A Eucharistic Vision

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Sermon preached at Trinity by the Sea 

Epiphany IV (Feb 1, 2026)Year A Eucharist Vision

There are weeks when I wish I could preach a sermon that changes the world. I wish I could so craft a sermon, bearing the fruit of prayer and study, that I could open a window so that what Jesus taught would be seen so clearly that we might join in his vision of reality of existence called God’s kingdom, and realize his teaching in our lives, then so caught up in that new way to see the world we would go out from here as a body of visionary Jesus followers; we would heal the divisions of our country, and make sense of the absolute madness we seem to have descended into. There are weeks, and it seems there are seasons and perhaps years that I want to preach so, and then I remember I’m only human, that there’s a lot of competition out there and a lot of money marketing for our attention, and I sometimes from there, I fall into despair, and wonder if I even want to preach at all. 

Such is the roller coaster imagination of your priest. I’m sure you have similar struggles of sublime hope and frustrated hopelessness and you might even experience the yo-yo-like self-centered oscillation between narcissism and nihilism. 

The problem with all of that is the “I” bit. I want to preach, I fall into despair, but it’s not about me. There is no party of 1 in the kingdom of God.It’s for all of us. The table is set, and Jesus is both the host and the feast we share. This is his body, we are his body. 

We are the sermon that God has written, and we are not at the end yet, so these plot twists we are so focused on or distracted by are only a small piece of the beautiful sermon God is still preaching. 

Yes, right now we are literally killing one another, tearing ourselves apart, and so was the world Jesus preached these beatitudes to when up on a mountain he proclaimed seemingly absurdly: Blessed be those who are already living in the Kingdom of God even when the kingdoms of the world continue to clash around them. 

Happy are those who dwell in God’s kingdom instead of being shackled to the worldly powers of any generation. 

To quote the translation by my professor Judy Fentress Williams in her book Holy Imagination:

Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad. 

Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth. 

Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full. 

Happy are people who show mercy, because they will receive mercy. 

Happy are people who have pure hearts,because they will see God. 

Happy are people who make peace, because they will be called God’s children. 

Happy are people whose lives are harassed because they are righteous, because the kingdom of heaven is there.” 

Now that’s a sermon that will heal divisions, and it’s
been available for 2000 years. All these elements of life hunger, grief, that we tend to look down upon, Jesus reframes as a vehicle for our blessedness. That is the vision of the kingdom of God we are invited to live in right here and now in this life, not waiting for the outer world to please our appetites, but to be so transformed by the Love of God that our appetite is for righteousness, peace, mercy, humility, and recognizing that when we feel the most hopeless, we are then ready to dwell in God’s kingdom with Jesus. Instead of avoiding those kingdom qualities, we might even go and seek them in other because now we know they are the Blessedness of God.


When we stand around this table, we stand around God’s sacred throne. It’s not somewhere else, it’s right here. When we open our hands, mouths, and hearts to receive the body of Christ, we are the Body of Christ receiving itself, becoming who we were created to become. The sacramental reality is that this flesh we have been given is animated by God’s breath, we are the sacrament of the Holy Spirit; blessed are we when we struggle with the injustice of the world, for we are beginning to notice what God has seen all along. Blessed are the bodies of corrupt billionaires and poor immigrants for they are equally God’s creatures. Blessed be the dead bodies of Charlie Kirk and Alex Pretti, for though they are now unanimated, they bear witness to the hopelessness we face, and their souls dwell united in God praying for us to see what they now see, what God has always seen. God sheds tears over our warring world, tears that will water the seeds of peace he is planting in us.  

Today when you taste the body of Christ, I pray you will taste his blessing, that you will feel his love, and you will pray for people you don’t understand by treating them like Jesus. There is no I, no party of one in the kingdom of heaven. We are all on the guest list and the seating chart will likely sit you where you might not want to be sat. Such is God’s sense of humor, and so it is that God pronounces our blessing. Blessed is the human family  when we remember we are God’s children.

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