Sermon for Sunday, January 25, 2026 || Epiphany 3A || 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

There is so much going on in our world today, from armed conflicts stoked by authoritarian overreach to civil wars in overlooked parts of the globe to the rising stakes of climate catastrophe. As a country, we must band together against state-sanctioned violence, hatred, xenophobia, and the scapegoating of vulnerable groups. Closer to home, our neighbors need stable, affordable housing options, food security, and better health outcomes supported by reasonable healthcare insurance. All of these crucial issues are swirling around us as we come to worship God here at St. Mark’s this morning. And while I am not going to address these issues directly in this sermon, everything we do here helps us respond to the needs of the world, as we partner with God in God’s mission. Because today is the day of our annual meeting, you can think of this sermon as a “State of the Church” address. And what better way to talk about the state of the church than to talk about how we are engaged in God’s mission of healing and reconciliation.

If you’ve been around during any or all of my twelve years as your rector, you might have noticed that we don’t have a “mission statement” at St. Mark’s. What we have, instead, is a “mission prayer.” At the end of every Sunday service, we pray the Postcommunion Prayer. And I add two more words to the name of this prayer. You know what I call it, right? The Postcommunion Prayer for Mission. Our mission as God’s people coming together in this place at this time in this way springs directly from the second sentence of this weekly prayer: 

Send us now into the world in peace,
and grant us strength and courage
to love and serve you
with gladness and singleness of heart;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is our mission: to be sent out for the purpose of peace, relying on God’s strength and courage, and to love and serve God gladly through the power of Christ. We do this with “singleness of heart,” which is a deliciously ambiguous phrase because it can mean two things. It can mean “each person’s singular focus on this mission.” AND it can mean “all of us together as if with a single heart beating.” We don’t have to pick. As we live out God’s mission, we can do it with singular focus and as the Body of Christ whose heart beats for love and service. In this, we embody St. Paul’s words in today’s reading to the Corinthian church: “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

To align ourselves in unity of mind and purpose, we’ll spend the rest of this sermon talking briefly about seven ways we live out the mission of God in the Church: Worship, Community, Stewardship, Education, Evangelism, Charity, and Justice.

We begin with worship because worship is the primary element that sets the Church apart from other nonprofit and community groups. We worship God not because God needs to be appeased, but because God’s very nature as the Foundation of all Being draws praise forth from us. We worship to get outside ourselves, to remind ourselves that we are not the center of the universe, to connect with the Fabric of Reality, which stitches our threads into existence with the needle of love. In the Episcopal Church, our worship springs from words written thousands of years ago, in the case of the Bible, and hundreds of years ago, in the case of the Book of Common Prayer. Our structured worship lends structure to our lives when we participate with regularity. Worshiping God grants us the stamina, the renewal, and the wonder to engage in other the parts of God’s mission.

One of those parts of God’s mission is the nurturing of deep, caring, and enlivening community. This community begins in our worship as we welcome people into our piece of God’s family through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Then, week in and week out, we practice Holy Communion together to nourish our community, sharing the Body of Christ as the Body of Christ. We take care of one another in body and soul, visiting the sick and lonely, crying and laughing together in equal measure, and holding each other up when we’re on our last legs. At its best, our community is porous – not closed to outsiders like an exclusive country club, but open to all who would join us and who invite us to join them.

Our community needs material support for it to thrive, and so we come together to practice stewardship of the resources God has blessed us with. We give the gifts of our time, our talents, and our financial resources to God’s mission at St. Mark’s, recognizing that all our giving is really giving back to the God who graces us with all our gifts. Our giving back reminds us that God gives us so much more than the resources we have personal access to, and so our stewardship expands to include promoting the sustainability of God’s creation.

We also are responsible for the stewardship of our minds, and so an important part of God’s mission at St. Mark’s is the education of both children and adults in what former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry calls “The Jesus Movement”; that is, the active, present, and alive following of Jesus the Christ that catalyzes our growth into our truest and most authentic selves, the people God made us to be. Our approach to education in the faith is not one of easier answers and doctrinal memorization; rather, we seek to expand our sense of the wonder and mystery of God, even as we ground ourselves in ancient holy texts and timeless spiritual practices.

One of these spiritual practices is the work of evangelism. Out of all the parts of the mission of God, this is the one that causes us Episcopalians the most angst. But when practiced with love and authenticity, our call to spread the message of Christ’s good news fills us with great joy. We practice evangelism in both word and deed, not seeking to “save souls,” but to share the enlivening grace that God showers upon all people.

Our living of the good news of God’s eternal love, as embodied in the person of Jesus, sparks our works of charity, the using of our own bodies to aid others who lack the resources to thrive. We partner with social service agencies to help those who are mired in poverty to meet their everyday needs. In this, we live out Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 that we serve Jesus in the persons who are regarded as the least of the members of Christ’s family.

But works of charity are not enough to fulfill God’s mission, for charity alone does not change the systems of oppression that make charity a necessity. And so God calls us into the work of justice. We confront unjust systems by building relational power that brings people together from all walks of life in order to alleviate specific suffering in the structures of our society.

Worship. Community. Stewardship. Education. Evangelism. Charity. Justice. These are seven ways we live out the mission of God through our life together in the church. These are seven ways in which God sends us out into the world in peace, granting us strength and courage to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart. I invite you to join me and the rest of the members of St. Mark’s to claim a piece of each of these seven ways in your own life, remembering that you have the support of this wonderful community of faith walking hand in hand with you as we follow Jesus together.

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Photo by Jo Coenen – Studio Dries 2.6 on Unsplash.