An epiphany is a moment of discovery. Suddenly you understand. …was blind but now I see… describes an epiphany.

The Sundays after the Epiphany invite us to discover who Jesus is, in a few well-chosen episodes. The first of these episodes is upcoming. Jesus is baptized in the Jordan.

Baptism means you belong, you have a place in the world and a purpose in life. The Christian life begins in baptism.

Our baptisms follow Jesus’ baptism. He jumps into the waters of the Jordan River and we jump in behind him. What he does after his baptism is what we try to do. Because he was baptized, we are baptized. Because he belongs to God, to the earth, and to eternity, so do we.

As we begin the new calendar year together, I want to speak about the central ritual of our church, Sunday morning worship. We’ll think about why we do what we do, why we have a choir, greeters, assistants, acolytes, readers, why we go to church in the first place, and how we should act there.

We’ll begin this Sunday by talking about gifts.  We are gifted and so we take on roles in the world according to our gifts. We start each Sunday morning liturgy by acknowledging that life is a gift from God, but that there is a problem with that: we don’t know what to do with our gifts. We don’t know what to do with our lives. We make mistakes and bad decisions. We hurt ourselves and other people, and often don’t care that we’ve done these things. The confession and the Kyrie acknowledge this tragic and undeniable fact about human beings. So we confess, ask for forgiveness, draw near to God through Christ and are filled up again with the word and sacraments.

The choir rehearses at 8:45 am. If you have a voice you are invited to sing in the choir.

Offering envelopes are on the table in the narthex.

Faith formation for our children at 11 am.

Prayer group at 11 am.

The council meets Monday at 7:30 to finalize the proposed budget for the January 24 semiannual meeting.

Wayland Food Pantry in January: pudding, cake and brownie mixes.

The flower sheet is on the bulletin board. Take a moment to sign up for flowers for a Sunday or two. Sign up for a whole month if you want!  Give flowers in memory or in honor of someone or of some event. Thank you to Mary Ann and Carol for their attention to the flowers and the indoor plants of the church. I hope to write a separate email in the next couple of days about flowers.

Semiannual meeting of the members, Sunday, January 24 at 11 am. This is our budget meeting which establishes our spending plan for the year.