Sermons

Paul Holmes

February 9, 2025

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

Luke 5:1-11

They were bone tired.  They had worked all night and had caught almost nothing, and then along came this guy, who wasn’t even a fisherman, and he urged them to again let down their nets.  Even though they knew it was totally futile, these future disciples did as Jesus asked, and were rewarded with more fish than their nets could hold.

Mary Mehala

February 2, 2025

Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

 Good morning, Seekers. This was a tough week I tell you. I am looking forward to taking David and Marji’s class because in these deeply troubling times my spirit is so grieved, that I need help to see Jesus, and to grow in my understanding of the spirit of God. If I am going to remain faithful to the end and trust God in all things, I need help, because like Daniel I want to stand and walk in the fire, and like Daniel I cannot walk alone.

Adam Greene

January 19, 2025

Third Sunday in Epiphany

So I haven’t given too many talks like this. And I tend to not want to do it reading. And so what’s going to come out? I’m not entirely sure, but there’s a lot of kind of different things floating around.

I have very present that we’re having an inauguration tomorrow. And incidentally, I spoke for Eighth Day, the day just before the election. So it seems like I’ve had the opportunity to be in a little bit of a crucible when giving these talks, and from a certain point of view, I could say that there’s a lot of complexity, there’s a lot of different things that I want to to say, but in a certain way, it feels like that complexity is a little bit of an illusion, in the sense that … I had an experience last night like, I’m like  waiting for it to sort of click right? “What am I going to talk about?” And I’m not even sure how I’m going to put it into words. But the experience was: it was simple. There was a kind of a deep love which I recognized that has always been there. A lot of dreams were coming back to me that I realized I had had. And it was almost like, you know, a lock. When you put a key into a lock, there’s a lot of different gears—right?—in the lock sometimes, and it’s just sort of a matter of turning it and it opens. That is kind of what happened to me last night. And I guess, you know, now I’ll sort of get into some particular details and so see where we go with this.

Brenda Seat

January 12, 2025

Second Sunday in Epiphany

We have an interesting set of texts to work with this morning:

Over the past weeks of Advent and through to this Second Sunday in Epiphany, I have been noticing how many blessings have appeared in our lection readings.

We have heard the blessing of Hagar, of Mary, of Abraham and Sarah, Elizabeth’s blessing of Mary when she comes to visit; the blessing of Hannah, Mary blessing God in the Magnificat,

Marjory Bankson

January 5, 2025

Epiphany Celebrated

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

Today we celebrate Epiphany with the story of three wise men who came with their gifts to honor a new king of the Jews. It’s a simple story, perfect for the finale of a Christmas pageant.

My favorite image of Epiphany is this carving of a fish which I bought from a street vendor in Guatemala. It shows three well-dressed women with increasingly-large halos as they approach a gold-domed church and a very bright star overhead. On the other side, common people carry baskets of food toward the same gold-domed church. I love the mixture of messages here. The wise women drew me in and at least the ordinary folk are on the same fish, if not the same side.