2026.01.04 | Fear Doesn't Stop Us

 Fear Doesn’t Stop Us
Matthew 2:1–18

Preached by 
Rev. Dr. Marvin Lance Wiser

Eden United Church of Christ  
Hayward, CA 
04 January 2025

Fear doesn’t stop us. That is the confession we make as we arrive at Epiphany—not because fear has disappeared, but because we have learned how to walk through it.

El miedo no nos detiene. Eso es lo que proclamamos en la Epifanía, no porque el miedo haya desaparecido, sino porque hemos aprendido a seguir adelante a pesar de él. Jesús ha nacido, pero Herodes aún ostenta el poder; el imperio persiste, la violencia continúa y el dolor inunda la tierra. Herodes tiene miedo, y el miedo en manos del poder se vuelve letal. Miedo a perder el control, miedo a ser desafiado. Y así, hace lo que los imperios siempre hacen cuando tienen miedo: miente, manipula, exige lealtad, promete seguridad mientras siembra el terror y culpa a los más vulnerables.

As this series ends, Herod is still in power. Jesus has been born, but the world is still dangerous. The empire has not collapsed. Violence has not magically ceased. Mothers still weep. Power still clings to itself. And that is precisely why Matthew refuses to give us a sentimental Hallmark Christmas-card ending.

We want Epiphany to sparkle—to be about stars and gold, fruitcake, and a sweet baby held safely in his mother’s arms. But Matthew says: Look closer. Herod is watching. Lurking. Calculating. Not in some fictional “Upside Down,” like in Stranger Things, but right here in the real world. Herod is afraid. And fear, when it sits on a throne, becomes lethal.

Herod’s fear is not just personal anxiety—though history tells us his paranoia was definitely giving. His fear is political as well. It is the fear of losing control. The fear of losing dominance. The fear that someone else might threaten the system that keeps him on top.

And so Herod does what empires always do when they are afraid.
He lies. He manipulates. He demands loyalty. He claims security while producing terror. He scapegoats the vulnerable. Sound familiar?

Los Reyes Magos vienen de Oriente: forasteros y extranjeros, moldeados por otras culturas y creencias. No pertenecen al círculo íntimo, pero reconocen lo que Herodes no puede ver: Dios está obrando algo nuevo. Hacen una pregunta peligrosa: "¿Dónde está el niño que ha nacido rey de los judíos?", y esto aterroriza a Herodes. Los Reyes Magos sienten el miedo, conocen el riesgo, y aun así siguen adelante. Se dirigen hacia el niño, ofreciendo regalos no al imperio, sino a la vulnerabilidad. Luego eligen otro camino de regreso, negándose a ayudar a Herodes o a colaborar con la muerte. Esto es valentía a pesar del miedo, y es importante, porque todavía vivimos bajo el dominio de líderes como Herodes que usan el miedo para justificar la crueldad y el control.

Matthew tells us that the Magi come from the East—outsiders, foreigners, scholars shaped by other cultures, other religions, other stories. They are not insiders to Israel’s faith. And yet they recognize something Herod cannot: God is doing something new.

They ask a dangerous question: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” That question terrifies Herod. And here’s the turning point of the story: The Magi feel the fear. They recognize the risk. They understand Herod’s violence. And they go anyway.

Just like the shepherds, they don’t let fear paralyze them, they keep moving even while terrified. They move toward the child. They offer gifts not to empire, but to vulnerability.

And then—this small, history-shaping line—They return home by another way. A different road. A refusal to cooperate with death. The Magi refuse to be accomplices of Empire.

This is not bravery without fear. This is courage with fear. And that matters for us, because we live under Herods too.

Today, fear still drives political hegemony. Fear still justifies domination. Fear still whispers that violence is necessary. That borders must be enforced with cruelty. That sovereignty only matters when it belongs to the powerful.

We see this fear when powerful nations act as though the world is their chessboard. When one country assumes the right to determine the fate of another. When economic pressure, political interference, and threats of force are dressed up as “freedom.”

Let’s name it plainly: The United States’ unilateral aggression toward Venezuela is not about democracy. It is about control. It is about extraction. It is about fear—fear of losing dominance in the hemisphere. And let’s be honest, this is not an aberration, it is a pattern. 

Frederick Douglass once called this nation a “voracious eagle,” and history bears that out. Just over a century ago, President Taft, former governor of the Philippines, openly imagined U.S. control over the entire hemisphere as a moral right rooted in racial superiority, “The day is not far distant when three Stars & Stripes at three equidistant points will mark our territory: one at the North Pole, another at the Panama Canal and the third at the South Pole. The whole hemisphere will be ours in fact as, by virtue of our superiority of race, it already is ours morally.” By 1930, the U.S. had sent troops into Latin American ports more than 6,000 times protecting national and corporate interests. (1)

We don’t have to look far, sometimes only as far as federal agencies’ own social media, to see that the myths of Manifest Destiny and white supremacy are not relics of the past, but living forces in our public life.

So perhaps Epiphany calls us—especially those of us who benefit from empire—not to say, “That’s un-American,” but to admit: That is American. Interventionism within this hemisphere is not unAmerican, it is distinctly American. 

And then ask the only faithful question left: What are we going to do about it? Will we keep feeding fear? Or will we choose another way?

Paul, writing as a citizen of the Roman Empire, reminds Timothy: God is not the author of fear. There is another way.

Because the antidote to authoritarianism is not another strongman. It is not more violence. It is not domination dressed up as destiny.

The antidote is community, community in solidarity. Community that refuses to abandon the vulnerable. Community that places power in humility not hegemony. 

Matthew does not end this story with death. He ends it with movement.
With people choosing a different way, together.

The Magi do not try to overthrow Herod. They simply refuse to help him. They practice holy disobedience. And let God do the rest.

And beloved, that is often how God works, not always through special effects, but through collective courage.

As theologian Boyung Lee reminds us, “love leads us forward.” Love pushes us forward, even when the path is uncertain.

Vemos este miedo cuando las naciones poderosas tratan al mundo como un tablero de ajedrez y deciden el futuro de otros pueblos, mientras lo llaman “libertad”. Las acciones de Estados Unidos hacia Venezuela no tienen que ver con la democracia; se trata de control y miedo a perder el poder, y esto no es nuevo. Estas ideas han marcado a nuestra nación durante mucho tiempo. La Epifanía nos invita a dejar de negarlo y a plantearnos una pregunta más difícil: ¿qué haremos ahora? ¿Seguiremos alimentando el miedo o elegiremos otro camino? Pablo nos recuerda que Dios no es el autor del miedo. La respuesta no es más violencia ni otro líder autoritario, sino la comunidad: personas unidas para proteger a los más vulnerables. El Evangelio de Mateo concluye con un acto de resistencia: los Reyes Magos se niegan a ayudar a Herodes, toman otro camino y nos muestran que el amor nos guía hacia adelante, incluso cuando el camino es incierto.

The next strange and beautiful truth of Epiphany: We are throwing a party with the Magi. Not a party that ignores suffering, but a party that defies it.
A celebration that declares: life and hope are stronger than fear.

Epiphany is not polite. It is disruptive joy. But not like the deplorable display that we saw five years ago. It is strangers at the table. It is gifts shared across borders. It is refusing to let tyrants and despots decide where we go next. 

So as this series comes to an end, hear this clearly: Fear may be real. But fear does not get the final word. 

We will move forward.
We will protect the vulnerable.
We will choose another way, together.

Amen. 

1.  Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, The United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 3.