Tag Archives: Light

Conversations Before the Cross 4

by


A Man Born Blind from Birth

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ, Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

Fourth Sunday in Lent/A • March 15, 2026

John Chapter 9

What are his references? That’s a question most of us ask in one way or another from time to time. Employers ask it: no one hires someone without at least trying to find out how they did previously. And the answer doesn’t always have to be positive! I was fired from my first job as a ministerial intern in seminary after a long period of conflict with the senior minister. A while later I began looking for a new job and found a church and minister that really excited me. I told them about my experience, trying to be objective, not trying to hide any of the details; I remember the minister interviewing me saying, “So, you resigned from your last job? I said: No, I was fired. The minister said he didn’t feel a need to check my references, but of course he did, so he did something ministers do under the circumstances: he called a friend in a church nearby. So not long afterward I was called into the senior minister’s office to hear him say, well I decided to do a little checking on you after we talked, so I called a friend who knows the situation in the church where you worked…and he said the guy you worked for is crazy and being fired there is an honor!

What are his references? It’s a question that creeps into our relationship with Jesus in one way or another. We see his story through the glasses of our common sense, our life experience and our own individual histories. We look for the points in these histories that can connect and explain his story. These are Jesus’ references. There’s nothing new about this process, the earliest Christians did the same thing. They were in many cases Jews who looked for a special person from God, just as God had sent Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David and Elijah. In many ways Jesus met these expectations, but in others he did not. The story about the man born blind from birth was remembered because it spoke to the questions of Christians trying to live their daily lives in harmony with God’s intention—trying to understand whether Jesus of Nazareth was a part of that intention.

This story matches the story of the church. It is our story. We also are people who encountered Jesus, were changed by him and now live in a world where his presence is not always apparent. We look forward to a final time when our Lord will appear beside us and we will be able to see him and touch him. Our problem is what to do in the meantime. This is finally an individual challenge: remember, neither the blind man’s friends nor his parents, neither the crowds nor the Pharisees, were any help to him in understanding how to live with his new sight. There is a mystery here, a mystery that lies at the heart of the way God loves us. For in the structure of our relationship with God there is a scandalous particularity, an individuality, that shakes the foundations of every life that takes it seriously. “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?”, the Psalmist asks, and the answer is always someone’s name, some particular name, some particular person. 

Why one person and not someone else? Why you and not me? Why me and not you? This scandal, this particularity, lies near the heart of all our questions about suffering and meaning. Who is this blind man that he should be healed—while others remain blind. Is his moral life more faithful? Does he pray more deeply or more eloquently? Is his faith stronger or in need of strengthening? Nothing in the text answers such questions, nothing in the action of the story gives any explanation. So it is with us, isn’t it? Since ancient times, one strand of thought in Israel held misfortune and disability and disease to be the direct consequence of sin, sometimes a consequence carried on through generations. There is a part of our religious impulse that always wants to quantify. So much sin, so much grace: measured out like the sugar and flour of a cake mix, balanced off like the weights on a jeweler’s scale. But Jesus directs attention away from the surface to the deeper realities of the situation. Sin is related to grace, of course, but not as the disciples think. The man’s life is not a result of his own action but is part of the structure of God’s revelation. The blind man is about to become the living gospel, the person who bridges the gulf between God and human being.

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall go for us”, the Psalmist asks, and the answer is always some particular person at some particular moment of time. So Jesus came to a small village for a moment and opened a blind man’s eyes. We tend to think of such characters as special, different, not like us, but the fact is that he is precisely like us. He is a young man who has overcome the obstacles of his life, found a trade and is working industriously at it. He is just like us: pregnant with the possibility of epiphany, capable of becoming the candle by which the divine flame of God is seen to burn and give light. The disciples want to give this man a practical explanation, almost a scientific one. “Who sinned?”, they ask, “This man or his family?” But to Jesus the man’s circumstances including his blindness are an occasion for showing God’s presence. “This happened so that the work of God”—some translations say glory of God—“might be displayed in his life.”

The Pharisees of the story are puzzled because Jesus doesn’t follow what they expect: His references are nonexistent and his behavior is scandalous. Since they don’t know who he is they concentrate on the how: their concentration on the question of how Jesus healed the man is so striking that he finally asks if they also want to become his disciples. They are seeking a clue to the who through the how: They want the regular procedures followed; they want the rules to apply to everyone. They want to know who Jesus was: where he came from, where he’s been, what schools h attended, how he learned to heal. There is comfort in the past: it is predictable, it is safe, it can’t get out of hand and surprise you. “We are disciples of Moses,” they tell the man.

But they’ve forgotten Moses was once a wild, free spirit on fire with God. They’ve forgotten the Moses who asked to see God, though that was against all rules. They remember only the rules Moses left. Moses said, “Keep the sabbath holy” and they have transformed that into something else entirely: don’t work on the sabbath. They can’t see that healing is holy; they only see Jesus breaking a rule. Finally, they conclude, he can’t be from God. They don’t know his references and so they simply say, “As for this man, we don’t know where he comes from”.

But the blind man is amazed at this: here are the religious and political authorities of his life puzzled. 

Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from yet he opened my eyes. If this man were not from God he could do nothing! 

This is the ultimate testimony of the believer, the follower of Jesus Christ: that our lives have been changed, healed. And that this is so, regardless of how the world may see or understand that change. Sometimes the change is remarkable and radical. Sometimes it is internal and quiet. Sometimes it leads to moments of soaring courage; more often to the simple endurance of living life hopefully each day. The blind man’s history hasn’t changed but now he lives with vision. He is healed. His future is new; as Paul said, “In Christ there is a new creation.” Christ calls us to a new creation, a creation beyond the rules we knew and lived by.

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” This blind man—this particular life, at this particular moment—is the means by which God chooses to work and call others. Who would have thought God would choose such people: a nine or ten year old shepherd, a blind man sitting by the road side. You, me, the person sitting in the pew next to you: are these really the means by which the Almighty God chooses to work and become known? Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? It’s us: there isn’t anyone else. The people of these Bible stories are not the heroic figures we romantically assume. They are people who are busy about their lives and getting on with them. People who have their own hearts and hopes but who are changed when they become the particular way God’s work is demonstrated and moved forward.

The blind man’s story is our story as well, if we are the followers of this Jesus of Nazareth. The blind man is not any more prepared to become the visible agent of the invisible Spirit than you or I, and the whole event causes considerable disruption in his life. Friends desert him. His parents refuse to defend him. The religious and political authorities of the village and the area cross-examine him and threaten him and are finally puzzled by him. Through all this, the agent of his change—Jesus, the one who caused the change—is nowhere to be found. If this is, as I suggested, intended to be not only the story of the blind man but the story of the church and therefore our story as well, what does it suggest the task of faithful Christian people is?

The clue to the answer is near the end of the story. After all the shouting has died down the man meets Jesus again, though of course he doesn’t recognize him—remember, he’s never seen Jesus before. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus asks, and when the man asks who this is, Jesus reveals his identify: the man replies, “Lord, I believe.” What is the most important task of believers? Perhaps it is simply to be believers—to live as believers—to keep living as believers. This is, a simple and yet enormously difficult formula. Our culture, like the culture of the first century Christians who remembered this story, is hostile to Christian faith and seeks to erase it by a concentration on the technological question, the question of how things are to occur, how life is to be lived. So our culture constantly offers us formulas: take control of your own life, read this book, listen to this speaker, see this therapist, try this diet. In this culture, our faith offers not a how but a who: Jesus of Nazareth, God’s anointed, the Christ who comes into the world. We offer an invitation: not to take control of your own life but to offer your life to God who is known in this man.

To respond in this way is anything but easy. It’s striking to realize how difficult the blind man’s life becomes after he is healed. His friends and family desert him, his trade is lost and the local authorities keep after him. Does he have moments when he wished he had his simple life back, wished the l light would go out again and he could sit by the side of the road begging? Perhaps, but what the story suggests is a man so transformed by this experience that he can hardly imagine his former life. At the end of the story, when he knows Jesus, the text simply says “he worshipped him”. Christian faith is finally this: the ability to worship Jesus, not because you have been given satisfactory references but because you have seen what he has done and know that if this man were not from God, he could do nothing. What are Jesus’ references? You are—I am—we all are together. “You are the Body of Christ and individually members of it”, Paul says. We are the ones he is healing; we are the ones he has taught to hope. Hope is ultimate healing. It comes not from a reference or a technique but from a decision about whom you will believe and what you will worship. 

Nowhere is that decision more clearly defined than at the end of this story. There finally we have the alternatives we also face. The blind man responds to Jesus simply when Jesus reveals his identity: “‘Lord I believe’..and he worshipped him”. The Pharisees are still fussing, still asking, “What are his references?”. By the end of the story, the blind man has a vision that lights his life; the Pharisees are blind. 

We walk in a forest throughout our lives. There are dark shadows that stretch out; there are places where the path is not clear. There are dangers and difficulties and moments when the way opens on inexpressible beauty. As we walk through this forest, we must ultimately decide whether we will trust the vision of Jesus Christ or stumble blindly, hoping on our own to avoid the pitfalls. Nothing guarantees our choice. Putting a cross on the sign does not mean we will not act like Pharisees inside. Only our decision to freely embrace Jesus as a guide can keep us on the path; only our commitment to come to him, as the blind man did, whatever our lives, whatever our history, and simply say, “Lord, I believe”.

Amen.

Remember Who You Are

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany/A • February 8, 2026

Isaiah 58:1-12 • 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 • Matthew 5:13-20

What are your rules?  We all live with rules. Before I got here things morning, I put on a suit and tie; I grew up with a rule that said this is how professional men dress. Even when I was a little boy, my mom would make me dress up and stick a clip on tie to my shirt. Today, wee drove down Front St.; Jacquelyn drives and she obeys speed limits. I came in, put in the code for the alarm because that’s the rule for entering the building. And before I came to lead worship, I put on this robe. The robe originated in the 16th century; it’s what college people wore. It was a reaction against the fancy vestments of Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy. Somewhere along the way over the years, we added on a bit of the vestment for color, and that’s why I have this stole. It’s a symbol that says I’m ordained to lead worship and administer the sacraments; the color is chosen by the rules for different seasons, it’s not just whatever I feel like wearing. So you see, already before I even said, “The peace of the Lord be with you”, I’ve already threaded my way through and entire matrix of rules. We all live that way: I’m sure you could think for a moment and list a half dozen rules about dress and behavior you’ve already observed today. I begin today with rules because the scripture lessons we’ve heard today are all about rules and how to understand them.

To understand, we need to know a bit of history. In 586 BCE, the Babylonians stormed Jerusalem and destroyed it. They took the gold from the Temple and burned it, the Temple that had stood for 400 years, since the time of Solomon. They took the leaders and many others into captivity in Babylon. Fifty years later, the Babylonians were defeated by the Persians from present day Iran. The Persian king allowed the captives to return and rebuild the Temple and they began to do that. To commemorate this wrenching history, four days of fasting were instituted each year: one for the day the siege had begun, one for the day Jerusalem fell, one for the day the Temple was burned and a fourth that commemorated the murder of an early leader in the rebuilding. 

The oracle we heard this morning comes from the third prophet to use the name Isaiah, and he lived during this period. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of European cities after World War 2, full of ruins, people slowly moving among them. That’s how we should imagine Jerusalem in this time. Temple worship was renewed, and the fast days were proclaimed. But people did not feel God’s presence and that’s what’s reflected here. It’s a about people who are performing the rituals of faith without its heart—and God’s reaction.

Shout out; do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. You fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

[Isaiah 58:1ff]

In other words, their world is falling apart and their connection to God is distant; they don’t feel God answering them. 

It’s as if they’re looking for God and saying, “Hey! You’re not obeying the rules! We fasted, we spent a day in ashes, we went to worship, home come you’re not working for us?” It’s as if faith in God were a transaction. Go to a store, pay your money, you get your goods; doesn’t God work that way? Fast, pray, observe the rituals—shouldn’t God do God’s part? How many of us have tried this. Someone we love is sick or in danger, something we dread threatens, and we pray what I call the “If prayer”: “If you heal this person, avert this disaster, do what I want just this once, God, I’ll go to church, make a donation, or do something we think God wants.” These people are doing the If prayer in a larger way, and it isn’t working. They think God isn’t abiding by the rules, but the truth is, God’s rules are simply different.

So the prophet goes on to explain the sort of fast that God wants.

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? [Isaiah 58:6f]

If you remember last week’s reading from Micah, you may be thinking this sounds a lot like what Micah said, that God wants us to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. That’s the heart of God’s rules; that’s the core of Torah and Jesus is going to sum it up when he’s asked and say the greatest commandment is to love God completely and to love your neighbor as yourself.

That’s great in general. But as one leader said, “People don’t eat in  general, they eat every day.” How can we embody this day to day? We’re living through a difficult time. People are so divided that even simple social events have become minefields. No one wants to lose friends and yet, we are meant to live by God’s rules. This is why the downtown clergy organized the pilgrimage for peace. We didn’t want another partisan demonstration, we didn’t want signs—although some people brought them—we didn’t want to shout. We wanted to step back and say just what we begin every worship service with here: “The peace of the Lord be with you.” We wanted to show our community what the mind of Christ looks like and that it’s so much more important than the labels on our churches or our politics. Peace is not just refusing to argue; peace is something deeper, it is seeing the dignity of each person, understanding they are a child of God. That lifts yokes, as Isaiah says. 

Living this way is what the Apostle means by having the mind of Christ. The people fasting and complaining are failing because they think outward gestures alone will attract God. Having the mind of Christ means looking at things differently, a way that shows a concern for others. That’s not how our culture is teaching us to think these days. We all know the signs: the way that we’re constantly invited to division. When I was an elections official, we once spent ten minutes talking about what colors of clothing were appropriate for poll workers: no blue, no red, no hats, no slogans. It’s more rules than the ones for which stole! We can all see where this has gotten us: two people shot and killed in Minneapolis, the arrest of thousands of people just trying to do exactly what our great grandparents did, go to America, work hard, make a life. How do we change this shift? How do we live with the mind of Christ.

I found a story the other day that I want to share about a man my age who learned to do this. His name is Frank and this is how Frank woke up.

I almost threw a punch in the checkout line last Tuesday. Not because I’m violent, but because at 74 years old, I finally woke up.

My name is Frank. I’m a retired mechanic from outside Detroit. I live alone in a house that smells like old dust and silence. My wife, Ellen, passed six years ago. My kids? They’re busy in New York and Atlanta, chasing careers, raising grandkids I mostly see on FaceTime.

I realized recently that I had become invisible. I was just “that old guy” blocking the aisle with his cart, counting pennies because Social Security doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.

Every Friday, I go to the big superstore on the edge of town. It’s the highlight of my week, which tells you everything you need to know about my life.

That’s where I met Mateo.

He was the cashier at Lane 4. Young, maybe 22. He had a piercing in his eyebrow and tattoos running down his arms—sleeves of ink that disappeared under his blue vest. To a lot of folks from my generation, he looked like trouble.

His English was heavy with an accent. He’d say, “Did you find everything okay, sir?” and most people wouldn’t even look up from their phones. They’d just shove their credit card at the machine.

I watched people treat him like furniture. I heard a lady in a fancy coat huff, “Can’t you go faster?” I heard a man mutter, “Learn the language or go home.”

Mateo never flinched. He just kept scanning, smiling, and saying, “Have a blessed day.”

Three weeks ago, I was behind a young mother. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her eyes, a baby crying in the cart. She was buying store-brand diapers and two jugs of milk.

When she swiped her card, the machine buzzed. Declined.

She turned beet red. “I… let me put the milk back,” she stammered, holding back tears. “I get paid on Monday.”

Before I could reach for my wallet, Mateo was already moving. He didn’t make a scene. He didn’t announce it. He just pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill from his own pocket, scanned it, and handed her the receipt.

“It is covered, Miss,” he said quietly. “Go feed the baby.”

She looked at him, shocked, whispered a thank you, and hurried out. The next customer immediately started complaining about the wait.

But I saw.

That night, I sat in my recliner and stared at the wall. Here was this kid—working for minimum wage, getting treated like dirt—giving away his own money to a stranger. Meanwhile, I’d spent the last five years feeling sorry for myself.

The next Friday, I wrote a note on a napkin. When I got to his register, I slid it over. It said: “I saw what you did for her. You are a good man.”

Mateo read it. He looked up, and for the first time, his professional mask slipped. His eyes got watery. “Thank you, Mr. Frank,” he whispered.

We started talking. I learned he works two jobs. He takes night classes online to become a Paramedic. “I want to save lives,” he told me. “My parents sacrificed everything to get me here. I cannot waste it.”

Then came last Tuesday.

The store was packed. Tensions were high. Inflation has everyone on edge. A large man in a baseball cap was slamming his items onto the belt. Mateo made a small mistake—he had to void an item. It took an extra thirty seconds.

The man exploded.

“Are you stupid?” the man shouted, loud enough for three lines to hear. “This is America. Why do they hire people who can’t even work a register? Go back to where you came from!”

The air left the room. People looked at their feet. The cashier next to us looked terrified. Mateo just stared at the scanner, his hands trembling slightly.

My heart was hammering in my chest. My whole life, I’ve been the “keep your head down” type. Don’t make waves. Mind your business.

But this was my business.

I stepped forward. My joints ached, but I stood as tall as my 5’9″ frame would let me.

“Hey!” I barked. My voice cracked, then found its steel.

The angry man spun around. “What?”

“He works harder in one shift than you probably do all week,” I said, pointing a shaking finger at Mateo. “He is studying to save lives. He helped a mother buy diapers when she was broke. What have you done today besides yell at a kid?”

The man turned purple. “Mind your business, old man.”

“Decency is everyone’s business,” I said. “You want to be a tough guy? Be tough enough to show some respect.”

The line went deadly silent. Then, a woman behind me started clapping slowly. Then another guy nodded. “He’s right,” someone muttered.

The angry man grabbed his bags and stormed off, muttering insults.

I looked at Mateo. He wasn’t trembling anymore. He was standing straight, shoulders back. He looked at me, and nodded. A silent bond between a 74-year-old rust-belt retiree and a 22-year-old immigrant student.

I walked to my car shaking like a leaf. I cried in the parking lot. Not out of sadness, but because for the first time in years, I felt alive. I felt like a human being again.

Yesterday, Mateo handed me my receipt. On the back, in neat handwriting, he had written: “My father is far away. Today, you were like a father to me.”

I’m sharing this because we are living in angry times. We are told to hate each other. We are told to pick sides.

But here is the truth I learned at Walmart: You don’t have to solve the border crisis. You don’t have to fix the economy. You just have to change the air in the room.

Be the one who speaks up. Be the one who sees the person behind the name tag.

We are all just walking each other home. Make sure you’re good company. 

[https://www.facebook.com/MindInspireofficial/posts/i-almost-threw-a-punch-in-the-checkout-line-last-tuesday-not-because-im-violent-/716147278216554/]

God’s rules aren’t complex or difficult. Love God, Love your neighbor. Have the mind of Christ whether you’re here or at Walmart or Giant or work or somewhere else. In the mind of Christ, all people are God’s children. It’s the ultimate birthright citizenship: every single person included. When we live like this, when we make our church a temple of this kind of love, we are truly God’s people. Then we shine like a lighthouse of love; then indeed, we are like a lamp set on a stand that gives light. So remember who you are: God’s child, Christ’s follower. Act like it, live like it, share it.

Amen.

This Little Light

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

Second Sunday After Epiphany/Year A • January 18, 2026

Isaiah 49:1-7 * 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 * John 1:29-42

Down in the Chesapeake Bay, just east of the Magothy River, a little north of Annapolis, south of the Patapsco, there is a squat little lighthouse called Baltimore Light. It marks the start of the channel that leads to Baltimore. It was first lit in 1908 and ever since sailors have looked out for it, especially in fog or darkness. It isn’t much to look at but it does this one thing: it provides a light to guide all of us safely on our way. Out in San Francisco, the entrance to the Bay is marked by the Point Bonita light; up in New York, of course, there is Lady Liberty, holding high a sculpted torch, the first sight thousands of immigrants including my great-grandmother first saw when they came to this country. We are in the season of Epiphany and it’s all about light showing forth the light of God, walking together in that light, reflecting that light.

That’s what’s happening in the story we read from the Gospel of John. John doesn’t tell the whole story of Jesus’ baptism but he knows that the presence of God’s light, personified as God’s Spirit, is present in Jesus. Perhaps the baptism has already happened.

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! [John 1:29]

Don’t miss the verb here: ‘see’. Throughout John, things start with seeing, move to knowing, and finally to witnessing [Pulpit Fiction] We need to see to go forward. That’s what the lighthouses do: they give mariners their location, they help them see where they are and where they should go. John sees Jesus and knows his path: he is the forerunner, and just like a lighthouse, he points out the direction: “Here is the lamb of God.” The lamb of God is the signal of God’s grace, the one sacrificed before Passover, whose blood marks the children of God for salvation. Now John sees him; now John points the way forward.

John’s disciples get it. Once again we have the language of seeing: “”Look, here is the Lamb of God!” [John 1:36] and two of his disciples, Andrew and another, do indeed look and seeing Jesus, follow him. They ask where he’s staying and once again we have this vision language: Jesus replies, “Come and see.” [John 1:39] This is Jesus’ whole approach; he never compels, never demands discipleship, he tells people to wake up and come and see. Andrew does, and he goes and gets his brother Peter to come along with them. When Jesus sees Peter, he renames him. 

Isn’t this what we do in families? My daughter Amy had a best friend when she was young who called her ‘Amoos”; she liked the nickname and used it and then it got shortened to “Mo”; she even had a t-shirt at one time that said “Mo the Motorcycle Maniac”, although in truth I don’t think she’s ever been on a motorcycle. In the family, it got transformed to “Moee” and sometimes I still call her that. You see what Jesus is doing here? John sees him, the disciples see him, they recognize him and he takes that sight, that light, and makes it the center of a new community. One writer said, 

We have to live the story. We have to stay with Jesus; where are you staying, they asked. The word for remain and stay …is menei. Later in John it will be translate as abide: abide in me. Simply put, we have to live with him, and in him.  It means following, hanging out with him, studying him. Then we will find him, and find the meaning in him. It will become real. [One Man’s Web]

When we stay with him, then we discover the same light John saw, then our paths become his path, our way becomes his way, our light is the reflection of his light.

Isaiah tells us why God sends such light into the world. For centuries, prophets had spoken about God’s special care for Israel. Now, Isaiah says, 

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” [Isaiah 49:6]

God has sent this light for the whole world. You know the song, “He’s got the whole world in his hands”; this is the expression of that. God’s justice, God’s mercy, God’s love is going to shine in the whole world and God sends individuals to do it. 

For God’s light to shine, we must become lighthouses. Claudette Colvin was a black teenage girl in Montgomery, Alabama, in the  1950s when racism was legally enforced. She grew up in segregation: water fountains marked “white” and “colored”, rules about where she could go to the movies, that she couldn’t go to a park, or the zoo or swim in a pool in the hot summer. The rules said black people had to sit in the back of the bus and give up their seat to a white person if the bus filled up. Claudette was 15 but one day she had the courage to refuse to move from her bus seat. She was arrested and jailed. 

Later, Rosa Parks would do the same thing; she became the face and spark plug for the early Civil Rights movement. Her arrest led to a bus boycott that changed the law forever. Colvin was largely forgotten, but her light was the dawn of that movement for freedom and justice. Colvin died recently at 86. Five years ago, when she sued to get her conviction expunged, she said,

“I want us to move forward and be better,” Colvin said…“When I think about why I’m seeking to have my name cleared by the state, it is because I believe if that happened it would show the generation growing up now that progress is possible and things do get better. It will inspire them to make the world better.”[https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/us/claudette-colvin-death}

Isn’t that what God challenges all of us—to inspire others to see that God’s light can spread, justice can come, we can become a loving community that cares for all?

Today is our Annual Meeting. I imagine there will be reports on what we did this past year, so many fellowship events held, so many worship services, so much money budgeted. Some will be quietly feeling sad that our budget or attendance or influence is not what it once was. I imagine Colvin felt small when the police arrested her. Sometimes we feel small. But the real question before us isn’t what we spent last year, what we did last year, it’s what are we going to do this year. How can we be a lighthouse here? There’s about 30 of us on any given Sunday, a few more who can’t get here but are with us in prayer. It’s not many. But look at this story. Isaiah speaks of God sending a single servant. John asks us to behold the lamb of God. Jesus starts with these two disciples, Andrew and someone else who apparently dropped out. He finally ends up with just 12, less than half the people here. 

But just a few years later, Paul is already writing to a group thousands of miles away in Greece, in Corinth, reminding them of what we ought to remember in our meeting: 

in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.[1 Cor. 1:5-7]

The most important question for us is how will we take the gifts of God and share that light.

Not long after Colvin was arrested, when Rosa Parks was arrested for the same thing and the community began to react in what became the Montgomery Bus Boycott, they turned to a young minister in his first church to lead them. His name was Martin Luther King, Jr., and surely the light of God shone from his work, surely he was a lighthouse for God’s love. Tomorrow we remember his life with a holiday, but we should remember his work. One thing that always impresses me is that while we know him as a national leader for freedom and justice, he never stopped being a local pastor. It’s hard to do that. I recently read a biography about King and at one point the writer mentioned how his secretary would send him daily reports on correspondence and calls. In one of those reports, she mentioned calls about his national campaign for justice and also that the key for the coke machine in the office had been misplaced. I laughed: that’s just like a pastor’s life. “Pastor, tell me how I can be saved,” one moment and the next—where is the key?

Shortly before King was murdered for leading a march for economic justice, he preached a sermon to his home congregation at Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta. He talked about the prospect of his death. He didn’t want a long funeral, he said. He didn’t want his eulogist to talk about his Nobel Peace Prize or his college degrees. “I’d like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others,” he said, his voice loud, strong and quavering, the word “tried” full of grit and gravel. The congregation was rapt. His father was silent. “I’d like for someone to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody! I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question! I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry … I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity! Yes, if you want to say that day that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace, that I was a drum major for righteousness, and all of the other shallow things will not matter … I just want to leave a committed life behind.”

That’s what I hope for myself; that’s what I hope for our church. It’s wonderful that we are an historic church; it’s great that we have been here so long. But what really matters is this: are we a lighthouse for Jesus? Are we reflecting the light of God here today?

We have this little light: let it shine! 

We have this little light: let it show the way to justice.

We have this little light: let it show the way to people walking in darkness.

Amen

Rise and Shine

by

A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2026

Epiphany Sunday • January 4, 2026

Matthew 2:1-12

Among the figures that populated my grandmother’s nativity scene, none were more impressive than the Three Kings. Made of carved wood and painted in bright colors, the Kings sat on camels linked together by gold colored chains, and they had little treasure boxes that fitted behind them, boxes which opened and could be made to contain real treasures: bits of gold from the chocolate coins my grandfather gave us or some other thing that became a treasure just by being secret. I never cared much about the cattle or the sheep or, for that matter, the fat little shepherd boys, but my brother and I played with the Kings until their chains broke and one of the camels lost a leg. We didn’t care: even legless, they seemed to contain the real mystery of the nativity just as they contained our treasures. 

We weren’t alone in our fascination. The emphasis we put on Christmas is unique to our culture; Eastern Christianity, most European Christians and the rest of the world spend far more time on the celebration of Epiphany than on Christmas. It is their moment for gift giving and reflecting on God’s gift of presence in Jesus Christ. Too often for us, Epiphany comes as an afterthought to Christmas: a time to finish vacuuming the pine needles and get back to normal. Today I want to call you out from the normal to a story that promises to let your heart swell with joy.

Perhaps it’s best to begin by putting the creche figures back, letting go of the stories that people have made up, and seeing what Matthew tells us about the Magi. Magi means “Wise Ones”—and that’s what they are; only later did a legend grow up that named them and called them kings. The Magi are astrologers: watchers of the sky who look for meaning in the stars, relating patterns in the planets to prophecies. One night they see some conjunction, some stellar event in a region of the sky called the House of the Hebrews and their prophetic books tell them that there is a special king expected in the land of Judah. So they go: packing up, joining a caravan, just as settlers once crossed this continent by wagon train. They take the ancient caravan route, the route that Abraham would have traveled, the route traveled by merchants and slaves and conquerors and people for thousands of years and about a year or so later they come to Jerusalem. There they pay a courtesy call on the reigning monarch, Herod. How disturbed he must have been to hear that a king—another king!—has been born. 

This story challenges us with these two great images of reaction to Jesus: Herod on the one hand and the Gentile Magi, the outsiders, on the other. What the Magi see as a great possibility, Herod sees only as a great threat. Herod, Matthew tells us, was disturbed; he tells the Magi to find the child and report back. When they outwit him and slip away, he’s enraged and has all the boys born in Bethlehem killed. Herod can think only of securing his own position, even though it means violence. The conflict that will bring Jesus to the cross is already in motion right here, right from the beginning: cross and crown are at war.

This story asks us the same question the old spiritual asks: Which side are you on? Put another way, What light lights your life? The word ‘Epiphany’ means manifestation or showing forth, as a light shines. The light in which we walk, the light that lights our lives, does show and it does make a difference. We know this about color and light: sit in a red room, psychologists tells us, and you somehow become more aggressive. The same is true of your life: the light in which you see things is a matter of decision. One camp song says, “I have decided to follow Jesus”. What have you decided? What do you decide-day to day?

The story also asks: what journey are you willing to make? This is a time when many make New Year’s resolutions. In two weeks, we’ll hold our Annual Meeting and look forward to a new year as a church. This is a time of transition as we look for a new settled pastor here. What new mission will we undertake together? This is a pleasant place to come on Sunday, but Christ’s call is not to get together with friends and feel better; it is to heal and help. How can we do that in new ways? We are so blessed in this church; how we will make that blessing a star shining more brightly? We have a wonderful history here at Salem: Epiphany asks us to pack up and move forward to the future, following Christ. 

Finally, the story asks: what purpose drives your journey? Both Herod and the Magi go to Bethlehem. Both go; but only the Magi find Christ. Despite all his violence, Herod misses the baby even as he misses the point. Real authority can never come from coercion; real authority comes from God who seeks faithful and voluntary obedience. Only a journey which remembers that its purpose is to follow wherever the light of God leads finds its way to the Christ child.

Today we begin the year, and we celebrate Epiphany—the showing forth of God’s light—with communion. We often speak of this as the commemoration of the last supper. Today I ask you to remember that in the resurrection this last supper became a kind of breakfast for the spirit: the first meal of the disciple’s journey, the first meal of the church before we began to work in the world. This work is ours, and it continues. Though we may pause, though we may stumble, nevertheless, we keep on, remembering to walk in the light, and lighting the paths of others, so that, as Isaiah said, “Your heart will throb and swell with joy.” This is the promise of this meal, this is the hope of this moment: that our journey may lead us to such joy and may be a means of joy to others as well. Sometimes we have walked in darkness: but today, today and hence forward, let us walk in the light. Rise and shine: your time has come.

Amen