Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany Year A
February 1, 2026
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Made for a different world than what we live in.
Living a world that was not created for you.i
“We live in stressful times” is perhaps the biggest understatement of the day.
Whether we are talking about politics, climate change, family dynamics, or daily safety, there is a real and palpable tension in our midst.
How are you dealing with this stress, this uncertainty?
Anxious, Fearful, Lack of Sleep?
I have a confession to make.
Last week, I was working through this stress with prayer and baking.
Yes, as the snowstorm was descending, i took out butter and eggs and began to bake as if my sweet oven and baked goods would save the world.
Did it give me an escape, yep.
Was it going to change the world. Not in a large sense…
Baking gave me a recipe to follow, space to think, pray, wait and contemplate the world we are living in,
As the smell of butter and flour baked together, my mouth watered and I began to wonder,
What do we hunger for? What is it at is the core of the stress?
And I thought about my favorite baking shows,
bear with me here…
“Chopped”ii was one of my favorite cooking shows.
The Food Network Cooking show with chefs who are each given a surprise basket of ingredients and are expected to make a course for the judges in a very short amount of time….quick thinking, dashing around the kitchen ensues. Chefs are stressed out and under pressure. Severely limited in what they have been given.
It is stressful to watch.
Beautiful bites for the judges. Fancy names and prettiness.
And yet the ethos of this show is cutthroat,
it promotes excelling, competitive, me-centered competition to win at all costs.
Often the chefs scoff at the others and disagree with judges and openly are fierce for one upping the other person…. often to the detriment of their opponents.
I loved the creativity of this show, the beaty of the creations
and became disillusioned with the people.
The show was designed for competition as the goal.
Win the Prize At all costs.
What do you do with the unexpected ingredients and demands that you are given?
Creativity under pressure!
In contrast…
The show “The Great British Bake Show”iii has replaced our household’s favorite cooking show.
Perhaps the difference is that the bakers are novices and not professionals.
Perhaps it is that the prize is a cake plate and not a cash price insentivising them
Who knows…
There are elements of the show that are identical to “Chopped.”
There are surprise ingredients and items to use AND YET
The ethos is different….
Each baker does their best
They cheer each other on
They—actually help each other at times
They support each other – crying when something fails, encouraging the one who feels lost
And i am sure there are still moments that are staged –
and yet you fall in love with these characters, their stories (which are longer than just a weekly only show)–
The Great British Bake Show turns the competition world on its head.
Promoting celebrations and acknowledging failure with grace and some laughter and tears.
A different world.
Competition turned upside down.
I heard a podcast recently stating “You are living in a world that was not created for you” and I realized how true that statement was for the larger stressful world we live in.
The world we live is not the world that God created and called blessed in Genesis.
Turning to our Gospel reading this week, we are reminded that we are only in the fifth chapter of Matthew. As Morgan shared last week, we have heard of the setting of the context of Jesus’ ministry. Last week Jesus called his disciples and today he is setting the context of the kingdom of heaven. The Beatitudes are not a recipe for how then to live. Rather, the beatitudes are meant as encouragements, reminders, not new commandments. They speak to those gathered and give words of wisdom about the kingdom, or reign of heaven, those who see the divine in their midst already.
Where the divine is already right here in the now.
In a world that says the poor in spirit are weak
In a world that says the other are less than
Jesus is saying- these people in their space are the community
– not us and them-
rather WE together carry fully both the hope and the sorrow of the world.
Rather than a cutthroat, leave the weak behind, Jesus is saying all of us have been given ingredients and are creating with what we have been given and given the chance to build something.
The Kingdom of Heaven is about kin-ship not KING ship and reigning supreme.
In this reframing, we hear more clearly that heaven is both here and yet to come.
We, as the faithful, were not built for the system that we are in.
A system that promotes putting someone else down to succeed and yet we are each called in our own way to respond prayerfully, with what we have, to shed light on the divine in our midst.
To seek justice and to promote peace.
To respect the dignity of every human being.
To encourage each other and seek to build community, giving voice to those how have no voice.
So now the rest of the story of my stress baking, after cooking way too many loaves of bread and cinnamon rolls, I opened my door to share the treats with my neighbors and realized how much I had to learn about New England snow storms.
When i opened my door, i had to laugh.
On Monday morning- outside my door—Snow, every where.
In order to GET to my neighbors,
I had to put my pride filled baked goods bake inside and get out my shovel.
Yea, cause there was NO path to my neighbors.
While the roads were passable,
the drifts were thigh high and surrounded my car barring me from getting out my door much less going ANYWHERE.
So a shoveling I went and joined the neighbors….
We were laughing about my southern “what the heck is this”– never seen drifts like this before (Ya’ll it has been a while since a snow has been this deep!) and new friends sharing tips on parking in the snow, digging out and making sure all of our neighbors were okay with power and their own basic needs.
While the drifts have still not melted away yet, we made a way….
We trudged along together.
In the stress of these times, I turn to doing what we can with what we have and listening for where we can stand with each other, assist in “shoveling out the things” that stand in our way and building up the community.
As the faithful, we hunger in our hearts for community and justice and God calls us to that work.
United by bread and wine, baptism and books of common prayer
With a spirit of sacrifice and solidarity
Hearts of love and loneliness
Wonder and willfulness
We were made for kin-dom livingiv
We find a way to gather here today, to be fed and nourished to go back into the world and keep at the work of compassion, hope and love for each member of the body of Christ—resisting the systems and leaning towards the kin-dom of God.
Blessed Jesus,
up on a mountain you sat down and gathered a crowd with one word.
In naming a surprising list of those who receive God’s blessing,
you remind us of the realities of this world and the truth of your realm.
Help us to recognize that in striving for a better life for others,
we find ourselves among those you call blessed.
Amen.v
i This line was stated in the Story Corps Podcast this week about ADA Awareness month.. https://storycorps.org/disabilityawareness/ A beautiful podcast with children and parents sharing their voices in a world that was not built for them.
ii Haven’t seen it? https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/chopped Here you go, you are welcome.
iii Haven’t seen it? https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/ I mean even their landing page is full of smiles and joy!
iv Gregory Boyle speaks extensively in his book ”Barking to the Choir” about this idea https://a.co/d/a69bbpd – similar to the Ubuntu Principles, eiliminating a world view of ”Us-Them” to only US together.
v https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/readings/225/fourth-sunday-after-epiphany
"I will with God's Help" 