The Third Sunday After Epiphany 2023

Wesley envisioned and organized Methodism to be a school for holiness, that is, a community of prayer, study, worship, service, and accountability through which we learn how to love God and love neighbor.  Discipleship then, is a way of life, it is about how we learn from Jesus to be human the way God intends for us to be human.  In this week’s reading from John (13:12-17), Jesus teaches us that if we are to be counted among his friends then we must follow his example of downward mobility.  “You are my friends, when you do what I command you to do.  Love one another as I have loved you, and give your life away for others.” (John 15)  Jesus, our Teacher, who is the divine Word of God, emptied himself and became a servant, both to wash the sin and brokenness from our lives, and to teach us, to give us an example of what it means to be fully human.  Learning from him, we experience freedom, joy, and abundant life.