Sermon for the fifth Sunday of Epiphany
When I was a kid, and first learning how to ride a bicycle, I started the way most kids do: with training wheels. They were great. They made me feel safe and helped me get used to the feeling of being up on the bike.
But eventually the day came when my dad said to me, “Okay son, you’ve done great so far, but now it’s time to take off the training wheels and ride the bike for real.”
That’s when the whole game changed. Suddenly, I felt wobbly and not so sure of myself. What if I fell over and got hurt? I thought I knew how this whole bike-riding thing was supposed to work, but after my dad took the training wheels off, I wasn’t so sure it was still worth the effort.
Isn’t that just like life?
We start out with certain rules and beliefs, certain that the things we are told to believe and do are right and true simply because the people we love told us so. Those beliefs give us a sense of clarity and purpose—a framework of right and wrong—that feels grounding and reassuring in the early stages of life.
But then, for many of us, something changes.
Life, by its very nature, gets more complicated. The answers we once memorized in Sunday School no longer seem sufficient. The boundaries that once helped us make sense of the world no longer match the terrain in which we are living.
That’s when the training wheels come off—and things start to feel scary.
In moments like that, there are two very understandable and very human reactions.
One response is to retreat into rigid certainty—to cling tightly to the rules and answers that once felt safe and familiar. I don’t blame anyone for feeling this pull. It offers clarity and security, and it promises protection from confusion. But if we’re not careful, this response can keep us from asking hard questions and from truly loving people who fall outside the neat categories the system prescribes.
Another response is to give up on riding the bike altogether—to decide that the whole effort simply isn’t worth the risk. This response makes sense too. It spares us the fear of wobbling and the pain of falling. But it also robs us of the freedom and skill that come from actually learning how to ride. We can avoid pain by never trying, but we also miss out on one of the deep joys that comes with growing up.
Both of these responses make sense. The pull toward rigid certainty and the pull toward cynical disengagement are deeply human. But neither leads us into the full maturity of an adult faith—one capable of navigating nuance, complexity, and real life as it actually is.
That’s why Jesus gives us a third way in today’s Gospel.
The option Jesus offers is not a retreat to certainty or an escape into doubt, but a deeper, more demanding faith—a faith that has learned how to ride without training wheels.
Jesus says, in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
Jesus knows that what he is about to say will be unsettling to his listeners. He goes on to say things that seem, at first glance, to undermine the authority of Scripture as they understand it. He says things like, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer.” And again, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies.”
What Jesus is doing here is not discarding the Torah. He is taking the training wheels off our moral and spiritual lives.
As a faithful Jewish person, Jesus is simultaneously honoring the Torah of his ancestors and bringing that tradition to its next stage of costly faithfulness—an evolution that comes not automatically, but through struggle, resistance, and risk. That is what he means when he says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
Like training wheels on a child’s bike, the Torah is the beginning of wisdom, not its end. The purpose of training wheels is to bring a child to the point where they learn how to balance on their own. That is where real freedom of movement begins.
Emotionally, though, this moment does not arrive with freedom. It arrives with fear. The system suddenly feels wobbly. The danger of falling and getting hurt is very real.
But here is something else I learned while learning how to ride a bike: my dad didn’t disappear when the training wheels came off. He ran alongside me—not preventing the falls, but refusing to abandon me when they happened.
No matter how wobbly things got, no matter how many times I fell down, my dad was there to pick me up.
That, I believe, is what Jesus wants us to understand when he says, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
Kindred in Christ, I cannot stand in this pulpit, in good conscience, and promise you that a life of faith will be simple or easy. Life in this world is complicated, and a life of faith lived honestly in this world will be at least as complicated.
What I can promise you is this: we are not alone.
God is with us, running alongside as we learn how to pedal our way through life. We may not always be able to see God clearly, but God gives us the gift of each other—teaching us how to hold one another up so that none of us falls permanently before reaching our destination, so long as we do not abandon one another along the way.
We Episcopalians, who practice the Christian faith in the Anglican tradition, have a particular set of tools to help us live this kind of faith. For us, faith is not based on the Bible alone, but on a continuing dialogue between Scripture, Tradition, and Reason—not so that faith becomes easier, but so that it can remain faithful in a changing world.
For us, the fulfillment of the Torah is ongoing because life itself continues to present new complexities. Faith is lived by real people in real circumstances, and it must be robust enough to meet the world as it is.
It would be far easier to put the training wheels back on—retreating into rigid certainty—or to abandon the bike altogether and give in to cynicism. But the Christian faith we practice is one that asks us to stay rooted while still moving forward, trusting that God is with us and that God is not finished with us yet.
Such a faith leads us to ask questions like:
What does love require of me in this moment?
What am I responsible for, even when I am unsure?
Such a faith asks us to stay in conversation longer than comfort allows—refusing to dehumanize, choosing curiosity over contempt. It is not a faith that costs less, but one that costs more.
Immature faith offers assurance; mature faith invites accountability.
Immature faith offers comfort; mature faith invites courage.
So, as people of faith, let us give one another permission to ask hard questions without shame. Let us resist the urge to rush toward easy answers. Let us practice a love that is deeper than compliance and broader than comfort.
And when we wobble—and we will—let us remember that Jesus Christ has come, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 