026: Matthew 4:12-23
Two weeks ago, January 11, is the last time I preached. It was four days after the murder of Renee Good and my first words to you were, “what a week.” That I am coming to you this morning following a week even more intense than that one is saying something. The highs are getting higher and the lows are getting lower. Last night, St. John’s had a vigil at 7pm. We started outside, with our lit candles, along with so many others all over the metro and indeed all over the nation, to deeply grieve the killing of Alex Pretti a few miles from here in Minneapolis. Can you imagine what we looked like from the air? Tiny pinpricks of light in the darkness, a glow of warmth in a dark cold night. Then we came inside and we sang, we grieved, we held each other in love in the presence of God. We were nourished with scripture and other wisdom. And this morning we are doing it again. And next Sunday we will do it again, and then again, on and on, world without end, just as we have been doing for two thousand years. We are gathering in the good times and the bad times, the hopeful times and the despairing times, around a central theme that does not change. The theme is that love is the most powerful force in the world, and God’s mission is to heal the world with it. Our job is to find a hundred million billion ways to creatively, meaningfully, join that mission.
In times like this it can feel like love is not the most powerful force in the world. The power of hatred, violence, lying and delusion is very strong, it is true. As I was telling the group who gathered last night, this week my emotions have run the gamut. I was so exceedingly encouraged by what I experienced with hundreds of clergy from all over the nation who gathered Thursday and Friday to learn, pray, share wisdom, and be in solidarity with ground zero here in Minneapolis. Then to march with 50,000 Minnesota neighbors on Friday was just a beautiful experience. So much kindness in an ocean of humanity. I had seen and heard so much beautiful evidence of how people are organizing, how people are helping, in a gazillion creative ways, standing up to protect their neighbors. And so when I heard that Alex Pretti had been killed, and when I had watched the videos recording it, I felt so crushed. I told everyone last night that it felt like riding the waves of a terrible ocean storm – from crazy heights to crushing depths, the danger of drowning very real.
So it seems we have a new normal, right now, and it is not one any of us would have picked. The storm is upon us. But in the midst of that storm, the soaring highs and the despairing lows, we have a lifeline and a heartbeat. We have this community. We are not primarily a social club or a self-help project or even a very nice social justice nonprofit. We are gathered around the ancient, living truth of the presence of God in Christ, and the Holy Spirit, that untamed wind who inspires and comforts and guides, and the Creator, Mother / Father God, who called this world good, so very good.
In today’s gospel reading Jesus begins his public ministry. In light of current events I am noticing different details than I have previously. Jesus hears that his cousin John the Baptist, our church’s namesake, has been arrested. I notice that because so many are being arrested or detained nowadays. So Jesus leaves his hometown of Nazareth, and settles across the Sea of Galilee, and begins preaching and teaching and healing, proclaiming that in a world of mad tyrants, the kingdom of God has come very near and indeed is among us. Then he calls his first disciples. They leave everything to follow him.
Our Bishop Craig Loya said this week that he saw in this story an urgency, but it was not the urgency of anxiety or panic.[1] It was the urgency of clarity. Jesus was offering something that their souls recognized and needed, and they did not hesitate to say yes and make learning Jesus’ way the center of their lives. In our world today, just as in the world that existed in the time of Jesus, everything feels and is urgent. The need to act is urgent. Cruelty and violence are everywhere. But beloved ones, we too can act, not from the urgency of fear or anger or anxiety, but from the urgency of clarity. Let what is unimportant drop away. Let old petty resentments that have kept you up at night just melt. Let us together follow Jesus’ Way of Love. He is still here. In fact Jesus said, whatever you have done to the least of these—the hungry, the naked, those in prison, the sick—you have done to me. Jesus is always most present where the pain in the world is. He is in the people we visit to bring groceries and in the immigrants who are hounded, harassed, kidnapped and sent away.
Jesus is present in this community we literally call the Body of Christ. Jesus is present at the Eucharist Table that he sets each week and calls us to the feast. In fact Jesus is present in the deep communion we have in the wider body of Christ. Pastor Alika Galloway, who preached here last week, texted me yesterday and asked me to tell you all that she and her community at Liberty Community Church are with us as we grieve. Jesus is in our friendship with Liberty and Casa Maria, First Nations Kitchen and our friends in Haiti too.
So hold on, my friends. We are not going anywhere. Let us act with the urgency of clarity, not of anxiety, just as the first disciples did when they encountered the real thing in Jesus. Let us live one day at a time, for that is all any of us have anyway. Let us pray, and share, and hope, and love one another, through the highs and the lows. We have one job, and it is to love God, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The kin-dom of God has come very near to us, in fact it is here, it is right here.
Hold on, hold on, my dear ones, here comes the dawn. Amen.
[1] Bishop Craig Loya, “Follow Me,” January 24, 2026, https://episcopalmn.org/blog/bishop/follow-me
