Sermons
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.
.wp-show-posts-columns#wpsp-4136 {margin-left: -2em; }.wp-show-posts-columns#wpsp-4136 .wp-show-posts-inner {margin: 0 0 2em 2em; } We are in the midst of a pandemic. . . . Just sit with that for a moment. Every morning I wake up and in those first few seconds, sometimes even minutes, I think about the day ahead, the things I need to do, and then all of a sudden this realization will flood over me. We are living in a different time and in a different reality. Recently Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, a Harvard Fellow and author of the book The Coming Plague, has been making the rounds on the news and in print media. Often called the “prophet” or “Cassandra” of this epidemic, she foretold what is happening right now . . . in 1994. In a recent interview[1] when asked what she sees coming next, she said that her best case scenario – to find a vaccine, to ramp up production and then vaccinate the entire world – would take 36 months. Thirty-six months if nothing goes wrong. Two weeks ago, Erika Lloyd’s excellent sermon called us to radical honesty. Psalm 38 gives us a template for radical honesty. It’s a psalm of lament. Before we get to Lament, though, radical honesty calls for a word of gratitude. Thank you for praying for me and my family (Kolya and Sage) before I went to Nepal. When you prayed for us, you gave us each a stole. I’m wearing it now. And when I arrived in Nepal, I was met with another welcoming stole at the airport…which is a Nepali tradition. I was sent well and was met well! …A kind of hand off from the Americans praying for me to the Nepalis who were. There is a Nepali saying “The Guest is God.” Nepalis practice a profound hospitality. I am so thankful for going to Nepal on a medical mission with the Acupuncture Relief Project. The three weeks in Nepal were three of the very best weeks of my life…profound and heart opening. An astonishing Model of primary health care. Two followers of Jesus – we know one is a man but the other could have been a woman, and if so, probably his wife — were walking on Easter day from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. In Luke’s gospel the distance is about 11 kilometers or 7 miles. They were talking about what happened during Holy Week. With that distance, they had more than two hours of walking to think about and talk over how their hopes had died with Jesus’ death. They had thought, they had KNOWN, that Jesus was the Messiah they had longed for, the one who would get rid of the Romans, bring justice to the people, bring an end to the pain and suffering that was everywhere, would usher in a new golden age of prosperity and God’s blessing. And then Jesus had been killed, crucified as a rebel to the Roman Empire, and with that all their hopes had died, crushed. They would have to wait some more. There would be no political independence for Jews, continued oppression, injustice, pain, and suffering, no sign of God’s blessing. But the danger remained: maybe the Romans were now looking for them. In college and for a few years after, I attended a huge Presbyterian church that was wrong for me in all sorts of ways, but there was a gifted pastor who preached these wonderful, often alliterative three-point sermons that I loved. So, inspired by Greg Thompson, here’s my three-point sermon on our gospel reading today: How do we make sense of resurrection in this time of viral pandemic? How are we witnesses to hope in this season of covid-19? And what, exactly, are we hoping for? I’ve been appalled at congregations that continue to worship together because they believe Jesus will protect them from getting the virus. That seems like a foolish wish-dream, magical thinking. And I’ve been inspired by the pictures of ordinary citizens in Wisconsin, who knew they were braving infection in order to vote – bearing witness as they stood for hours, wearing their facemasks as a sign of hope. Peter and I know that we belong to the most vulnerable age-bracket, and so we wash our hands and wear bandana face-masks when we go out – to protect others, in case we are carriers. I have been going to the grocery store once a week at 6:30am for perishables, and we’re updating our wills and end-of-life directives. All of that seems realistic and doable, faithful and hopeful too.“Living Stones: Building a New World” by Brenda Seat
May 10, 2020
Fifth Sunday of Easter
“Lament: From Illness to Wellness” by Mark Greiner
May 3, 2020
Fourth Sunday of Easter
“Finding Hope in Emmaus” by Dave Lloyd
April 26, 2020
Third Sunday of Easter
“In Thomas’ Footsteps: Finding Peace and Purpose Through Radical Honesty” by Erica Lloyd
April 19, 2020
Second Sunday of Easter
“Witness to Hope” by Marjory Bankson
April 12, 2020
Easter Sunday