WWJD in 2026

 Sermon for Epiphany II, 2026, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY
Text: Isaiah 49:1-7, John 1:29-42

I was a late work bloomer, meaning that I didn’t start a serious career until I was 31. The opening sentences of this morning’s reading from Isaiah would have been lost on me at that age: “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away.” To be fair, few of us know what we are called to do at birth, but it took quite a while for me to hear and understand that call, and to see myself as an effective part of God’s work. My epiphany came from looking back at the false starts and dead end jobs I had that became a revelation to myself of what I had to start with. And now as I look back in semi-retirement, it is much more obvious and I wish I had started sooner on the path I eventually followed. But, we cannot live life in hindsight because by the time we become aware of an opportunity, it has already passed us by. We have to be aware in the present to see the opportunities and the new paths that are revealed to us in the moment. We have to listen now for the call to do or to act.

During this season of Epiphany we hear scripture that reveals who Jesus is to us and to the world. We heard this morning John’s proclamation of the lamb of God among us, not once, but twice. But there is an equally important revelation in this season, and that revelation is who we are, and where our place is in God’s Creation and as part of God’s work. We are not followed around by someone proclaiming our significance in the world and we struggle to make our voice heard as we are left to make ourselves known in the world. When we do follow God’s call to do God’s work in the world, our identity is revealed to the world. We are not often aware of those revelations until someone else points them out to us. And God waits patiently as we slowly discover what we have to offer to the world, to hear the call to say and do something.

Sometimes when we hear a call, we can be asked a question like Jesus asks the two people following him, “What are you looking for?” To have God or Jesus ask such open-ended questions is frightening because we feel we should have an answer prepared, that we’ve read the book, or done the homework. But that is not the purpose of these questions, to show how inadequately prepared we are for our lives. They are questions to open our hearts and minds to wisdom and to looking inward. In the act of answering them, we discover something about ourselves, a self-revelation, if you will. That revelation, or discovery opens new possibilities, new opportunities for us and will draw us to a community of people who as a whole make up a body. And that body can do more than any one person can. Answering Jesus’ question reveals what motivates us to action and who has had a similar experience that we can create a community with. It does not matter when in our lives we have these revelations or discoveries. What matters is that we pay attention and recognize them before they do pass by.

John the Baptizer, the Predecessor points toward Jesus to reveal to the world who Jesus is, and gets the attention of people who would become his disciples, students, and followers. They paid attention to Jesus and doubtless they discovered something about themselves as they listened to him. That leads us to another epiphany: our faith that comes from hearing truth in Jesus’ words is not about us, not our observance of worship, not our status in the church, not our accomplishments. Our faith leads us to work alongside Jesus, not ahead of him, not scrambling to fulfill his expectations of us. While we may walk ahead to prepare the way for him and continue working behind him, it is his work we do, not ours. 

Remember those WWJD bracelets from many years ago? They were a reminder of the question “What Would Jesus Do?” during our daily lives. When they were popular, it was about abstinence, family values, and personal piety, following what your faith community expected of you. I think we could bring back WWJD again, this time to remind people what Jesus did for those whom we now overpower, denigrate, and dehumanize. This is a revelation we need to bring to our community, a community that proudly claims “In God We Trust” on our coins as a sign that God favors America.  I hear again Jesus asking us “What are you looking for?” and I look at recent events and ask, WWJD? How would Jesus respond to what is going on in our communities and nation? It raises questions that are hard to answer, but those answers will reveal to the world who we are and what we believe about what trust in God and living Jesus’ life looks like. The answers need our full attention to cut through the distrust, vengeance, and self-righteousness that comes from people around us, people who hear a call to say and do things we do not agree with.

There are many questions to consider as we feel moved to respond to the world from our faith. How do we point toward Jesus as John did not to condemn, but to be a source of compassion, justice, and principles toward the vulnerable? How do we address social and political power dressed up as conviction of faith? How do we reveal the body of Christ to our neighbors so that we can all reject the un Christ-like behavior we see and experience? How do we reveal the living Christ, the living God to those who feel that we have turned away from those two? What we say and do has to reflect what Jesus said and did because we are presented daily with opportunities to point to Jesus as John did, and say, “This is who I am looking for in the world.” There are so many questions, and so many hard answers to give. We may need to start over, to go back to first principles, to set aside the temptation to allow emotions and politics to dictate our actions, and focus on answering Jesus’ question: What are you looking for? And we can say to the people around us, come and see, come with me and see what it means to be a part of the living body of Christ. It is the season of Epiphany, come and see.