Sermons

The 2nd Sunday in Lent

March 13, 2022

As we journey through a chaotic season of Lent this year, Celebration Circle has invited us to contemplate what it means to trust in God as we wait.

The Word I bring this morning grows out of one I offered in 2004 on this second Sunday in Lent. Eighteen years ago, as we waited for our move to Carroll Street, the wider world was engulfed in the war in Iraq. It was a time of chaotic violence that felt in some ways like our world today … without the painful complications of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Today we are called to wait in in the face of many challenges – the pandemic, a war in Ukraine, civil unrest over government health mandates, gun violence, and loss of hope. How can we make it through these trying times? How can we trust in God as we wait?   

The 1st Sunday in Lent

March 6, 2022

Greetings Seekers community,

This morning I open with a quote from of our Call statement which states “Seekers Church is committed to participation by persons of all ages.  We see children, youth & adults of all ages as valuable & valued parts of our community, and desire their inclusion in our care, our ministry, and our life together”.  (Revised May 1991)

Many of us follow Howard Thurman, a professor of spiritual resources and mystic.  A quote of his in Gil Bailie’s book Violence Unveiled” really speaks to me –

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Transfiguration

February 27, 2022

Connie Sullivan and Jim Cawley offered an update on the activities of the Bokamoso Life Centre, a community center in Winterveldt, South Africa. For many years, young people from the Centre have come to be with Seekers at this time of year, but the pandemic has made that impossible since their last visit in 2020. Connie and Jim are, respectively, President and Vice President of the Bokamoso Youth Foundation, a US-based organization which supports the Centre and are in close touch with the leadership and the young people that they serve. More information about the Centre and the Foundation are available at https://bokamosoyouth.org/.

The seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

February 20, 2022

Several weeks ago, as I was reading “Merton’s Palace of Nowhere” by James Finley, I was so inspired that I thought I would share what I learned in a future sermon and so I signed up.  Reading the selections for the various Sundays listed in the lectionary, the gospel for today jumped out as just right for this purpose. I am going to share about the liberal Christianity of Thomas Merton, to which I aspire as well as the very different mystical spirituality of Teresa of Avila aka Teresa of Jesus, two very different yet uniquely inspiring Christian authors.  Then, I will discuss my reflections on today’s gospel reading in which Jesus describes the qualities of God, urges us to emulate them, and why it is for our own good that we do so.

The sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 13, 2022

To start off, I have two confessions to make:

1. I volunteered to preach because I had something I wanted to work through, something that affects all of us, and the focused effort of a sermon seemed like a good way to work through it. I’ve been working on this sermon for a month, and it’s the result of hours and hours of reading, research, and reflection, but I’m not satisfied with it.  I offer it to you as my best effort to take on something really big with the time and resources I had available.
2. I asked to preach on February 13^th because of its personal significance to me and because of how that significance ties into the sermon topic.  The scriptures for today work well, so I’m chalking that up to being a God thing.

Let’s start with the importance of today’s date.