Year A: Epiphany Sunday | Matthew 2:1-12
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
January 11, 2026
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page (available for three weeks after the date of streaming).
Part of how I prepare my sermon each week is to work through a fresh translation of our New Testament readings.[1] The purpose for that is two-fold. First, I want to make sure I’m catching grammatical nuances that we often miss in English—things like verb structures that suggest the object of the sentence is the one doing the action or contrasts of objective and volitional negation (the idea of inability versus unwillingness). The other reason is that over the past 644 years of having the Bible in English, our culture keeps redefining words, turning what had been loose connotations into denotations while abandoning earlier meanings.
This is what I talk about with things like faith and belief. Today we use those terms in a sort of mystical or intellectualized fashion, “faith” essentially being the object of what I “believe”—what I think or hope—to be true. But that isn’t remotely the way the Bible is using the words.
The closest English term we have for the single Greek word behind “faith” and “believe” in our time would be “pledge,” where a pledge is both the promise that I make and the action I take to fulfill that promise. Shifts like these aren’t intentional, like someone’s trying to mislead us or corrupt “God’s Word.” It’s more like the movement of land masses, where over the centuries our usage has drifted to the point that, despite our best efforts, we aren’t actually standing in the same place our ancestors were.
My latest focus of intrigue has been the word “lord.” One problem with that term in our modern world is that, as a counterpart to “lady,” it unnecessarily draws as much attention to the biological sex of its object as it does to the role or position, which is what the word should be emphasizing. We Americans love to distract ourselves with semantics, so if I can find another term that avoids turning attention elsewhere, basic communication theory suggests I go with that instead. But a more significant problem is that the way people used the word in Jesus’ time simply doesn’t fit how we understand the term.
It appears that nearly anyone in First Century Rome could be referred to as kurios[2]—the word we translate as “lord.” It seems to function at least as much as a term of respect as a position of authority. God was kurios.[3] The emperor was kurios. Jesus was kurios. The guy managing the vineyard or running a shop was kurios. We could translate it as “ruler,” but that’s a little too formal for some situations where it appears. “Boss” sort of works, but that can come off as too informal. “Sir” doesn’t have enough weight.[4] Finding an appropriate substitute is enough of a challenge that most of us just give up and use the traditional translation.
But like faith/believe/pledge, this is where we need to look at our own language to find a solution. For quite some time, we’ve defined “lord” as “one having power and authority over others” or “one that has achieved mastery or that exercises leadership or great power in some area.”[5] We look at it in terms of position, a designation for dominance within a hierarchy. But that, in fact, is yet another result of linguistic drift!
In the oldest usage of the word, “lord” is a term of function, essentially a quick job label, like actor, or carpenter, or professor. It’s a contraction of Old English terms meaning “bread guardian,”[6] or what we might call a “breadwinner.” The lord was the person who ensured the community had enough food and other necessities, the one responsible to provide for everyone’s needs and well-being. The position was important, but the authority that eventually developed alongside it—and supplanted the meaning—was secondary to the role of the person within their society.
Although it still sounds odd to us, substituting “provider” for “lord” works fairly well across all the ancient usage for kurios. A shopkeeper provides goods to buyers. A vineyard manager provides pay to employees. A Rabbi or teacher provided wisdom and life-skills to their apprentices. The emperor provided peace, stability, and order, along with all the good of daily life that resulted from those things. God, then, was the ultimate Provider, offering life and existence and sustenance to all Creation.
Now, that all probably feels a long way from our Bible readings or from Epiphany, the major Church feast we commemorate today. But this contrast of self-existent authority with basic, practical function is important.
As a king, Herod was supposed to function as a “lord”—as a provider for the people of Judea. It was his job to be outwardly focused, to care for the needs and safety of the populace. Other people were tasked with protecting and looking out for him. But rather than being a provider, he ruled as a tyrant, seeking to enhance only his own glory, authority, and power. Any good that might trickle down to the people was secondary to his own comfort and well-being. He hosts the magi[7] lavishly to make himself look rich; he consults his experts as a front to make himself look smart; and he lies to his guests to make himself look pious and benevolent. And for those less familiar with the story, in a few verses, thwarted in his plot, he uses those same riches and smarts and piety to butcher all the babies and toddlers in Bethlehem.
So the magi, who were most likely priests from a non-Abrahamic religious tradition, are the actual lords in this tale. They’re the ones who provide gifts and honor to this seemingly ordinary child, one who they, in turn, recognize as a lord who will offer provision to all those who seek him.
In our day, when hierarchy and authority prefer to express themselves in violence and domination, we need to remember the truth of what it takes to be “lord”—to be Provider. Modern human power structures operate at odds with the Divine, and we need to be careful not to read our customs and practices onto God. Greatness—or contentment, for that matter—will never come from focusing on the self. It simply can’t, no matter how much we might want it to. Along with that, worship of a self-obsessive god will never lead to life.
The nature of the true God, and therefore the nature of reality, is to give, to provide, to truly function as “Lord” in the purest sense of the word. God creates worlds with resources to sustain life for eons. God brings life to beings within those worlds and creates thriving diversity. God continues to offer sustenance, drawn from the same life and resources God has already provided, to enhance and nourish other life. Ultimately, God offers the raw essence of themself so that which is not God may continue to flourish and prosper and succeed in the roles laid before each one of them.
To draw the magi to Godself, God didn’t send a black hole—a cosmic mass that simply devours and consumes, that can bring only darkness and desolation. Rather, God sent a star shining outward, one that might illuminate those willing to seek God’s truth.
In light of that, then, how should we—people who claim to be children of God and Images of God—live? How might our own stars rise? Will we follow the pattern of earthly rulers, those we falsely term “lords” who provide only for themselves? Will we drain life, resources, and hope from the world and people around us? Will we make our own darkness, greed, and ambition—the worst aspects of the self—the center of our universe? Will we honor and worship those who do just that?
Or will we, like the magi, take God’s warning, and turn another way? Will we return to our truer selves by a better though less familiar path? Will we recover our understanding of who the Lord really is—our Provider, our Sustainer, our Protector and Guide? The one who unifies and offers life, who gives of themself so others might thrive? Will we choose to reflect “the light [that] shines in the darkness, [one] the darkness [can]not overtake”?[8] Will we ourselves make the effort to rise like stars, to offer meaning and guidance and hope? Are we willing to follow our Lord to the point that we, too, don’t simply proclaim but ultimately become the Light of the World?
[1] I work with the Hebrew ones if I have time, but it’s a much more confusing language for me.
[2] κῡ́ριος
[3] The equivalent Hebrew term is “adoni” (אֲדֹנָי)
[4] And continues to reinforce the unnecessary gendering that “lord” does.
[5] Both from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lord, accessed January 10, 2026
[6] hlāfweard
[7] Both “wise men” and “kings” are exceptionally poor translations of the term, which was a title used among Zoroastrian priests and, based on linguistic structure alone, needs not be inherently exclusive to men.
[8] John 1:5 | NRSVue