Turning and Following
Christians must stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.
2026-11
sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org
by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Rector
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 25, 2026
Isaiah 9:1-4 ; Matthew 4:12-23
Today I think we need to begin with a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from his book The Cost of Discipleship—a book I would like all of you to read.
As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor. In the spring of 1945 he was hanged for the crime of smuggling fourteen Jews across the border into Switzerland. And while Bonhoeffer may not personally have taken part in a failed assassination attempt on Hitler, he certainly knew about that plot and was deeply involved in the anti-fascist resistance. Indeed, he began working against the Nazis from the moment they came to power in 1933.
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
Bonhoeffer died trying to reveal a great light to people who had been forced to walk in darkness—for trying to remove the yoke of oppression from their shoulders. If he had lived just a month longer, he would have been rescued by the Allied liberators.
Recall the words of Anne Frank, from her diary:
Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes ... Families are torn apart; men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.
If you were paying attention to the news this week, you couldn’t help but hear of Liam Ramos, the five-year-old with a bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack, whom ICE agents used as bait to draw out and arrest his father.[1] This is inexcusable in any situation. but note this: the Ramos family are asylum seekers from Ecuador. They are here legally, and they were following all the appropriate steps laid out in U.S. law in the hope of being able to stay.
We also learned this week that FBI agent Tracee Mergen resigned from the force after having been pressured to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Renee Good.[2] Minnesota state authorities are not being allowed to investigate her murder either. Instead, the Department of “Justice” is investigating Renee Good’s widow.[3]
ICE is a rogue agency that is not following the law. A leaked memo this week instructs ICE to abandon the Fourth Amendment completely so they can smash into people’s houses without a warrant and just take them away. Vice President Vance claims that ICE agents have “absolute immunity.” Well, the vice president is a liar. And these as-yet-unrepentant thugs may be operating with impunity for now. But there will come a time when they must answer for all their crimes. Then I will pray for their salvation and their sanctification.
Dozens of clergy were arrested this week while protesting at the Minneapolis airport. In fact, hundreds of clergy have descended on Minneapolis to join in the resistance to ICE. Among them are at least two of my friends: Anna Rieke, a Lutheran pastor from Arizona, and Amy Johnson, a United Church of Christ pastor from Federal Way.
Another pastor, Dan Hannaher from Fargo, North Dakota, wrote on Facebook: “Tonight an ICE agent took a photo of me next to my car, looked me in the eye and told me, ‘We’ll be seeing you soon.’”[4]
Episcopal bishop Rob Hirschfeld says:
I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire … to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us, with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.[5]
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
I want all Christians to understand that Jesus has a paradoxical effect on our lives.
Jesus makes no demand on us for salvation—that is a free and utter gift. Christians are those who claim that in some mysterious way, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, our lives are held eternally in God’s embrace. Our souls are both indelible and holy—no matter what. Our very existence is forever beloved by God, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. This is what we call the Good News.
At the same time, Jesus makes every demand on us for continuing growth in love—what we call in the church “sanctification.” The paradox of justification and sanctification is a key piece of Christian theology, and not all Christians understand it the same way.
If you want to lean into justification—the claim of universal salvation—you can quote Jesus from John’s gospel: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”[6]
If you want to lean into sanctification—the demand Jesus places on us to make our salvation real and effective in this life—you can quote him from Matthew’s gospel: “Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”[7]
Either way, it is clear that if there is any condition placed on us entering into a joyful afterlife, it hangs on how we treat the vulnerable in this life. Because indeed, our lives are indelible, from our noblest actions to our worst sins.
I didn’t want to preach this today. I wanted to talk about today’s annual meeting, which is going to seem so ordinary by comparison! Martyrdom should never be intentionally pursued, but it is not to be retreated from, either. Whatever the work we do on behalf of the vulnerable, it may still feel like dying. It may mean surrendering comforts we always assumed we had a lifelong right to. It may mean changing our minds about assumptions we had always held. It may mean looking deep inside ourselves and reevaluating how we go about in the world.
Every time I’ve had to do intentional work to change my ways—and that’s happened a lot—it has brought with it a kind of grief that has felt akin to death.
Yet outwardly, our work as Christians may not look all that impressive. Sometimes it just means showing up when I don’t feel like it, so that I can be present and available to those who may need me today. If you’ve served the church on an altar guild or a tech team or an usher crew or in the work of pastoral care, you know that this steady, faithful work can look so, so ordinary and safe.
But you never know when you’ll be called upon to be there for someone in a moment of crisis. That’s when the interruption turns out to be the work itself—a deep conversation, a visit to the hospital, an inconvenient demand that throws us off our assumed course—or even standing “between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”
On Friday I swelled with joy and hope when I saw the aerial photos of thousands upon thousands closing their businesses, closing their schools, taking to the streets to shout, “No more of this!”
Then yesterday morning, when I thought this sermon was finished, ICU nurse Alex Pretti was executed in broad daylight for the crime of coming to the aid of a woman ICE agents had shoved to the ground.[8] They held Pretti down. They took from him the gun he had a legal right to carry but had never drawn. Then they pistol-whipped him and shot him at least ten times.
And the administration’s response? No sorrow. No promise of fact-finding or an investigation. No, they called Alex Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and blamed him for his own execution. They told blatant lies that are easily contradicted by one viewing of available cell phone video.[9]
Anytime I catch myself feeling fearful about the future, I know I need a corrective. I need to stop everything and sit down and pray. The Holy Spirit is leading us onward and will never abandon us.
“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” This is in the present perfect tense. It refers to God’s ongoing action—not just then, but also now. We need always to draw closer to those who need more light. This is what it means to walk the way of Jesus, and it’s non-negotiable. It also necessarily involves repentance—a life of constant turning and following, turning and following.
And so Jesus calls us away from the safe work of fishing, to serve those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. Turning and following … this is the Christian life. Amen.
[1]
https://www.fox9.com/news/columbia-heights-child-ice-detained
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/us/fbi-agent-ice-shooting-renee-good.html
[3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/13/no-basis-for-investigation-into-ice-shooting-of-minn-woman-doj/88035610007/
[4] https://www.facebook.com/dhannaher, post dated 23 January 2026
[5] https://apnews.com/article/bishop-ice-martyrdom-new-hampshire-b58050770e7d40e3247d0aa3b91fe0d2
[6] John 12:32
[7] Matthew 25:45-46
