Epiphany

 

January 4, 2026

 Matthew 2.1-12

+ Every time I hear the story we heard in our Gospel reading for today, this story of these wise astrologers who traveled a great distance to Bethlehem, I have to say.

 It seems so fantastical, doesn’t it?

 It seems so other-worldly.

 Astrologers.

 Following a star.

 Who would do such a thing?

 It just seems so other-worldly.

 But then, so much of what we experience in scripture often seems other-worldly.

 So, here we are.

 Now, I know it might seem strange that I am talking about all of this today.  

 The Christ child and the Magi?

 It’s the beginning of January, after all.

 Christmas already feels long over.

 Most of us have put away our Christmas decorations.

 Trees came down quickly in the first few days after Christmas, the rest in the days immediately after New Years.

 (New Years seems like a long time ago too)

 Since we’ve been hearing about Christmas for months, we are maybe a little happy to see the Christmas season go away for another year by this time. 

 We’re ready to put those trappings aside and move on.

 The fact is: the Christmas season, for the Church, began on Christmas Eve and ended yesterday, on January 6.

 Tuesday will be the feast of the Epiphany, which we are commemorating today.

 Until Tuesday, it’s still Christmas officially.

 The greens are still up (at least until after the Eucharist today)

 But, I think Epiphany is important for us, and so we’re gonna talk about it today.

 And we’re still gonna Proclaim the Date of Easter, Bless the Chalk, mark the lintel and have 3 Kings Cake.

 So, what is the Epiphany really? 

 Well, the word itself—Epiphany—means “manifestation” or “appearing.”

 In this context, it means the manifestation of God’s Messiah among us. 

 God’s own anointed One, the Christ, God’s very Son, has appeared to us.

 And in the story that we hear this morning, it is the appearing of God not only to the Jews, but to the non-Jews, as well, to the Gentiles, which we find represented in the Magi—those mysterious astrologers from the East. 

 Epiphany is all about the manifestation of God in our midst. 

 All of us.

 Epiphany is a moment of realization. 

 In this feast we realize that God is truly among us—all of us, no matter our race or religion or our understanding of this event.

 Over the last month or so, we, as the Church, have gone through a variety of emotions. 

 Advent was a time of expectation. 

 We were waiting expectantly for God’s Messiah to come to us.

 Christmas was the time of awe. 

 God’s Messiah was among us and there was something good and wonderful about this fact.

 Epiphany, however, gets the rap for being sort of anti-climactic. 

 It is the time in which we settle down into the reality of what has come upon us. 

 We realize what has happened and we accept it and we live into it.

 A bit of the awe is still there. 

 A bit of wonder still lingers.

 In this morning’s Gospel, the Magi  are overcome with joy when they see the star stop over Bethlehem. 

 But, for the most part, despite the joy they felt, we are now moving ahead. 

 There are no more angels singing on high for us. 

 The miraculous star has begun to fade by this point. 

 The Magi  have presented their gifts and are now returning to home to Persia. 

 It is a time in which we feel contentment. 

 We feel comfortable in what has happened. 

 But, in a few weeks, this is all going to change again. 

 We will soon face the harsh reality of Ash Wednesday and Lent. 

 Now, I know it’s hard even to think about such things as we labor through the cold of January.

 As many of you who know; I really despise the month of January. It’s my least favorite month.

 But there is Ash Wednesday—just around the corner. In the middle of next month.

 The joys and beauty of the Christmas season will be replaced by ashes and sackcloth and, ultimately, by the Cross.

 But that’s all in the future. 

 Christmas is still kind of lingering in our thoughts today and, in this moment, we have this warm reality. 

 God’s love has appeared to us.

 God has sent us God’s love in the form of this divine child.  

 And for this moment—before the denial of our bodies in Lent, before the betrayal and torture of Holy Week, before the bloody and violent murder of Good Friday, we have in our midst, this Child.

 We have God’s love appearing to us, dwelling within the most innocent and most beautiful form of humanity possible. 

 It is the Child Jesus we delight in now.

 For now, we are able to look at this Child and see God’s amazing love in our midst.

 For now, in this moment, we are the Magi.

 We are the ones who, seeking God’s promise, have found it.

 We are the ones who, despite everything our rational minds have told us, have decided to follow that star of faith.

 We, like them, have stepped out into the unknown and have searched for what we have longed for.

 We are the ones who have traveled the long journeys of all our lives to come to this moment—to this time and place—and, here, we find Christ—God’s love made human—in our midst.

 We have followed stars and other strange signs, hoping to find some deeper meaning to our lives.

 We have trekked through the wastelands of our life, searching for God.

 But our Epiphany is the realization that God has appeared to us where we are—right here in our own midst.

 And this is what we can take away with us this morning—on this feast of the Epiphany.

 This is the consolation we can take with us as we head through these short, cold, snow-filled days toward Lent.

 No matter where we are—no matter who we are—God is here with us.

 God is with us in all that we do and every place we look.

 So, let us look for God.

 Let us embody God’s love.

 Let us be God’s Presence in this world.

 Let us see and recognize God in one another.

 And whenever we recognize God—that is our unending feast day of Epiphany.

  

 

 

 

 

 

1 Christmas/St. Stephen

 

December 28, 2025

 + This morning you’re probably looking around and seeing sort a mishmash of things.

 We’ve got both red and on the altar.

 We’re doing this because it is officially the First Sunday after Christmas.

 But we are also transferring the feast of our patron saint, St. Stephen to this day, as well

 We’re not doing it just to do it.

 There is always a method to our madness here.

 And we are doing it today for one big reason.

 This morning, we are officially kicking off our 70^th year of ministry at St. Stephen’s.

 And what better way to do that than to celebrate our patron saints?

 After all, what better patron saint could we have?  

 Besides St. Hildegard of Bingen that is…

 St. Stephen was a person who could look into the future, who held strongly to his Christian faith, who was loudly able to proclaim that faith and live that faith out by his very life. 

 Those first founders of our church were a smart bunch.

 They also were a prophetic bunch.

 Naming our church after St. Stephen was a smart thing.

 Of course, the reason they came to this name was because St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Casselton, ND had just closed in 1953.

 And we inherited much of their furnishings.

 But St. Stephen was a great saint for us to have as our patron.

 In the Orthodox and Roman traditions of the Church, the patron saint of a church is viewed as more than just a namesake.

 They are seen as special guardians of that congregation. 

 And so, it is especially wonderful to celebrate a saint like St. Stephen, who is our guardian and who is, no doubt, present among us this morning, with that whole communion of saints, who is always present with us at worship, along.

 St. Stephen, of course, was the proto-martyr of the Church

 “Proto” is the important word here.

 Proto means, essentially, first.

 He was the first martyr of the Church.

 He was the first one to die for his open proclamation of God’s Gospel of love.

 He also is considered a proto deacon in the church.

 He is a special patron saint of deacons—like Deacon John, and Deacon Suzanne, and myself sine I am still a deacon as well—and of all people who share a ministry of servitude to others.

 What better saint can we claim as our patron than St. Stephen?

 He was the first to do many things. 

 Just like we, as a congregation, have been the first in doing many things.

 St. Stephen, in his stance on a few issues, was not always popular obviously.

 There is a reason they dragged him out and stoned him.

 The great Archbishop Demond Tutu, who died on the feast of St. Stephen back in 2022, stood up and spoke out against injustice and racism and homophobia and all the things we at St, Stephen’s have stood up and spoken out against.

 Archbishop Tutu once said,

 "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

 Well, we certainly have never been shy here at St. Stephen’s for speaking out against injustice in our own Church or in the world.

 And speaking out and making the stance we have in the past and the reaction we have received from others, let me tell you, I can feel for St. Stephen.

 So yes it’s appropriate that this congregation that has been the first to do many things, is named after St. Stephen.

 When we look back at our 70 year history, just think for a moment about all those people who came through the doors of this church.

 Think about how many of those people who have been hurt by the larger Church.

 Think about how many were frustrated with the Church.

 And more often than not, their relationship with God suffered for it. 

 But they came here searching.

 Searching for true religion.

 Searching for a welcoming, inclusive and open community.

 So what is this true religion? 

 I see the Episcopal Church, and specifically St. Stephen’s,  as making a real solid effort at true religion.

 For me, St. Stephen’s personifies in many ways, what true religion is.

 The Church should be like a dinner party to which everyone is invited. 

 And St. Stephen’s has always been the place that knows this one blunt fact: The only thing there is no room for in true religion is for those who cannot love each other.

 St. Stephen’s is a place very much like a family.

 We don’t always choose the people God has brought into our lives.

 They sometimes irritate us, or say things embarrass us, or do things with which we don’t agree.

 But we always—ALWAYS—have to love them.

 So what is true religion?

 True religion begins and ends with love.

 We must love one another as God loves us.

 True religion begins with the realization that, first and foremost, God loves each and every one of us. 

 When we can look at that person who drives us crazy and see in that person, someone God loves wholly and completely, then our relationship with that person changes.

 We too are compelled to love that person as well. 

 Even if we don’t want to.

 Love is the beginning and end of true religion. 

 Certainly, St. Stephen’s has always been a place of love. 

 Love has never been a stranger here.

 Love has been offered to God not only on this altar, but among the pews and in the undercroft and in the narthex and in the parking lot. 

 And most importantly in the lives of our members out in the larger world.

 That Love that God has commanded us to share has went out from here into all the world.

 We who are gathered here have been touched in one way or the other by the love that has emanated from this place and these people.

 We are the fortunate ones—the ones who have been transformed and changed by this love.

 We are the lucky ones who have—through our experiences at St. Stephen’s—been able to get a glimpse of true religion.

But our job now is not to cherish it and hold it close to our hearts.

Our job now is to turn around and to continue to share this love with others.

Our job is take this love and reflect it for everyone we see.

So, in a very real sense, we, at St. Stephen’s, are doing what that first St. Stephen did. 

We are striving to do what Archbishop Tutu did.

We have set the standard. 

We have embodied who and what both St. Stephen the Martyr and Desmond Tutu stood for.

Even when it was not popular.

Even when people felt it wasn’t time.

We have stood up again and again for what we have felt is our mission to accept all people in love.

We have journeyed out at times into uncharted territory.

And most importantly, we have, by our love, by our compassion, by our acceptance of all, been a reflection of what the Church—capital C—is truly capable of.

We do all we do as St. Stephen and Archbishop Tutu did it—with our eyes firmly set on God, with our lips singing and praying, with our head held high, with love in heart, even if stones and rocks are falling around us.

We do so affirmed in our many ministries.

This is where we are as we begin our 70^th year of ministry.

Those founders of our church would be amazed at what this congregation they envisioned in 1956 would one day be.

As we begin another year of ministry, let us do with gratitude to God and one another in our hearts.

Let us shake off the negativity and those nagging doubts that may plague us.

And let us, like St. Stephen, be strong and firm in our faith in God and our convictions of serving others in love.

And may our God—that source of all love, that author and giver of all good things—continue to bless us with love and goodness and strength.

May we continue to flourish and grow. 

May we continue to venture bravely forward in  all that we continue to do here among us and throughout the world. 

May we continue to be the prophets we are, heeding this voice of God, out here, in Fargo, North Dakota.

May we continue to heed the call of our God who continues to call us to do radical things, to speak boldly and to, always, always, love each other.

Amen.

 

 

Christmas Eve/Christmas Day

 

December 24, 2025

 

Luke 2.1-20

 

+ It’s kind of a Christmas tradition here at St. Stephen’s for me to tell this story.

 

It’s a story I LOVE to tell on Christmas Eve because it is not the typical Christmas Eve story.

 

It’s actually been a couple of years since I shared it.

 

But…this Christmas Eve story does not involve your usual cast of characters.

 

It involves rather a very famous High Church parish in New York City and a very famous actress from a by-gone era.

 

The story involves Tallulah Bankhead.

 

Now some of you are thinking: I haven’t heard that name in years.

 

Others are maybe saying: I have never heard that name before in my life.

 

But Tallulah Bankhead, star of stage and screen, including, most famously, Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, she also made a great appearance on I Love Lucy, was also an Episcopalian.

 

And in fact quite the High Church Episcopalian.

 

When she was in New York, she attended the Church of St. Mary the Virgin just off Times Square.

 

If you have never been there, it is truly the place to see—if in fact you can see it.

 

This church is so High and is notorious for using so much incense it is affection ally called “Smoky Mary’s” (and it is one of my favorite places to visit in Manhattan).

It’s so High Church, it makes Smoky St. Stephen’s look like a Quaker Meeting House!

 

In the 1950s, the priest at smoky Mary’s, was Fr. Grieg Taber.

 

Fr. Taber was one of the interesting and eccentric characters in the Episcopal church in the day.

 

There have been many stories of Fr. Tabor.

 

But this one is one of the best…

 

One Christmas Eve in the 1950s Fr. Taber—good and loyal priest that he was—was sequestered in his confessional.

 

Back then, even some Episcopalians felt compelled to go to confession before receiving Holy Communion at the midnight Mass.

 

And Smoky Mary’s was so High Church that, yes, it even had a confessional.

 

Hmmmm. A confession! Could that be Fr. Jamie’s next project here at St. Stephen’s?

 

Nooo!

 

Well, Fr. Taber was there in his confessional, awaiting penitents, when he heard the oh-so-very-familiar, low, smoky voice of Miss Tallulah Bankhead.

 

There was certainly no mistaking who it could be.

 

As he peeked out through his curtain, there he saw her making her way through the church.

 

She paused and looked up at the giant crucifix above the altar, with its almost life-sized figure of the crucified Jesus.

 

Suddenly she exclaimed, in her wonderfully Tallulah Bankhead way,

 

“Smile, Dahling! It’s your birthday!”

 

 

There’s actually another very famous story regarding Tallulah Bankhead at Smoky Mary’s, which I also love.

 

One Sunday morning, a Bishop was visiting Smoky Mary’s, about to officiate at a service there.

 

As he and the procession were in the vestibule waiting to enter the church, the thurifer (the kid with the thurible) has to use the restroom.

 

He asked the Bishop if could hold the thurible while he went off to the bathroom.

 

The Bishop was standing there in his mitre and his cope, swinging the thurible when who should stumble in, but Tallulah Bankhead!

 

As she passed the bishop, she looked, reacted, then leaned close and said,

 

“I love the hat, Dahling, but your purse is smoking!”

 

The Bishop who ordained me to the Diaconate, Bishop Andy Fairfield, who was pretty straight-laced, told me that story once.

 

I love these kind of stories, because it shows that the Episcopal Church has always been filled with some amazing characters.

 

And the story of Tallulah Bankhead greeting Jesus on he cross on Christmas Eve is truly one of my favorites.

 

Now, for some people, at first hearing, it might sound irreverent or possibly even downright sacrilegious.

 

Ah…but if you believe that, then you miss the whole point of that wonderful little anecdote.

 

What some people might perceive as sacrilegious and disrespectful I see as wonderfully intimate.

 

There is a wonderfully intimacy between Bankhead and Jesus in that moment.

 

And let’s face it, intimacy is what Christmas is about.

 

An intimacy from God to us.

 

An intimacy very unlike any other kind of intimacy.

 

When we think long and hard about this night, when we ponder it and let it take hold in our lives, what we realized happened on that night when Jesus was born was not just some mythical story.

 

It was not just the birth of a child under dire circumstances, in some distant, exotic land.

 

What happened on that night was a joining together—a joining of us and God.

 

God met us half-way.

 

God came to us in our darkness, in our blindness, in our fear—and cast a light that destroyed that darkness, that blindness, that fear.

 

In this dark, cold night, we celebrate Light.

 

We celebrate the Light that has come to us in our collective and personal darknesses.

 

We celebrate the Light that has come to us in our despair and our fear, in our sadness and in our frustration.

 

And as it does, we realize---there is an intimacy to that action on God’s part.

 

I am very fond of saying that if we only look at Christmas as something that happened then and there, then we have missed the point of Christmas.

 

We objectify Christmas and make it something wholly “other.”

 

We can easily say to ourselves—it’s a quaint little story from ancient times but it doesn’t have anything to do with me, here, right now, in Fargo, North Dakota, on this night in 2025.

 

But, the fact is, it does!

Because if we truly follow Jesus, if we truly are Jesus’  followers in this world, we know that, because of Jesus, because of his birth and life and death, we too are to become like Jesus.

 

Or rather, what Jesus was, we too are to become.

 

We too are to be anointed children of God in this world.

 

We too are called to do what Jesus did and he who Jesus was to others.

 

And in doing that, we realize that what happened in Bethlehem on this night, happened at our birthday too.

 

Just as Jesus’ birth is holy, so too were our birth holy as well.

 

A Light from God shined on each of us as well when we were born.

 

And continues to shine on us now.

 

Just as we Jesus embodied God’s love, so we are called as well to embody God’s love now and always in this world.

 

And in doing so, we experience an amazing intimacy.

 

Or, as one of my favorite poets, the great Anglican poet Christina Rosetti put more eloquently:

 

Love came down at Christmas,

love, all lovely, love divine;

love was born at Christmas:

star and angels gave the sign.

 

 

That love that comes down at Christmas—that love, all lovely, love divine—that love dwells in each of us. Right now. Right here. Tonight.

 

And star and angels truly give the sign.

 

For each of us.

 

We find ourselves expressing our intimacy back to God.

 

Each of expresses our love differently.

 

People like Tallulah Bankhead cry out happy birthdays to crucifixes on Christmas Eve.

 

The rest of us probably aren’t quite that dramatic.

 

Well, some of us, aren’t that dramatic!

 

But the intimacy we feel between ourselves and God is a very real one tonight—in this very holy moment.

 

We find that this love we feel—for God and for each other and for those we maybe don’t always love, or find difficult to love—that radical love is more tangible—more real—than anything we have ever thought possible.

 

It is here, within each of us tonight.

 

And that is what we are experiencing this evening.

 

Love came down.

 

Love became flesh and blood.

 

Love became human.

 

In Jesus.

 

And in each of us.  

 

And in the face of that realization, we are rejoicing tonight.

 

We are rejoicing in that love personified.

 

We are rejoicing in each other.

 

We are rejoicing in the glorious beauty of this one holy moment in time.

 

If that isn’t intimacy, I don’t know what is.

 

This beautiful night, let us each cling to this love that we are experiencing tonight and let us hope that it will not fade from us when this night or the day tomorrow is over.

 

Let us cling to this holy moment and make sure that it will continue to live on and be renewed again and again.

 

Love is here.

 

Love is in our very midst tonight.

 

Love is so near, we can feel its presence in our very bodies and souls.

 

So, let us share this love in any way we can and let us especially welcome this love— love, all lovely, love divine—this love made real and present in the shelter of our hearts.