This sermon was preached on the 25th January 2026.
The lectionary readings were: Jeremiah 1:4-10, Acts 9:1-22, Matthew 19:27-end
Opening Prayer
And so, heavenly Father, as we come now to reflect on your word to us this morning, send your Holy Spirit, that we may be transformed into the image of your Son. Amen.
Epiphany and What We Mean by “Epiphany”
We have before us this morning one of the great Epiphany texts of the Christian tradition: the conversion of St Paul. In this season of Epiphany, it’s one of those moments where we see someone have an epiphany.
But what does it mean to have an epiphany?
I want to pause for a moment and remind us what that word means—and what it meant. I try to say this every year, but it’s worth repeating, because the way we speak about epiphanies today in the modern era—by which I don’t mean the last 20 years or even 100 years, but that whole period since the Enlightenment—is not what was meant in the ancient world.
If you went into a shopping centre and asked people, “Have you had an epiphany recently?”, they might describe a moment of insight: something just clicked, something dawned on them, the penny dropped. The classic modern “epiphany” is Sir Isaac Newton under an apple tree: the apple drops, he has a realisation about gravity, and off he goes and changes the world. It’s an internal expansion of understanding.
And so when we moderns say, “I’ve had an epiphany,” we mean: I had a bright idea.
(And I don’t know if this reference will land, but in The Simpsons movie, Homer is told he must have an epiphany, and he tries to have one by saying, “Bananas are a great source of potassium.” That joke made sense to one person, and that’s probably enough.)
But in the ancient world, that’s not what they meant. An epiphany was not primarily about you having a bright idea. It was about someone—or something—breaking in from outside you and revealing themselves to you. God reveals himself. Heaven interrupts earth. Truth arrives towards a person, and it changes them whether they’re ready for it or not. That’s what epiphany meant in the ancient world.
You can think of it like this: in a modern epiphany, our opinions or our thinking is changed. In the ancient world, an epiphany is a moment of encounter that demands obedience.
And the word obedience matters here. It’s like the word listen. When we say “listen” today, we think, “Hear the words I’m saying.” But in the ancient world, when you were told to listen, it was implied: listen and obey. We have to add that bit. They didn’t.
So at Jesus’s baptism, the Father says, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” I don’t think God is merely saying, “Hear the words that come out of his mouth.” God is saying: listen and obey.
An epiphany demands obedience.
Paul’s Epiphany: “Who are you, Lord?”
And we see that, don’t we, in Paul’s epiphany.
Before he becomes Paul, he is Saul: the Jewish man travelling to Damascus. He is not mulling things over. He is not looking for new perspectives. He is not spiritually curious. He is not seeking. Luke makes it very clear: at this point Saul is “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He is certain. He is convinced. He knows what he is called to do.
And then God reveals himself to Saul. He knocks him off his horse, leaves him blind in a flash of light, and arrests his thinking:
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
And Saul’s response is so helpful. He says, “Who are you, Lord?” Or you could almost hear it the other way round: “Lord—who are you?”
That word Lord is important, because Saul immediately knows he has been impacted by someone bigger and greater than himself. He’s saying, in effect: “I cannot be lord of my life in front of you. You are Lord. But who are you?”
And if you’re asking this morning, “Who are you, Lord?”—let me start by saying: that is a totally legitimate question.
How do we find out about this God who reveals himself? We turn to prayer and the Scriptures. And honestly, all of us—every day—might need to be asking that question: “Who are you, Lord?” Because Saul certainly thought he knew. He was a Bible nerd. He knew the Scriptures extraordinarily well. He was convinced he knew who God was. And then he had an epiphany, and it changed everything.
So perhaps each day we should pray the same way: “Lord, because I can’t be lord—you are Lord—but Lord, who are you? Reveal yourself to me again.”
Ananias’s Epiphany: “Here I am, Lord”
But Paul is not the only person who has an epiphany in our Acts reading today.
Did you notice how the narrative switches? From Paul on the road, to a small room in Damascus where a man called Ananias is praying. And Ananias has an epiphany too. God speaks to him. And what does Ananias say?
“Here I am, Lord.”
Or, “Lord, here I am.”
That contrast between Saul and Ananias is really helpful. Saul says, “Who are you, Lord?” Ananias seems to know who the Lord is, and he’s ready to say, “Here I am. What would you like me to do? Where are you calling me to go?”
And I’m aware that for some of us, the story of Saul’s encounter can be disheartening, because we’ve never had a dramatic conversion. We’ve never been knocked off a horse. We’ve never been blinded by a flash of light. Most of us aren’t in that position.
We might wonder, “Has God ever spoken to me? Has God ever revealed himself to me?” Maybe we’ve just always known. Always gone to church. Always believed Jesus is who he says he is. Maybe our story is quieter—more like Ananias.
But what Ananias’s epiphany shows us is that it actually doesn’t matter how the truth is revealed to you. The question is: will you obey the voice that speaks?
Ananias says, “Here I am, Lord. Send me. What do you want me to do?”
Costly Discipleship: Obedience Has a Price
So whether you’ve always gone to church, or whether you had a dramatic encounter—that’s not the main point.
In the ancient world, an epiphany resulted in obedience. It resulted in movement. It resulted in doing something.
And what are Paul and Ananias called to do? In both cases, God’s call is costly.
For Saul, Jesus says this: “I myself will show him what he must suffer for my name’s sake.” And really the rest of the book of Acts is about Saul’s life and ministry—going around the ancient world proclaiming the good news of Jesus and being persecuted for it: punished by religious authorities, harassed by civil power, enduring huge hardship as he follows the call of God.
Ananias’s call to costly discipleship is no different. God is asking him to walk into the house of a man who has come to Damascus with authority to arrest people like him. This is real danger. Ananias is being asked to step directly towards it.
So for both Saul and Ananias, obedience is a call to costly discipleship.
“Come and follow me, and I will show you what you must suffer.”
“Go and lay hands on a man who wants to imprison you—and perhaps worse.”
And that’s what we have to reflect on this morning: not only what it is to have an epiphany, but what it is to be called to costly discipleship.
Because becoming a Christian—having Jesus as Lord of your life—is not about making minor adjustments and spiritual improvements. It’s not about fiddling around the edges of an otherwise unchanged life. Becoming a Christian is about total surrender to someone bigger than you, someone who deserves to be Lord.
Because let’s face it: most of us have made a complete mess of it when we’ve tried to be in charge of our own lives.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
What does this look like practically?
Hannah and I were reflecting the other day as we tried to do an audit of the toys in our living room. We managed to take three or four tote bags worth to the charity shop—some the kids have aged out of, others were no longer appropriate.
And I remembered three and a half years ago when we first moved into that house. We didn’t have any children yet; Hannah was pregnant. I remember us designing the living room and saying to one another, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a space in the house that was for adults—where adults could talk to one another—that could be ours?”
And I see the parents laughing, and I deserve it, because—more fool me. We just happen to live in George and Ruth’s house these days. This is their environment. Over the course of three years they have wormed their way into every aspect of our life and taken over. This is their house now.
When I first married Hannah, I wasn’t allowed to bring her breakfast in bed because she was worried there would be crumbs in the sheets. Now we have Cheerios in bed every morning with the kids, and we just sleep in Cheerio dust. I mean, that’s not an exaggeration.
When God becomes Lord of your life, he worms his way into every single aspect and takes it over. “This is my life now.” And that means you can no longer do some of the things you used to do. And you must start doing some of the things you don’t want to do.
Let me give you another example. When this building was first built a hundred years ago, it was a parish church. The only bit of it that existed was the bit most of us are sitting in right now. This was the building.
And then the call came for it to become the place where the bishop’s seat would be. And that call resulted in change. Walls had to be knocked down. New walls had to be built. Huge amounts of resources had to be spent. The building expanded to fit the call of God upon its communal life.
So when Christ comes and says, “Come and follow me,” he is inviting us to expand and change our world. Certain doors will be closed forever—no longer available to us. Other rooms in our life will open that we didn’t even know existed. And some things will have to be built from the ground up.
Probably for most of us, we are not being called to sacrifice to the point of death. But all of us are being called to discomfort: where the things we want to do, we are no longer permitted to do; and the things we are being asked to do—even if we don’t want to do them—God invites us into that costly life.
So what about the call of Jesus on your life today? And what about the call of Jesus on us, communally, today? How is he calling us to change—and be changed—in this moment of Epiphany: to grow, to expand, to suffer, to repent?
The Promise: “What then will we have?”
As we close, I want us to think briefly about our gospel reading.
Peter voices what perhaps many of us are feeling, in classic Peter style: “Look, we have left everything to follow you. What then will we have?”
And fair play—the early disciples really did leave everything. Boats abandoned on the shore of Galilee. Families interrupted. Futures made uncertain. And there were further costs to come.
Jesus does not deny those costs. But he reframes them:
Anyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, or fields for his name’s sake will receive a hundredfold—and will inherit eternal life.
This is the beauty of God’s economy: when you feel you are sacrificing because of the call of God on your life, you are being invited into greater riches—“a hundredfold”—more than anything you might be willing to give up.
Saul gives up certainty, power, status, reputation. Ananias gives up safety and control. The disciples give up livelihoods and security. And in that process, they receive more than they could have imagined.
Saul does not lose his life on the road to Damascus—he finds it. Ananias does not lose his life in obedience—he discovers a brother in Christ. The disciples may lose everything physically, but they inherit more than they could possibly have asked for.
C. S. Lewis once wrote, “We are half-hearted creatures…” and his point is that we busy ourselves with small satisfactions when something far greater is being offered—joy we scarcely have categories for.
Conclusion
So friends, in this Epiphany season: would we see again the image of Christ? Would it come to us from the outside and radically change us? Would we be called again to live as the people of God? And would we know, in our costly discipleship, that we are being offered more than we could possibly imagine?
Amen.
Theology Considering Culture 