Matthew 3:1-17
1.
It’s the last line in today’s reading, the very last one, that seizes my attention this morning and almost seems to drag me into this scene, into this life, into this particular gospel. After all his wandering, after all his visioning, after all the soaking in of his own wild and marvelous baptism in the Jordan: “Jesus was led even further into the desert…” Jesus was led even further into the desert. By the Spirit.
I watch the news out of Minneapolis this week, the menacing confrontation of government vigilantes with immigrants and their advocates. And aren’t we all being drawn, further into the desert now? And the President’s talking about invoking the Insurrection Act. In Minnesota. A military move against activists like you and me. And aren’t we all being drawn, further in the desert now? I get a notification on my own phone, as so many of you did on Friday, that ICE agents are showing up here on the Seacoast now, in unmarked cars in shopping center lots. I’m asked to pay attention, take videos, report what I see. And aren’t we all being drawn, further, further into the desert now? A geography of unknowing. A landscape of unnerving vulnerability.
But in our tradition and (let’s be honest) so many other indigenous traditions, also a place of repentance and renewal, of shedding worn-out habits and grounding ourselves in wisdom, of testing one another and risking new patterns of communal care and solidarity. The desert is in so many ways God’s greatest sanctuary. Where frightened souls learn to trust a Higher Power. Where fleeing people become a covenant community. So Jesus was led even further into the desert. By the Spirit.
You’ll remember, of course, that the Hebrews met Yahweh in the desert. This is the foundational biblical story and found in the book of Exodus. Liberated from Pharaoh’s pyramid economy, Pharaoh’s grinding, inhuman economy. Set free from their oppression for new life in new places.. Chased out when they too had been accused of insurrection.
But liberation, they discover, isn’t transactional, nor is it in any way quick. There’s a desert out there, a desert to be faced, to be embraced, to be welcomed in awe and wonder; a desert in which the Hebrews will be tested and tempted and thrilled and re-tooled for the projects and promise ahead. Yawheh in the desert!
The rabbis of old liked to say that it might have taken just a few days to get the people out of Egypt; but it took all of forty years to get Egypt out of the people. The desert. Where old habits are shed, and old expectations purged, and new practices implemented, new joys embraced, new commitments made. A fleeing people becomes, in time, a covenant community. It took just a few days to get the people out of Egypt; but it took all of forty years to get Egypt out of the people. Yes, a geography of unknowing. Yes, a landscape of vulnerability. But a sacred space. A sanctuary space. A space where the Spirit does her most impressive and consequential work. As do we.
2.
So we can talk a bit about our own desert moment: this unnerving moment in American life, and global society in general. And how we might find in all this something beyond despair, something like holy opportunity and radical renewal, and a spiritual challenge that aims to remake us. Maybe that’s our calling in moments like this one: to resist catastrophizing the news and remain open and available to grace and transformation.
But it’s worth noting first how Jesus—at the very dawn of his adult life, his mature ministry—how Jesus is moved to align his spirit, his life, his purpose with that same Hebrew journey out of Egypt, that same communal experience of un-learning and re-imagining and embracing anew God’s ways of communal care and mutual liberation. Again, we have to see that Jesus is not out to establish a new and better religion, not at all. He is out to fully and radically live into the traditions and lessons and practices and insights of his people’s faith. Yahweh in the desert. And that means going out from Egypt, accepting the call to repentance and unlearning and receptivity in strange and godly places. Yahweh in the desert.
Jesus knows that he’s loved. And loved a lot and forever. And Jesus’s seen the Dove of Peace hovering over him. And claiming him as God’s own. Jesus has faced the fears that may have scared him from loving and caring. And he has cast off the cords of shame, the tangled angst that may have clung too tightly to his dear and beloved soul. What a moment out there in the river! That voice! “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests!” And still he goes even deeper into the desert, further into the unknown, deeper into the wild places of his tradition and heart. Because that’s what we do. Liberation isn’t transactional. It tests and transforms us, and whole communities are reborn. If we go. Further into the desert.
And, of course, what happens to Jesus in the wilderness, in the desert, is much like what happens to the Hebrews in their own forty-year sojourn. He is indeed tested. He is surely and even sorely tempted. And it’s out there—in the desert—that he finds his people’s deepest truth, his people’s theological tradition, the radical edge that says no to violence and yes to peace, that says no to magic and yes to compassion, that says no to patriarchy and power trips and yes to covenant and collaboration. It’s out there in the desert that Jesus owns his tradition, his faith and what it requires of him. Love has bathed his imagination in wonder. The river has flooded his shame with grace. The desert has tested his faith and prepared him for a particular kind of ministry. He’s ready to speak about repentance and renewal. He’s ready to risk new patterns of communal care and mutual liberation.
3.
In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. came out against the Vietnam War in a hugely important speech in New York called “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” The speech, by the way, was delivered at the Riverside Church which holds dual membership in the American Baptist tradition and our own United Church of Christ.
In that seminal moment, Doctor King spoke to a spiritual crisis that seems terribly familiar and deeply related to our own moment in time.
“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” This is our chance, my friends. And it’s a holy opportunity, a sacred obligation and our desert moment. To reject together the giant triplets King speaks of: racism, materialism and militarism. To reject together White Christian Nationalism as an American ideal, or even an American tradition, and certainly as an American future. To wrestle together with the ways these triplets infect our institutions, our faith, our fears, even sometimes our habits and dreams. And to choose instead Yahweh’s way: the way of communal care, human rights, economic equity, and mutual liberation.
What if this is our calling? To wrestle in this desert with temptation. To embrace in this desert God’s promise of sufficiency and community and grace. To choose in this desert the Hebrew ways of bold economic sharing, and brave neighborly love, and sweet hospitality for the immigrant and stranger. What if this is our calling in 2026? As communities of faith? As people of faith? As a church right here in New Hampshire? Isn’t it true that the joy of our baptismal identity, the great gift of the baptismal promise—is that we can face the past with courage, and meet the present with irrepressible creativity and grace? Like Jesus in the Jordan. Beloved!
4.
And so. Refusing to give in to the bluster of bullies in riot gear. Rejecting the logic of violence and intimidation from Washington. Seizing instead the transformational partnership of God in our lives and the love that frees us from fear. Let us be brave and daring and open to new life in the desert.
And this means a couple of things, at least.
It means, for starters, a commitment to community life, to covenant partnership and congregational spirit. To be a Christian in this moment is to be a Christian in community, a Christian in covenant with other Christians. “A miracle,” wrote Frederich Buechner, “is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.” And that’s the Christian truth. “A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.” This year, more than ever, you are needed in the circle here, in the flow of Sunday worship here, in the mix of mission and action and covenant life here. We resist violence in thoughtful and persevering friendship. We resist racism and bigotry in celebrating differences and working through conflict and strategizing for social change—together.
You can be a wonderful person and a delightful soul on your own. This is undoubtedly true. But you are a Christian in communion with other Christians. And if we are serious about birthing a new community, a new neighborhood; if we are serious about a revolution of values in this country—it’s going to take communities of courage, and circles of change, and relationships devoted to telling the truth and building trust and sacrificing together to get it done.
And this too. This is a time for deep prayer and spiritual practice. Revolutions that matter are grounded in this. In grace and hope and prayer. If you have a daily prayer practice, or a meditation practice, or a journaling practice or a gratitude practice or a spiritual practice of any kind that feeds your soul—stick with it. Double down on it. And if you don’t, reach out to a friend who does or even a pastor like me, and let’s get you started. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Mother Theresa once said: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” But pray you will, practice you must—and the vitality of our community, the effectiveness of our mission, the revolution of values that drives us now depends on it.
There’s a risk in reading the Gospel stories that we focus too exclusively on one life, even Jesus’ extraordinary life, and miss the communal vision of his practice and his faith. But Jesus was always and forever a Jew. And he knew—in his bones—that the love he experienced in the universe could never be limited or even scaled down to his life alone. The love Jesus experienced—in the breaking of bread, in the sweaty crowds of the city, and yes, in the Jordan River that day—delighted more than anything else in human compassion, in justice among peoples, in hospitality where doors opened and strangers became friends. The love of God inspires our love for one another.
So the desert awaits, my friends. New life beckons, my friends. Let’s see what we may yet become. When love sets us free.
Amen and Ashe.
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend, January 18, 2026
Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend, January 18, 2026
1.
It’s the last line in today’s reading, the very last one, that seizes my attention this morning and almost seems to drag me into this scene, into this life, into this particular gospel. After all his wandering, after all his visioning, after all the soaking in of his own wild and marvelous baptism in the Jordan: “Jesus was led even further into the desert…” Jesus was led even further into the desert. By the Spirit.
I watch the news out of Minneapolis this week, the menacing confrontation of government vigilantes with immigrants and their advocates. And aren’t we all being drawn, further into the desert now? And the President’s talking about invoking the Insurrection Act. In Minnesota. A military move against activists like you and me. And aren’t we all being drawn, further in the desert now? I get a notification on my own phone, as so many of you did on Friday, that ICE agents are showing up here on the Seacoast now, in unmarked cars in shopping center lots. I’m asked to pay attention, take videos, report what I see. And aren’t we all being drawn, further, further into the desert now? A geography of unknowing. A landscape of unnerving vulnerability.
You’ll remember, of course, that the Hebrews met Yahweh in the desert. This is the foundational biblical story and found in the book of Exodus. Liberated from Pharaoh’s pyramid economy, Pharaoh’s grinding, inhuman economy. Set free from their oppression for new life in new places.. Chased out when they too had been accused of insurrection.
But liberation, they discover, isn’t transactional, nor is it in any way quick. There’s a desert out there, a desert to be faced, to be embraced, to be welcomed in awe and wonder; a desert in which the Hebrews will be tested and tempted and thrilled and re-tooled for the projects and promise ahead. Yawheh in the desert!
The rabbis of old liked to say that it might have taken just a few days to get the people out of Egypt; but it took all of forty years to get Egypt out of the people. The desert. Where old habits are shed, and old expectations purged, and new practices implemented, new joys embraced, new commitments made. A fleeing people becomes, in time, a covenant community. It took just a few days to get the people out of Egypt; but it took all of forty years to get Egypt out of the people. Yes, a geography of unknowing. Yes, a landscape of vulnerability. But a sacred space. A sanctuary space. A space where the Spirit does her most impressive and consequential work. As do we.
2.
So we can talk a bit about our own desert moment: this unnerving moment in American life, and global society in general. And how we might find in all this something beyond despair, something like holy opportunity and radical renewal, and a spiritual challenge that aims to remake us. Maybe that’s our calling in moments like this one: to resist catastrophizing the news and remain open and available to grace and transformation.
But it’s worth noting first how Jesus—at the very dawn of his adult life, his mature ministry—how Jesus is moved to align his spirit, his life, his purpose with that same Hebrew journey out of Egypt, that same communal experience of un-learning and re-imagining and embracing anew God’s ways of communal care and mutual liberation. Again, we have to see that Jesus is not out to establish a new and better religion, not at all. He is out to fully and radically live into the traditions and lessons and practices and insights of his people’s faith. Yahweh in the desert. And that means going out from Egypt, accepting the call to repentance and unlearning and receptivity in strange and godly places. Yahweh in the desert.
Jesus knows that he’s loved. And loved a lot and forever. And Jesus’s seen the Dove of Peace hovering over him. And claiming him as God’s own. Jesus has faced the fears that may have scared him from loving and caring. And he has cast off the cords of shame, the tangled angst that may have clung too tightly to his dear and beloved soul. What a moment out there in the river! That voice! “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests!” And still he goes even deeper into the desert, further into the unknown, deeper into the wild places of his tradition and heart. Because that’s what we do. Liberation isn’t transactional. It tests and transforms us, and whole communities are reborn. If we go. Further into the desert.
And, of course, what happens to Jesus in the wilderness, in the desert, is much like what happens to the Hebrews in their own forty-year sojourn. He is indeed tested. He is surely and even sorely tempted. And it’s out there—in the desert—that he finds his people’s deepest truth, his people’s theological tradition, the radical edge that says no to violence and yes to peace, that says no to magic and yes to compassion, that says no to patriarchy and power trips and yes to covenant and collaboration. It’s out there in the desert that Jesus owns his tradition, his faith and what it requires of him. Love has bathed his imagination in wonder. The river has flooded his shame with grace. The desert has tested his faith and prepared him for a particular kind of ministry. He’s ready to speak about repentance and renewal. He’s ready to risk new patterns of communal care and mutual liberation.
3.
In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. came out against the Vietnam War in a hugely important speech in New York called “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” The speech, by the way, was delivered at the Riverside Church which holds dual membership in the American Baptist tradition and our own United Church of Christ.
In that seminal moment, Doctor King spoke to a spiritual crisis that seems terribly familiar and deeply related to our own moment in time.
Increasingly, he said, by choice or by accident, our nation has taken the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.And I’m moved then to say this. That in our own desert moment, in this strange and unnerving season of American culture, when democracy itself seems as vulnerable to despots and despair as it ever has been—we too are being tempted, tested like Jesus. That in the streets of Minneapolis and now it seems Portsmouth and Rochester, we too are faced with choices that will define our children’s futures and indeed our commitments to faith, discipleship and democracy itself.
And then he said, I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.
And doesn’t that hit home this week: We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society; from a gas-and-oil-oriented society to a person-oriented society; from a Wall-Street-oriented society to a person-oriented society; from a body-armor-oriented society to a person-oriented society.
And then Dr. King said this: When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
Wow. 1967.
What if this is our calling? To wrestle in this desert with temptation. To embrace in this desert God’s promise of sufficiency and community and grace. To choose in this desert the Hebrew ways of bold economic sharing, and brave neighborly love, and sweet hospitality for the immigrant and stranger. What if this is our calling in 2026? As communities of faith? As people of faith? As a church right here in New Hampshire? Isn’t it true that the joy of our baptismal identity, the great gift of the baptismal promise—is that we can face the past with courage, and meet the present with irrepressible creativity and grace? Like Jesus in the Jordan. Beloved!
4.
And so. Refusing to give in to the bluster of bullies in riot gear. Rejecting the logic of violence and intimidation from Washington. Seizing instead the transformational partnership of God in our lives and the love that frees us from fear. Let us be brave and daring and open to new life in the desert.
And this means a couple of things, at least.
It means, for starters, a commitment to community life, to covenant partnership and congregational spirit. To be a Christian in this moment is to be a Christian in community, a Christian in covenant with other Christians. “A miracle,” wrote Frederich Buechner, “is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.” And that’s the Christian truth. “A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.” This year, more than ever, you are needed in the circle here, in the flow of Sunday worship here, in the mix of mission and action and covenant life here. We resist violence in thoughtful and persevering friendship. We resist racism and bigotry in celebrating differences and working through conflict and strategizing for social change—together.
You can be a wonderful person and a delightful soul on your own. This is undoubtedly true. But you are a Christian in communion with other Christians. And if we are serious about birthing a new community, a new neighborhood; if we are serious about a revolution of values in this country—it’s going to take communities of courage, and circles of change, and relationships devoted to telling the truth and building trust and sacrificing together to get it done.
And this too. This is a time for deep prayer and spiritual practice. Revolutions that matter are grounded in this. In grace and hope and prayer. If you have a daily prayer practice, or a meditation practice, or a journaling practice or a gratitude practice or a spiritual practice of any kind that feeds your soul—stick with it. Double down on it. And if you don’t, reach out to a friend who does or even a pastor like me, and let’s get you started. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Mother Theresa once said: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” But pray you will, practice you must—and the vitality of our community, the effectiveness of our mission, the revolution of values that drives us now depends on it.
There’s a risk in reading the Gospel stories that we focus too exclusively on one life, even Jesus’ extraordinary life, and miss the communal vision of his practice and his faith. But Jesus was always and forever a Jew. And he knew—in his bones—that the love he experienced in the universe could never be limited or even scaled down to his life alone. The love Jesus experienced—in the breaking of bread, in the sweaty crowds of the city, and yes, in the Jordan River that day—delighted more than anything else in human compassion, in justice among peoples, in hospitality where doors opened and strangers became friends. The love of God inspires our love for one another.
So the desert awaits, my friends. New life beckons, my friends. Let’s see what we may yet become. When love sets us free.
Amen and Ashe.
