View today's sermon on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMP9wwJA4kA.

Good Morning, and once again, welcome to worship. I am very grateful to TJ and the Deacons and staff here at Hancock.  It has been a while since I’ve been to worship here, and it feels good to be back.  My name is Jeff Jeude, my wife and I live in Corea, and we are now members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth.  I first met TJ when I was serving Prospect Harbor United Methodist during the pandemic.  It was a very hard time to be in ministry during Covid. I’ve been fortunate to have friends to invite me to fill their pulpit during absences, and it helps keep my mind and heart in the right spirit.  I use the pronouns he/him.

I do not profess to be an expert on anything, especially scripture, but I do have teaching skills and graces that allow me to connect and attempt to make sense of those things of wonder, such as the story of Epiphany.

If you grew up in a Christian church or school, you’ve probably already heard the story of the wisemen, and the star, and the gifts offered to the baby Jesus.  It’s a good story, even if we don’t feel much in common with the wisemen, or their journey.  It still has something to say about God.

I believe that God is so many things.  Creator, protector, counselor, but also teacher.  God and their son Jesus used stories to connect with their people, their students, their disciples.  We, as human beings, love to hear stories.  We love to tell stories.  The telling and repeating of stories is how our ancient relatives passed on information before printing presses made so much available to us. Stories hit us where we live - we can relate, we can connect with, we can believe what happens to and in others could happen to and in us.

I believe God is a teacher because of their profound use of story to connect with their beloveds.  Us.  God’s chosen.  God’s children.

When we look at the epiphany story, it might be easy to try to analyze or prove what we are hearing.  We might wonder what the star really was?  And how the wisemen knew to follow it.  And what’s up with frankincense, anyway.  It can be really easy to get into the weeds of many of the bible stories and forget to listen for what they can tell us.

I am not here to discount biblical scholars or intense bible study.  I’m here today to remind you that God wants a relationship with you, and God uses many unique ways to show us that.

In Jeremiah, we heard God speak through the prophet that “Behold, I am bringing them…For I am a father to Israel…they will come and shout for joy… and their life will be like a watered garden…

God is talking about us.  About you, and me, and our friends and family, and our loved ones, and even our unloved ones.  God is claiming us as God’s own, full heirs of the kingdom, full of joy and peace and worship.  Us!  God wants us!

I believe that God could wish us into being more obedient, and faithful, and mindful, and less selfish, or arrogant, or prideful of our own selves.  I believe God could do that, but I believe even more strongly that God will rejoice when we finally “Get it.”

I know as a parent, that when my child exhibits signs of kindness, or displays acts of generosity, or does anything purely out of love - I know what that does to my soul.  My soul sings!  My eyes leak when I catch my kids doing the right thing!

As a teacher, the proudest moments of my career were when I was present when a student grasped a new concept and ran with it.  When a student helped another with a skill or task that they accomplished and wanted to help others.  My soul sang! My eyes leaked!

God, I believe, revels in us when we “Get it.”  And, true to God’s nature, God revels in us even when we don’t get it.  God could will that into being.  But maybe, just maybe, it means so much more when we finally see by “faith alone.”  When we start our days acknowledging God’s providence and presence in our lives.

And that is why I believe God uses stories.  I believe God would rather SHOW us than do it for us.  Let’s take a quick trip through just the new testament up to the story of Epiphany and look at what we’ve been shown through biblical story.

God was made incarnate (embodied in human form) in order to walk and live among God’s people.  God didn’t choose something alien or foreign, or fantastic to become among us.  God chose to be presented as one of us.  But an unwed teenage pregnancy?  What do we learn from that?  Do we get lost in how that could have happened?  Or do we accept that God chose an unconventional way to be revealed.  A way that demonstrated the value of all people - unwed teenage mothers, fathers who didn’t make hotel reservations, an innkeeper with a heart and the ability to think outside of the box when presented with Mary and Joseph and their medically dire situation.

We are talking about God becoming human to live among us, God’s chosen people, and the vehicle for that was one of the lowliest, most humble, most human possibilities.

A mother who had travelled through her most pregnant months to arrive at a city without knowing why or when or how her story would be revealed.  A barn.  A manger full of allergenic hay and dust and animal droppings.

I think God was getting our attention.  By grounding the birth of the king in a very lowly place.  But then what does God do next?

God sends an army of angels into the field to scare the sleep out of shepherds.  Lights, and singing, and Gloria, and wonder.  Was that wise, you think, to use the people who had the lowest job in the city?  To use as harbingers of the birth of the king the same people that most people avoided or shunned?

The shepherds didn’t think about their worth, or their lot in life, or what was going to happen next.  They were charged up.  They wanted to go and see.  They dropped everything.

And then, the wisemen.  The scholars, the scientists, the learned kings from afar.  The story tells us they asked:  “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

I want you to know that there are more nights that I am outside and DONT look up than there are nights that I do look up.  And when I do look up, it is usually a passing glance.  I may say “Wow, the sky is really clear tonight!”  or “Is that the big dipper?”  I wonder how far away is that star?  Is that a plane?

These wisemen saw the star, studied the star, went back to old writings about the coming of the messiah, gathered supplies, said goodbye to family and friends, and headed out on a long journey to follow a star.  I imagine that more than one of their family members doubted their wisdom.

God put a star up in the heavens to attract the attention of these three men.  Why?  Why did these three men need to travel to Bethlehem to present gifts to an infant?  An infant that couldn’t even reciprocate with a thank you or a “how nice, I’ve always wanted myrrh.”

My good friend Kayla is a minister in Missouri, and when we were visiting in December, I asked her take on the story of epiphany.  She shared this with me:

These wisemen were astrologists,  scientists,  so we know that they studied the stars . People might look at that and say, “Well that’s not right. They shouldn’t be worshiping stars.” But it just shows us the lengths that God will go to to bring people to him. And so he used the stars to bring them to the savior. And once they met Jesus.  who is the one who sets the stars in the sky in the first place, and the one who can actually make the stars move and stop at their command.  Once they’ve met God, Jesus, the Divine, none of that other stuff matters.

God used the stars to bring God’s people back to God. 

God used a pregnant teenager.

God used a simple carpenter.

God used lowly shepherds.

God used the skies and the stars.

God will go to great, yet humble extremes to draw us near.

God wants us that much!  Has anyone or anything wanted you that much?

 A snake.  A tree of life and death.  A flood.  A burning bush.  A river cut in two.  Bread falling from the sky.  Three men in a furnace.  Water into wine.  A lowly birth.  A heavenly choir.  A star.

God wants us that much!

All of this, even before God’s son was sacrificed to bring us to redemption.  Even before the most painful execution, betrayal, humility.

God wants us that much!

What is your answer to that wisdom?

I would like to leave you with this reflection from Sarah Trent: 

I wonder how many miracles I’ve walked past…

How many holy moments I’ve dismissed as ordinary, because they didn’t feel sacred.

Because they didn’t glow or sing or shake the ground beneath me.

Because they looked like silence…

or closed doors…

or overlooked places.

The shepherds were still in their fields.

They had no idea Heaven had already written their invitation in the stars.

They just kept watching sheep, 

doing the same mundane task they’d done a thousand times before,

while angels rehearsed a song that would split the sky open.

The innkeeper still had room.

Still swept the stable.

Still spread hay for his animals to eat—

never dreaming that he was preparing a cradle

for the Bread of Life.

And I do the same.

We keep tending what looks small.

We keep sweeping places no one sees.

We keep holding sorrow and routine

while wondering if God sees us at all.

But what if we’re in the middle of a miracle,

and it just doesn’t look like one yet?

What if the mundane is manger preparation?

What if the thing we’re tired of holding

is the very place He plans to show up?

We expect the heavens to part, 

but sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes God enters through the back door

and lays in the feeding trough.

No crowd. No crown.

Just the quiet sound of God breathing among us.

Maybe the ache in my chest isn’t a curse—

maybe it’s a contraction.

Maybe this pain is evidence that promise is near.

Maybe the silence isn’t absence—

maybe it’s the hush before glory.

I want to be found faithful in the fields.

I want to be found ready in the routine.

I want to believe that hay and dirt and cold nights can still hold the holy.

So if this is what the middle of a miracle looks like—not glowing, not grand, but gritty and unseen—

then I’ll stay here.

I’ll keep watching.

I’ll keep sweeping.

I’ll keep hoping.

Because somewhere beneath the ache,

a Savior is coming.

And I will not miss Him

just because He looks like a baby in a manger

instead of a King on a throne.

He is still the miracle.

Even here.

Even now.

Even in this.

God wants you.  As you are.  As you have been. As you might one day become.

Amen