Jan 25 ~ What Are the Faces We Put On Because They Seem Safer Than Honesty?

Isaiah 9:1-4

Psalm 27:1, 4-9

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23  

Sermon by Joel Crouse

At some point, in our lives—because it’s responsible to do so, because living in this world should demand deep thinking—we have to stop and ask where we are being called. Where do we fit? What is our place? Where are we meant to contribute? We start our kids early, trying to teach them that choices matter. We worry about them falling into a job they don’t like, or a relationship where they aren’t loved, or a life that slowly closes in on them until they can’t remember they ever had options. We try to guide them, with lectures, and with love.

And then—quietly—we stop asking those questions for ourselves. We keep going. We assume the time for hearing a call is past. We tell ourselves, I’ve already chosen. I’m already set. I’m already committed. We treat a calling like it’s something for teenagers, or twenty-somethings, or people who still believe the world is wide open.

But this week, listening to our Prime Minister speak at the World Economic Forum, I heard a very adult kind of language about calling—about the moment when you realize the old story you were living by doesn’t work anymore. He didn’t describe the world as gently shifting. He used sharper words: a “rupture,” not a transition—an end to a comfortable fiction, and the beginning of a harsher reality.

And what struck me was the insistence that in a moment like this, the temptation is always the same: to “go along to get along,” to comply, to keep the peace, to avoid trouble—and to hope that playing the part will keep you safe. And then he said, plainly: it won’t.

To make the point, he reached back to Václav Havel’s image of the greengrocer—putting a sign in the window he doesn’t believe, because it’s easier than risking the cost of telling the truth. Havel called it “living within a lie.” And the line in the speech that stuck with me most—was this: it’s time to take the signs down.

Now, whatever you think about Davos, or world leaders, or global speeches, here’s the spiritual question underneath that image: What signs do we keep in our own windows? Not political slogans. Not literal signs. I mean the small performances we keep up because they seem safer than honesty.

The sign that says, I’m fine, when we are not. The sign that says, I don’t need anyone, when we are lonely. The sign that says, I’m done trying, when the truth is we’re afraid of being hurt again. The sign that says, I’ll forgive when they apologize, when the apology may never come. The sign that says, I’ll stay polite, when what we really mean is, I’ll stay distant. We do it to avoid trouble. To get along. To keep the peace. And it works—until it doesn’t.

That is where today’s gospel lands with surprising force. Jesus does not go to children. He goes to adults. People with jobs, and responsibilities, and routines. People who are already committed to a way of life. Fishermen with nets in their hands. People who can say, quite reasonably, This is what I do. This is who I am. This is how I pay the bills. This is what I know.

And Jesus says, “Follow me.” Not as an abstract idea. But as a reorientation of life: “I will make you fish for people.” It’s such a familiar story that we can forget how disruptive it is. It’s not simply about leaving a job. It’s about leaving a way of seeing the world. It’s about turning outward. It’s about relationship.

We sometimes imagine the disciples “immediately” dropped everything as though it was reckless. But it’s more likely that a relationship had been forming—that something had been stirring for a while—until the moment came when the decision became clear. And that’s often how calling works for most of us. Not lightning. More like a slow insistence. A holy pressure. A truth you can’t un-know.

So when Jesus calls them, it’s not just, Come learn new information. It’s, Come live differently. Come take the sign down. Come stop performing the life you’ve settled for, and step into a life shaped by compassion, courage, and community.

Because “fishing for people” is not a recruiting campaign. It’s not about tallying numbers. It’s about moving toward others with your hands open. It’s about healing what is sick. Comforting what is grieving. Making room for those the world overlooks. It is about relationship—with all the messiness that relationship always brings.

And it is risky. It would have been easier to stay fishing. They knew the lake. They knew the work. They knew the rules. Following Jesus meant walking into uncertainty—into other people’s pain, other people’s anger, other people’s need. So why do it? Because the call from God keeps insisting that life is bigger than self-protection.

Our PM used a phrase that belongs in the realm of faith: we can’t keep pretending the old order will magically come back. “Nostalgia is not a strategy.” And spiritually, that’s true as well. Nostalgia isn’t a strategy for relationships either. You can’t build a life by clinging to the version of the past where you didn’t get hurt. You can’t build community by wishing people were simpler. You can’t build peace by keeping your heart locked. You can’t follow Jesus while gripping your nets like they’re the only thing keeping you afloat.

Jesus calls ordinary people—labourers, workers, friends—and the extraordinary thing about them isn’t that they were perfect. It’s that they were willing to move toward others. They didn’t wait to be served; they served. They didn’t hold out for love; they held love out.

That is still the call. Not necessarily to leave our job or abandon our life. But to leave behind the inward-facing posture that makes us smaller. To take down the signs we’ve been hanging in the window because they seemed safer than truth. To stop “going along to get along” in the places where it costs us our integrity, our compassion, our courage.

God will hold our hand while we stand on the shore, guarded and cautious. But at some point, the voice of Christ comes with a bold offer: Come. Follow. Turn outward. Risk love.

It’s a hinge point to be sure, and it will bring unsettling change at the beginning. And then—if we let it—it will bring a life of joy, and value, and purpose. Amen

Jan 18 ~ Faith is the Courage to Stay Human when the World Pressures Us Not to

Isaiah 49:1-7  

Psalm 40:1-11

1 Corinthians 1:1-9  

John 1:29-42  

Sermon by Joel Crouse

What are we looking for?

That is the question Jesus asks the two disciples who begin to follow him. It is a question that feels almost too heavy this week — because we do know what we are looking AT in the world right now: deep fear, deep division, and the creeping sense that something powerful and unaccountable has been unleashed.

We know a 37-year-old woman, Renee Nicole Good, was tragically shot and killed by an ICE agent. A video captured what happened, and yet the story told by those in power defies what our own eyes can see. The stories have continued – people being hauled out of cars, guns pointed at protestors, threats of invasions, and actual invasions of sovereign nations as if they were part of a map on a Risk gameboard. We see the resistance to this increasing random violence, the blasting whistles, and the crowds on the streets, and we wonder if it will be enough or if it is already too late. Watching from across the border, we weep for our neighbors, ourselves, and the world.

Across social media and in conversations, people express fear — fear of unchecked power, fear of militarized law enforcement, fear that no one is accountable when someone’s life is taken. This is the lingering fear of not knowing where things are going, or whether anyone can slow them down.  This week I sat with one of our elderly members who, with seasoned fear in her eyes said, “Pastor, it’s happening again”.

So, what does the gospel have to say to this kind of fear?

One of the quiet lies we sometimes believe is that faith should make us certain. Certain about outcomes. Certain about who is right. Certain that things will work out.

But the gospel doesn’t begin with certainty. It begins with people who don’t know. John says, “I myself did not know him.” The disciples don’t truly know who they are following when they decide to follow. They don’t yet know what kind of Messiah Jesus will be. They don’t know where this road leads.

They only know that something in them says: “Pay attention.” And that matters, because fear often comes from the belief that if we don’t have answers, we have failed. The gospel tells a different story: uncertainty is not the opposite of faith. Sometimes it is the beginning of it.

Jesus does not respond to uncertainty with instructions or guarantees. He responds with presence. “Come and see,” he says. “Stay with me. Walk with me. Learn with me. Pay attention to what unfolds.”

While our fear is uncomfortable, it also tells the truth about who we are.

Of course, some of the fear we are experiencing right now is for ourselves, and what it will mean for our lives. But we are also afraid because we care about human dignity.  We recognize when power goes unchecked.  And because we know, deep down, how fragile justice and freedom can be.  This kind of Fear isn’t always something to get rid of. It is a voice to heed.

In our first lesson, Isaiah gives voice to a people who feel exhausted and ineffective.  “I have labored in vain,” the servant says. That is the voice of activists who feel unheard. Of citizens who protest and vote and still feel powerless. Of people who wonder whether kindness and restraint still matter in a world that seems to reward cruelty.  And God’s response to Isaiah is not to try harder, or to chastise him for being week. God says: You are meant to be light.  

Paul, writing to the deeply imperfect church in Corinth, does something similar. He does not start by scolding them. He starts with gratitude. “I give thanks to my God always for you,” he says. Even knowing their divisions, their egos, their conflicts. He reminds them that God is faithful—that they are not lacking in any gift needed to live out the gospel in their own complicated time.

That matters, because one of the quiet temptations in times like this is despair disguised as realism. The belief that the problems are too big, the systems too entrenched, the divisions too deep—and that our small acts of faithfulness cannot possibly matter. But the gospel never asks us to save the world. It asks us to follow and do our best.

What are you looking for?” Jesus asks.  If we are honest, many of us are looking for relief. For safety. For assurance that kindness is not foolish. For proof that hope is not naïve. The answer the gospel offers is not certainty—but presence.  And our presence in the world matters.  How can we show it when we leave this place today for an uncertain world? Surely, we do not let fear make us cruel or silent or indifferent or cynical.  Instead, we might bear one another’s burdens. When we hear stories of fear — whatever that fear is for our neighbour— we do not turn away. We stay present with them.

We seek justice with humility and courage.  Advocate for transparency, accountability, and dignity for every human being. Speak truth to power, not out of anger, but the way Jesus did: listening more than shouting,  refusing language that dehumanizes other people.  Having hard conversations, rooted in compassion. 

And we may even try to live out that baptismal promise we talked about last week. “We are called to life in community…to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” That is not a vague ideal. It is a daily practice of compassion and courage.  It requires showing up, when the path is uncertain.

Faith does not give us control; It gives us courage to stay human when the world pressures us not to be.  The gospel today does not end with certainty. It ends with relationship: One person tells another, “Come and see.”  And in following, they call others to join.

And sometimes that is how hope starts: not with power and perfect answers, but with presence and faith.  Because we are not asked to fix the world alone. We are asked to witness — to point, as John did, especially in these fearful times, toward a way of being that chooses life, dignity, and love.  Amen

Jan 11 ~ Baptism of Our Lord / God Names Us Beloved Before Anything Else

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Acts 10:34-43

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon by Joel Crouse

This week we witnessed some difficult events, First, there was the invasion of Venezuela by the United States – and the President didn’t even pretend that the key motivation was news. Despite María Corina Machado, the opposition leader winning 70 per cent of the vote in the last election and the Nobel Peace Prize last year, the White House has also alluded to her being an unsuitable leader for the country. The United States action has also made other oil -based countries in the region nervous about what might come next.

And then in Minneapolis, an American mom was shot and killed by an Immigration Enforcement officer, even though she was not the target of any investigation. Immediately the White House called it an act of self defence; a position that the video itself calls seriously into question and that the mayor of the city has soundly disputed.

Not a particularly auspicious beginning for 2026.

What has followed are all sorts of assumptions and misinformation about the people involved. But that’s what happens these days: we are offered caricatures of people, depending on which side you take, in an effort to see the human in the story, and recognize the nuance.

It happens to us too, so often that maybe we don’t even notice. This week, I was filling out an online form—one of those services that promise to make life smoother—and before I’d even finished typing, the system started guessing who I was. It auto-filled my name. It suggested my address. It offered “recommended answers.” It pulled up a profile. And for a moment it felt convenient… until it didn’t. Because underneath the convenience was a quiet, unsettling message: “We already know what kind of person you are.” That’s normal now, isn’t it? We live in a time when human beings are constantly being summarized. By metrics and categories. By comment sections. By other people’s versions of us. By our voice in someone else’s story. Even by tools that can reduce a whole human being to a handful of predictive guesses.

And not only do we do it to others; we internalize those outside categories for ourselves. We start wearing the names we’ve been given -- reliable, difficult, too much, not enough, strong, a mess, a disappointment—as if they’re stitched into us. We allow them to define our actions. We let them explain us to ourselves – and others.

That is why this day matters. The Baptism of our Lord is not a sentimental scene to move past quickly. It is a moment when the deepest name is spoken out loud, when heaven insists on naming someone before the world gets its hands on them.

Jesus comes to the Jordan. John is there, doing what he’s been called to do -- calling people to repentance, washing them in the river, preparing them. And then Jesus steps forward. John hesitates, because even John can sense that something here is backwards. John is the one who needs cleansing, the one who should be receiving -- not giving. John tries to stop Jesus.

But Jesus says, in effect, “Let it happen.” Not because he’s confused about who he is, but because he knows what he’s doing. “It is proper for us,” he says, “to fulfill all righteousness.” And he goes down into the water.

And then everything opens. The heavens open. The Spirit comes down like a dove. And a voice speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

It’s easy to hear that voice as a kind of divine compliment, as if God is saying, “Good job.” But listen more closely. This voice comes before Jesus has done anything the world would recognize as success. Before a single miracle. Before the Sermon on the Mount. Before crowds gather. Before conflict begins. Before the cross.

God speaks first. God names first. Beloved. That is the word that steadies everything that follows. It is the name underneath the story. It’s the name that will have to hold when the other names come—when people call Jesus a threat, a blasphemer, a troublemaker, a fraud. “Beloved” is the name that doesn’t change when the weather changes.

Jesus is an example to us of knowing who we are – of facing all that is true inside of us, and of not letting someone else dictate that. Even Jesus, in his humanity, comes to question that he is Beloved, right at the end – as all of us do at some point in our lives.

But we are reminded in our reading that this is how he was named – above and before all of us.

That’s why, for me, the Old Testament reading matters so much alongside the Gospel. Isaiah gives us this portrait of God’s servant—this quiet, stubborn, justice-bearing figure. “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights.” And then those lines that land like a hand placed gently on the shoulder: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.”

This is not the voice of a God who crushes what is fragile. This is not the voice of a God who labels people by their weakness and then dismisses them. This is not a God who stereotypes people. This is the God who delights. The God who upholds. The God who sees potential.

But we are not just watching Jesus get named. We are hearing what baptism does. We are hearing what God is like, and what God insists on saying. None of this erases our differences; it tells the truth about our worth. At the font, God does not say, “You are acceptable if you get your act together.” God does not say, “You are valuable if you prove it.” God does not say, “You are loved once you’re improved.” We are God’s people—loved for who we are right here and now.

The labels we carry can be heavy. Some of them were put on us by others. Some of them were written ourselves, quietly, over many years, and now we can hardly imagine not believing them. The problem with labels is that they start to feel like facts. They start to feel like identity.

These days, the naming comes fast. It comes through screens and systems. It comes through comparison. It comes through the little story we tell ourselves when we’re alone in the car or lying awake at night. It comes through that familiar internal voice that can be so sure of our limits. And when we do this to ourselves, we are quick to do it to others. If we accept the narrative that people say about us, why isn’t that same narrative true of people we don’t even know? This leads to a failure to think critically, with all the cost and complacency that results.

So maybe this is the invitation of this day. Not to try harder to become someone worthy. Not to scramble to fix the brand. Not to polish the image. But to listen again, as if we were standing, dripping at the edge of the river, as if Heaven were speaking over us what we too easily forgot:

“You are mine. You are loved. You are not up for debate.”

For when we believe we are beloved, we can tell the truth. We can risk kindness. We can become the kind of person Isaiah describes—someone who doesn’t break bruised reeds, someone who protects the dimly burning wick. Protected, trusted and loved, we can gain the strength to speak up and out, when wrong happens in the world – the ultimate path that our baptism, the gospel, and the ministry of Jesus calls us to walk. Amen