Turning Together

Epiphany 3A: Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 5-13

1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

The Rev'd Cameron Partridge

January 25, 2026

Good Morning, St. Aidan’s. Welcome to the third Sunday after the Epiphany and to our combined service, followed by our Annual Meeting. I always appreciated the opportunity to come together across our 8 and 10 AM communities within this community, to cross pollinate, to gather energy and strength from one another.

Just about a year ago the Feast of the Presentation happened to fall on a Sunday. For that reason we observed it in a special way that morning at both the 8 and 10 AM services. We gathered in the narthex with all the candles in the sacristy in a pile. We passed out small candles to everyone. And then as I began to read the prayers, you lit one another’s candles. I saw as people near me began this process, tilting their candles to one another, and then I looked down at my text to keep reading out the prayers. When I came to the end, I looked up again. I hope I never forget it, because I was astonished. The light in that space had grown startlingly brighter, much more than I implicitly anticipated. The individual candles, lit together, and shining near one another in that space, made more light than they would on their own. It took my breath away. I almost cried. It had been such a difficult several weeks, and I was early in the process of gaining my footing as waves of pointed targeting of marginalized people, particularly trans people and immigrant communities, were being unleashed by this presidential administration. I was horrified, angered, and trying not to be demoralized, as I know many of you were as well. And so when I looked up and saw how unexpectedly bright it was – how, when I wasn’t looking, you all had created something, had joined something holy that is already persistently present among and beyond us – I was astonished. Amazed. This is the posture of Epiphany, amazement. I know that. But you can’t manufacture it. You can’t say, and now, I’m going to be amazed. You’re no circus act, St. Aidan’s, telling me to prepare to be amazed. You caught me by surprise. Or, God did, in and through you. As God does day in and day out. You caused me to take in that light with delighted astonishment, to lean toward it, to turn.

Turning is what the disciples do in our Gospel reading from Matthew this morning. It is another version of the story we heard from the Gospel of John’s perspective last week (John 1:29-42). This week Jesus, having heard that Joh the Baptist had been arrested, takes his cue that the forerunner has now truly run his race. Now it was fully Jesus’ moment to step into the vocation prepared for him. As Matthew tells it, Jesus is conscious to lift up and embody  — the language used here is “fulfill” – the call expressed by the Prophet Isaiah, living and launching his ministry from Capernaum in Galilee from a place associated not only with his own Jewish community but also the  Gentile community. As he began, he was mindful of Isaiah’s prophetic words, originally shared in 722 BCE when this territory was under Assyrian occupation. In that context, Isaiah said, for “those who lived in a land of deep darkness,” a light would shine (Isaiah 9:2). God would multiply God’s people and increase their joy. What would cause this reaction? The breaking of the rod of their oppressor (Isaiah 9:4). This was the vision Jesus was conscious of evoking and embodying afresh. The light his own ministry would shine out contagiously, drawing others to behold it with amazement, and turn in response. Turning is what Jesus calls upon the people he meets to do. First he announces, “the kingdom of God has drawn near” (Mt 4:17)— which John had said as well (3:2) [1]. The response to that nearness is to repent, which at its most basic level means to turn. As the season of Lent will call us to do with greater intention, repentance comes from the Greek verb μετανοέω, to change one’s mind, or get a new frame of mind. It is closely connected to the idea of conversion, a sometimes dramatic, but finally lifelong process of turning and turning again. But notice that this call to turn is not because the coming kingdom is terrible. It is not a fear-based urging. The reason to turn is to believe in the good news. The nearness of God’s kingdom is good news. It is light shining in the shadow of death, in the midst of oppression and exploitation, amid hatred and division, rage-baiting and pain. To turn is to seek the way of God’s dream, as Verna Dozier called it [2]: a way of liberation, the breaking of the rod of empire, the freedom unleashed by truth-telling, the salving of broken hearts, the suturing of severed relationships, the rebuilding of ruined cities. The kingdom of God is good news. It is light. It comes yet nearer as Jesus’ disciples are caught up in it, spreading it from town to town because it simply is too infectious to resist.

The catching quality of God’s reign, as Jesus embodies and vocalizes it, shining its light, inviting them to follow him, causes the people who see and hear him to drop what they’re doing, to get up and go. To turn. Their affiliations were now being reshuffled. They would become tied both to him and to one another in new and deep ways. As Anna Case-Winters writes, they became “an alternative community to share in the work of preaching and showing forth the reign of God.”[3] While the impact of their turning was certainly personal — I wonder how James and John’s father Zebedee felt about his sons’ sudden departure – the purpose was not individualistic. In this moment they were being called not so much into individual spiritual relationship with Jesus as they were into community, a constantly growing, changing, challenging group of people who brought their unique gifts into a whole. This whole, this collective in all their humanity, were an essential part of Jesus’ ministry. They were never meant to be a collection of individuals who simply had their own private relationship with Jesus. Nor were they meant to cajole others into joining in having their own private relationship with him. The purpose was to share in the ministry of Jesus, the proclaiming and spreading the good news of God’s kingdom.[4] As Jesus shined God’s great light, he enabled his disciples collectively to reflect that light through the mirror of their own, very human images.

Yet we all know that to follow Jesus was no guarantee that oppression would simply cease. It was no assurance of safety. Case-Winters wonders if the disciples who so quickly dropped everything to “fish for people” had any inkling of what this “new mind” would net them.[5] Proclaiming the good news was not and is not safe. It was not then and it is not now. It is in fact received as foolish, as a stumbling block, as Paul writes in (and just after) our famous passage from his first letter to the community of Jesus-followers in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:17-18). Jesus’ proclaiming of the Good News, his life and ministry, would get him killed. The Good News is so profoundly transformative that it deeply threatens the powers that be. The idea of the rod of oppression being broken, of the wounds of imperialism being healed, the lowly lifted up and mighty cast down from their thrones, as Jesus’ mother Mary declares in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:52), does not sound like good news to those who sit on thrones and who oppress. Yet the cross, the instrument of Jesus’ eventual execution, is not, Paul insists, a sign of failure. Or rather, we could say that it is a sign of failure in the sense of failing to live according to the standards and powers of this world, which makes it much more profound: it is a sign of the profound solidarity of the God who made us and came among us in Jesus; with those who are downtrodden, those whom the forces of empire seek to sweep away and disappear; solidarity with those whom people in high places declare not to exist at all. “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 18) — that is, those who buy into the ultimate power of the rulers of this world. But to those who follow Jesus, who turn and entrust their lives to a kingdom whose ways are not of this world, indeed bring about transformation in this world, the cross is more powerful than we can possible imagine.

Following a savior whom all too many would call a fool, or would distort into a heroic superman unrecognizable to the Jesus of the Gospels, is not easy. Following such a savior can be lonely. That the gospels are filled with enough stories of the disciples flailing as they tried to follow Jesus, tells us we are in good company as we struggle. This week I know I have struggled as I have learned of some of the intensified tactics this presidential administration continues to use in Minneapolis against immigrants as well those who seek to protect them. I have been moved and encouraged to read of faith leaders, including colleagues, who traveled there this week, braving frigid temperatures to come together in solidarity, that the ramped up efforts happening in Minneapolis might not be escalated across this country.[6] That people of faith might bear grounded witness to the strength of God’s solidarity, standing with those who are most vulnerable in this moment. When my feelings edge in the direction of despair, I am reminded of those leaders who together are shining light in the shadow of death. They in turn remind me of the strength of the generations of leaders who have pressed back for so many years against hatred and evil, knowing that the struggle can be long and hard, that horrifyingly, some will die in the process.

Now, as we know, that that has indeed happened for a second time in Minneapolis, as another human being, a lover of our earth who stood in protest against lethal, militarized immigration enforcement has been killed, I am reminded of how I was feeling a year ago in the narthex, as we began to light our candles.[7] I remember the sense of overwhelm that I, like many of you, was seeking to keep at bay. And then I remember what happened next. In my grief and anger, in my vulnerability and fear, I looked up. I looked up and I saw you. You had lit one another’s candles. Your light collectively shone so much more than I would have expected. Had I underestimated you? Yes, I had! I think each of us likely does from time to time. We are right to feel however it is we may feel in this moment. Being a follower of Jesus does not mean we will always be or should always be completely secure, without any anxiety or grief. But as we feel, as we grieve, as we rage, we are present with God and one another. The light shines in and among the shadows of this world signifying that God is with us. God is in Minneapolis with the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. God is with immigrant families who are scared to open their doors for a package, lest it be ICE. God is with local law enforcement seeking to safeguard everyday people from militarized federal occupation. The nearness of God’s reign shines the light of liberators truth, of compassion, of reckoning and eventual mending, of a transformation whose tendrils are to be seen in our turning. And so this morning, on our Annual Meeting Sunday, I thank you for shining your light – even when you may not know that you are doing it. Thank you for taking your collective part in causing me, in causing one another, in causing people all around us in our lives and in this world, to turn. To turn toward that light. To lift it up and shine it out. May we keep turning together.      

[1] Case-Winters, Matthew: A Theological Commentary. (Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 56.

[2] Verna Dozier, The Dream of God: A Call To Return (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Press, 1991).

[3] Case-Winters, 56-57

[4] Case-Winters, 57

[5] Case-Winters, 57

[6] Shireen Korkzan, “Episcopal priests share experiences protesting as immigration raids continue in Minnesota,” Episcopal News Service, January 27, 2026: https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2026/01/27/episcopal-priests-share-experiences-protesting-as-immigration-raids-continue-in-minnesota/

[7] “Man killed in Minneapolis by federal agents identified as VA nurse Alex Pretti: ‘He wanted to help people’” The Guardian, January 24, 2026: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/24/alex-pretti-minneapolis-minnesota-shooting