Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: Through Christmas and Into Epiphany
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
For After Christmas
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Refusing Erasure”
It happens that in my church, Central United Methodist Church, on the Sunday after Christmas we remember by name those who have died in our town in the last year because of a lack of adequate housing. … Thus, on Dec. 27, the last Sunday of the year, we once again remembered in church by name 13 such persons who died in the last year for lack of adequate housing. 13 may not seem like a big number. But it is a number that measures the neglect of our community and the lack of an adequate public care system. The 13 persons and their names will not be remembered very long. They are readily “disappeared” by a wealthy economy that lacks the political will to provide a caring humane infrastructure for all the neighbors. “Homelessness” is caused by a lack of housing. Of course I do not equate that uncaring violence in our town with the cynical brutality of El Salvador. But they are of a piece. Both rosters of the dead, those remembered in El Salvador and those remembered in Traverse City together point to a violent society in which violence becomes so commonplace as to be unnoticed. The counter-community of the church (along with its allies) has as a part of its work the refusal of such erasure, resisting the nullification of human persons. Thus, our remembering is a vigorous political activity.
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Sunday, December 28, 2025 – First Sunday after Christmas Day
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-23
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Not Comforted!”
In order to stop the threat of the baby Jesus, Herod implements a massacre of the new children who are in the reach of his regime. In doing so, he reiterates the fearful violence of Pharaoh in Exodus 1:16. The action of Herod is recognized by Matthew to be a replay of old violence. If we listen as Matthew listened, as Jeremiah had listened, we can hear the weeping. If we have paid attention, we can identify that particular accent of the weeping. In the wake of the grief of father Jacob, this weeping is the inconsolable sobbing of mother Rachel yet again. With the assurance of the prophet Jeremiah, we might have thought that Rachel had finished weeping. Except in the world of greedy violence, mother Rachel is never finished weeping.
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Thursday, January 1, 2026 – Holy Name of Jesus
Gospel: Luke 2:15-21
Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “She Treasured, She Pondered, and She Waited” (12 Days of Christmas Reflections Series”)
She ponders these words in her heart because the hopes she named in her son will not come to pass entirely today or tomorrow or the next week, but in the sometimes slow, but always faithful fulfillment of God’s promises.
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Thursday, January 1, 2026 – New Year’s Day
Rev. Megan Torgerson, “Let’s Edit New Year Theology”
The calendar has barely changed over but your social media scrolling has made things abundantly clear. It’s time to fix your life. New year, new you. Get right with God. Manifest your blessings. That strange internet theology made of toxic positivity, self-actualization, and prosperity gospel really takes off in January. Whether it’s weight loss, money management, being a better Christian, or just being somehow intangibly more, meme culture puts inadequacy right in your face. Or worse yet: right in your faith.
Epistle: Revelation 21:1-6a
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “History is Clay”
The biblical anticipation, this large portrayal of God’s radical newness, is in fact accomplished through human effort in small gestures, acts, and decisions. In Christian parlance, it is the one-at-a-time work of Jesus to embody that alternative kingdom, so that Jesus deals one-at-a-time with persons in need seemingly beyond rehabilitation.
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Epiphany of the Lord
Laura Jean Truman, “Epiphany: When God Speaks Our Language”
Epiphany, the story of the Magi, is about a God who sings us all home, in the language we speak, as the people we are. Epiphany is not a story of the Magi coming to God. Epiphany is a story of God coming to the Magi, speaking to them in a spiritual language they understood, before they took one step towards God. Epiphany, like all the best stories, is a story about Grace.
Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12
Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “The Power That Made Herod Quake”
Even on this day of epiphany, threats against the Christ child abound. In the midst and in the wake of Christmas revelry, we should remember that while the angels proclaimed, “Joy to the world!,” the kings of the earth trembled. When the promise that the world would be turned upside down by a mere child was proclaimed, the powerful only saw a threat to be exterminated.
This is a story we need these days.
Rev. Natalia Terfa, “After the Manger: An Epiphany Lesson”
Most of the time, we just don’t go another way.
I get it. It’s easier to go where you’ve gone before.
To do things the way you’ve done them.
To follow a path you’ve already been on.
But sometimes we need to go another way.
And I think this is one of those times.
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January 11, 2026 – Baptism of the Lord (First Sunday after the Epiphany)
Epistle: Acts 10:34-43
Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “When God Surprises Us”
Peter gets it, yes. He begins by saying, “I now understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who does what is right is acceptable to God.” He gets its. Finally! But, I think he’s still a little bit nervous. You know how I know this? Because he keeps preaching! … Notice what the Spirit does. Look at v. 44. Verse 44 reads, “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the world.” While Peter was still speaking. While Peter was still preaching, still unsure about what was happening before him, still uncertain that he had actually heard God’s voice, the Spirit says, “Enough, Peter. Enough with your uncertainty. Enough with your preaching. Enough.”
