For After Christmas
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Refusing Erasure”
It occurs that in my church, Central United Methodist Church, on the Sunday after Christmas we bear in mind by title those that have died in our city within the final 12 months due to a scarcity of enough housing. … Thus, on Dec. 27, the final Sunday of the 12 months, we as soon as once more remembered in church by title 13 such individuals who died within the final 12 months for lack of enough housing. 13 might not appear to be a giant quantity. However it’s a quantity that measures the neglect of our group and the shortage of an enough public care system. The 13 individuals and their names is not going to be remembered very lengthy. They’re readily “disappeared” by a rich financial system that lacks the political will to supply a caring humane infrastructure for all of the neighbors. “Homelessness” is attributable to a scarcity of housing. After all I don’t equate that uncaring violence in our city with the cynical brutality of El Salvador. However they’re of a chunk. Each rosters of the useless, these remembered in El Salvador and people remembered in Traverse Metropolis collectively level to a violent society by which violence turns into so commonplace as to be unnoticed. The counter-community of the church (together with its allies) has as part of its work the refusal of such erasure, resisting the nullification of human individuals. Thus, our remembering is a vigorous political exercise.
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Sunday, December 28, 2025 – First Sunday after Christmas Day
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-23
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Not Comforted!”
To be able to cease the specter of the infant Jesus, Herod implements a bloodbath of the brand new youngsters who’re within the attain of his regime. In doing so, he reiterates the fearful violence of Pharaoh in Exodus 1:16. The motion of Herod is acknowledged by Matthew to be a replay of previous violence. If we pay attention as Matthew listened, as Jeremiah had listened, we will hear the weeping. If we have now paid consideration, we will determine that individual accent of the weeping. Within the wake of the grief of father Jacob, this weeping is the inconsolable sobbing of mom Rachel but once more. With the peace of mind of the prophet Jeremiah, we would have thought that Rachel had completed weeping. Besides on this planet of grasping violence, mom Rachel isn’t completed weeping.
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Thursday, January 1, 2026 – Holy Identify of Jesus
Gospel: Luke 2:15-21
Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “She Treasured, She Contemplated, and She Waited” (12 Days of Christmas Reflections Sequence”)
She ponders these phrases in her coronary heart as a result of the hopes she named in her son is not going to come to cross totally at the moment or tomorrow or the following week, however within the generally gradual, however all the time devoted success of God’s guarantees.
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Thursday, January 1, 2026 – New Yr’s Day
Rev. Megan Torgerson, “Let’s Edit New Yr Theology”
The calendar has barely modified over however your social media scrolling has made issues abundantly clear. It’s time to repair your life. New 12 months, new you. Get proper with God. Manifest your blessings. That unusual web theology manufactured from poisonous positivity, self-actualization, and prosperity gospel actually takes off in January. Whether or not it’s weight reduction, cash administration, being a greater Christian, or simply being someway intangibly extra, meme tradition places inadequacy proper in your face. Or worse but: proper in your religion.
Epistle: Revelation 21:1-6a
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Historical past is Clay”
The biblical anticipation, this massive portrayal of God’s radical newness, is actually completed by way of human effort in small gestures, acts, and choices. In Christian parlance, it’s the one-at-a-time work of Jesus to embody that various kingdom, in order that Jesus offers one-at-a-time with individuals in want seemingly past 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 a few God who sings us all house, within the language we communicate, because the individuals we’re. Epiphany just isn’t a narrative of the Magi coming to God. Epiphany is a narrative of God coming to the Magi, talking to them in a religious language they understood, earlier than they took one step in the direction of God. Epiphany, like all the perfect tales, is a narrative about Grace.
Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12
Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto, “The Energy That Made Herod Quake”
Even on today of epiphany, threats towards the Christ youngster abound. Within the midst and within the wake of Christmas revelry, we must always keep in mind that whereas the angels proclaimed, “Pleasure to the world!,” the kings of the earth trembled. When the promise that the world could be turned the wrong way up by a mere youngster was proclaimed, the highly effective solely noticed a menace to be exterminated.
This can be a story we want today.
