Seekers recognizes that any member of the community may be called upon by God to give us the Word, and thus we have an open pulpit with a different preacher each week. Sermons preached at Seekers, as well as sermons preached by Seekers at other churches or events, are posted here, beginning with the most recent.
Click here for an archive of our sermons.
Feel free to use what is helpful from these sermons. We only ask that when substantial portions are abstracted or used in a written work, please credit Seekers Church and the author, and cite the URL.
After the Wrestling Comes the Blessing
Erica Lloyd
November 17, 2024
Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
I often start my sermons off with some kind of disclaimer, and this one is no different: when I agreed to preach a few weeks ago, my focus was entirely on how to frame our discussion, and it somehow did not occur to me that this would also be in the aftermath of the election. I feel profoundly ill-equipped to be preaching in this context.
But maybe today’s lectionary is of help. Jesus talks of power, of wars. These were, I imagine, topics that provoked some anxiety among the disciples. “When will this happen?” They ask, as if a timeline might make it all less scary, less unknown, less apocalyptic.
Three Widows and a Post Election
Margreta Silverstone
November 10, 2024
Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost
On this post-election Sunday, with preliminary results in and candidates already conceding the race, I intend to give us all time to hear each other. We have been doing that already, some of us, via the emails that have been sent out on the Seekers email communication channel. I have been appreciative of the ping of new mail from another Seeker with a poem or prayer or recording, but it is not the same as being in person together.
For All the Saints
Marjory Zoet Bankson
November 3, 2024
Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Text: John 11:32-44
Today we celebrate all the saints who have gone before us – people who have shown us the way to live God’s intention for human life.
Although we may have grown up with a definition of what it means to be saintly as being exceptionally pious or bearing burdens without complaint, today we can broaden our definition of sainthood to include people who exemplified wholeness or completeness. In the class that John Morris and I led recently, we recognized that the root word for salvation is the Latin word salvus, which means wholeness or completeness. In other words, Saints are people who show us the way to new life. They are juicy! Compassionate! Connected to God’s evolving design for creation! As Howard Thurman says, they are people who are fully alive!
Finding the Deeper Truth
Peter Bankson
October 27, 2024
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
INTRODUCTION
For many years in worship at Seekers Church we have designated the weeks between our annual recommitment and the beginning of Advent as our “jubilee” season, a time of celebration and restoration. We came to that image to acknowledge the time between recommitment and Advent. These weeks leading up to the observance of Thanksgiving, as a time of gratitude, rooted in traditions celebrating the harvest, the time to gather together what we will need to sustain us over the winter.
Committed to Being Opened Up
David W. Lloyd
October 20, 2024
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Dearly beloved, I am speaking today to those of you who are going to make a commitment to Seekers Church for the first time. I hope the rest of you listen because everything I’ll say also pertains to you! Almost everyone who has worshipped here has commented that Seekers Church is different from other churches in which they’ve worshipped. Yes, and Recommitment Sunday is one such difference. Recommitment Sunday is a tradition from the Church of the Saviour that Seekers Church has faithfully kept since our founding fifty years ago as one of the Church of the Saviour sister communities. Of the Sundays that require each Seeker to prepare for, Recommitment Sunday has always been third, behind Easter and Christmas. It is always observed on the third Sunday of October, the day on which the Church of the Saviour was founded in 1947.