January 4, 2026 Epiphany Sunday, First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA
Isaiah 60:1-6 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 2 For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. 3 Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4 Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together; they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried in their nurses’ arms. 5 Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you; the wealth of the nations shall come to you. 6 A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
Matthew 2:1-12 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9 When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Mind the Light.
Not just any lightbulb, but that Light about which our Scripture speaks this morning.
It’s Epiphany time – even though the official Epiphany Day is the 6th, we’re celebrating it today – that’s why we read the story of the arrival of the Wise Men this morning. The Wise Men followed a Star to the baby’s side; and it’s that Light we’re going to explore this morning.
Mind the Light.
Matthew’s story tells us that three scholars came out of the East – that is, from Iran (Persia, in those days), and maybe even from India – to tell the story of what they had learned. In the story, because this is how they understood scholars, the three men are described as magi, or astrologers, people who today we’d discount considerably, and probably not listen to… but back then, they were enormously important people, who the story said had travelled far distances to honor the newborn king.
For us, today, the important thing to note is that all this begins with Light. They say, “we saw a bright star” and so they decided to follow the star… Because they paid attention to this light, they came to Bethlehem and met Jesus.
The reading from Isaiah also points us toward the Light. It tells us that the glory of the Lord is a Light that will lift darkness from our world. And it reinforces the lesson from the Magi – when it says “lift up your eyes and look around”. The Magi looked around and set out on their journey, and Isaiah calls on all God’s followers to do the same.
Sounds simple, right? But we don’t find it easy to do. King Herod heard of the light, and instead of instantly following, he sought to blot out that light. And as the story says, the Magi listened not just to Herod’s words, saw not just the shadow of his soul, and went home by another way. They were not going to follow the unseeing eye of the closed mind.
Mind the Light.
Light isn’t always the brightness of the sun or the glow of a lamp. Sometimes, it’s the warmth of a heart. It’s God’s Light we’re looking for and when we pay attention to that Light, we find illuminating moments.
Minding the Light is about paying attention, in love, to the world around us, to our communities, our church, our families, and seeing there not only what is, but what can be, as we do our best to follow that Light.
Sometimes minding the Light is easy… but sometimes it takes real intentionality, real effort to see what is there, what might be there.
Quaker author Brent Bill tells the story of a favorite necktie he often wears at conferences on “paying attention”. He asks people to tell him what they see on his tie… and it turns out that when you first look at it, what you see is a solid color tie with little dashes of color. Cute, maybe even Christmas-y, but nothing special. Then he invites people to come up and check the tie out, close-up, because it’s part of his presentation.
“Then people look up. Even from across the room, they try to see the tie and figure out what I mean. What they see is a maroon tie with bits of gold, brown, and blue on it. After the presentation, folks will come up to me. Some slyly try to make conversation while checking out the tie. Others just grab it, lift it close to their face, and begin scrutinizing it. “Ah, dogs,” they’ll say and smile. Yes, the tie is filled with all sorts of whimsical dogs.
“That’s not all,” I reply.
Many of them frown, sure they’ve paid close attention. They squinch their eyes and look some more. Then, usually a small chuckle: “Fire hydrant.” Yes, toward the bottom of the tie, in midst of all these doggies, is a tiny pink fire hydrant, placed there by the Savannah College of Art & Design alumna Robbi Behr.
Behr, a textile artist and illustrator, has a full line of these quirky ties—full of cheese and one little happy mouse; toilets and one with the seat up; frogs with one catching a fly. They each require that observers pay attention. It’s not a paying attention to something that obviously needs paying attention to, such as when you see an M.C. Escher print. Rather, it’s that a necktie with dogs is sort of ordinary—so ordinary that we often don’t truly see it.”[1]
Minding the Light is about paying attention, with love, to the Light around us, active and growing our world.
Here’s another thing for us to learn today: there are a lot of false lights in our world. And even though we might not realize it, we can be led astray.
In this coming year, for instance, our church will be making a lot of really important decisions. And where we go with those decisions is going to depend on what kind of light we see, whether or not we’re looking with intentionality, and maybe even whether or not we’re tired or discouraged or upset.
Light looks different when you expect good things to happen. It’s harder to see when the world is turning bad. If you’re already discouraged about your life, a healthy light, one that leads into a strong future, can be so hard to handle that you turn away from it.
One of the reasons we congregationalists make important decisions as a group is that the group is less likely to be led astray by momentary discouragements than any single person, But that doesn’t mean that a single person can’t have an effect on the group.
Years ago, a church I was serving was choosing a new carpet for the fellowship hall. We had narrowed things down to two choices – grey with red flecks or red with grey flecks – and agreed to make the decision after church one Sunday. The time came, and most everyone wanted grey with red, but then one person, the president of the Women’s Fellowship, made a passionate plea for the red with grey. No one had realized she cared that much for the color, but . . . She changed everyone’s mind on the color that day.
And sometimes that one person is too influential.
By the following Sunday, we’d all learned that her husband had discovered her talking to her boyfriend on the church phone just before we made our decision. That’s why she was so wound up. We gathered after church, talked it over, and re-did the vote. This time, the grey carpet won out.
We discovered that day that people who are upset about one thing can work out their feelings in other places… and that’s not always a good thing. Their anger, their feelings, can lead them, and us, in wrong directions.
In the greater scheme of things, the color of the carpet wasn’t all that important – and it’s long-since been replaced by easy to clean tile – but the principle is still true. Where we are psychologically can influence what we see, hear, and do.
This will be an important year for us, and what we will see, how we will follow God’s light, will be deeply influenced by our hopes and expectations. We will need to be aware of all the pressures on us, pressures which might make us mis-read the Light.
I know that all of us are concerned about our future. We’re smaller than we used to be. Our money isn’t as abundant. People do not come to church the way they did fifty, or even twenty, years ago. The future, for us, is not signed, sealed and delivered the way our parents could assume.
All of that is true, But they are not all that we have before us. For to pay attention only to those challenges and yet ignore every good sign we have, would be to let the gloom take over the light. We would not be minding the Light.
Yes, we face challenges. Where is the light to be found in these circumstances? What do we have to hold onto, what gives us hope, in these challenging days?
We have love. We have people who continue to care for one another, who care for our community outside our doors.
We have people. We have some of the best leaders here that it’s ever been my privilege to work with. Your leaders know what they’re doing; they’ve paid attention to the world beyond our doors; they’re devoted to discerning our future, minding the Light still to come for us.
We have vision. Together, we see a way forward.
Our leaders have opened us up to service to our community in new ways, ways that better fit our strengths and abilities.
Our church has begun to reach out to improve our offerings for children.
We’re working to improve getting the word out about what we’re doing to the community around us.
Later this month, we’re holding the first Parking Lot feedback session, and out of that, we expect to make plans for our Parking Lot management this summer.
Our Search Committee has prepared, and now shared, a Profile of our church, a task which called forth extended looking for the Light in our world.
We’re now expecting to see applications from interested candidates. The Committee has built a strong relationship with the folks at the denomination to make sure that the candidates who apply are qualified, prepared, and ready to work with us.
Yes, in the year to come, we will face challenges. I invite you all, us, together, to seek God’s Light together. And together we aim to Mind the Light which guides this church, bringing us every closer to God.
Amen.
© 2026, Virginia H. Child
[1] Excerpt From Mind The Light-Kindle-Final (1) J. Brent Bill This material may be protected by copyright.
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 