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.
“Pentecost Sermon” by Jacqie Wallen
Pentecost
May 28, 2023
I have preached on Pentecost several times because I love the Pentecost story so much. I love that both men and women were represented among the disciples in the upper room that day. I love that though the disciples were diverse and spoke many different languages, they all could understand one another. I love their awe and wonder as the Holy Spirit descended on them in tongues of flame, empowering them to go out and be the body of Christ for the rest of the world. Each time I preach I find another theme in this story to research and contemplate. This time I have been thinking a lot about the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit, anyway? I decided to focus on that question for this sermon. In my research, I discovered there is a whole field in theology called “pneumatology” that is concerned with the study of the Holy Spirit. (“Pneuma” means breath or spirit in Greek). Most of the controversies and debates in this field are theological or historical and largely way too erudite for me. I’m more interested in what the Holy Spirit is experientially. My questions are: How do we encounter the Holy Spirit, how does it feel, and what happens as a consequence?
“Transformation Through Truth and Grace” by Paul Holmes
The 7th Sunday of Easter
May 21, 2023
Prayer: God, help me to not screw up too badly this morning.
Except for playing football in high school and college, I’ve never seen myself as fully competent to succeed in life. Per my own way of thinking, I’ve always fallen short. I’m not tall enough. I’ve got bad hair. My voice is not authoritative. I’m not sophisticated. I lack charisma. I’m a slow reader. And perhaps most importantly, I don’t really understand what I’m talking about. It follows then that whatever I say this morning will not satisfy. It will not be sufficient.
Despite that opening paragraph, I am OK. This sermon is not a pathetic appeal for pity. Rather it’s a sermon about two certainties that have been constant supports my whole life and that have allowed me to not only cope with my inadequacies, but to survive and thrive. The first certainty is God’s gift of grace. The second is the reality of white privilege that has benefitted me my whole life.
“Freedom is a Constant Struggle/Praying for Justice” by Patricia Nemore and Sandra Miller
The 6th Sunday of Easter
May 14, 2023
FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE by Patricia Nemore
David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil.
Raise your hand if you know who these people are.
I did not until about two months ago and, I’m sorry to say, I might not remember who they are if you say the names back to me a month from now. But I will remember what they did.
These men are the Greensboro Four, four freshmen at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, now North Carolina A&T State University, who, on February 1, 1960, sat down at a segregated lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in Greensboro and launched the sit-in movement.
These men are some of the many heroes of the Civil Rights era whose names do not trip off the tongue like those of MLK, Jr. or Rosa Parks or John Lewis and whom we learned about on the Montgomery County Civil Rights Education Freedom Experience that Sandra and I participated in from March 24 – April 1.
“Rock-Solid Resurrection People” by Jeanne Marcus
The 5th Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2023
When we listen to and read the Lectionary’s resurrection stories during Easter season, we often focus on what happened to Jesus: He is raised up from the dead, he appears suddenly without warning to the disciples, and later he sits at the right hand of the Father. Jesus’ message to his people after the Resurrection is that no matter what happens to the disciples then, and to us now, the Father will not let defeat and death be the final word. God will raise us up just as he raised up Jesus from defeat to victory.
It’s at least as essential that we look at the effects of the Resurrection on Jesus’ disciples. We want to see its immediately powerful effects on the understandings and actions of Jesus’ disciples. Luke presents the outward expressions of this power in a narrative form in the Acts of the Apostles, beginning with Jesus’ being lifted out of their sight, and, a few days later, the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
“Trusting the Good Shepherd, the Guardian of Our Souls” by Brenda Seat
The 4th Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2023
This is the fourth Sunday in Easter-tide. For the last three Sundays we have heard the vivid personal encounters of the disciples with the risen Christ. But today and in the following Sundays until Pentecost we move from those personal encounters to passages using metaphors, parables, or recalling episodes in Jesus’ ministry that help make sense of the events of Easter and Jesus’ earthly ministry.
Making sense of Jesus and his ministry and the events of Easter became one of the ongoing missions of the disciples and followers of Jesus. We have to remember that the Gospels were written for this very purpose, to make sense of things, not necessarily as a chronology of Jesus’ life. In fact, John’s Gospel expressly states that its purpose is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that through believing you may have life in his name.”