Sermons

May 5, 2024

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Good morning, Seekers.

I want to thank the Celebration Circle for inviting me to bring the message this morning, and for my close friends who have kept me connected to this community in a variety of ways.

Moment of Silence

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, Holy One!

THEME: RESURRECTING FAITH

We live in turbulent and frightening times, and when Jeanne asked if I would bring the message, what was top of mind for me was how are we who are followers of Jesus to weather times like these.

April 28, 2024

Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Saturday of our Silent Retreat at Dayspring was bookended on either side with cloudy, gloomy days. But Saturday – Oh, springtime beauty was in full bucolic glory! What at blessing it was!  Beauty shows up especially in the Wisdom tradition of the Bible.  The Holy One is the author of beauty (Wisdom 13:3); strength and beauty is found in the sanctuary of the Holy One (Ps. 96:6). Certainly Dayspring is a sanctuary where the beauty God has created is fully evident. What if we considered the whole Earth the sanctuary of God?

April 21, 2024

Fourth Sunday of Easter

From time to time Seekers Church takes time out from its regular preaching schedule for a service of chant, prayer and reflection modeled on the worship of the Taizé Community in France. This Sunday was one such time. Repeating the chants together until they die away into the silence provides rest for our world-weary spirits as well as an opportunity for individual reflection on our faith journeys. As we joined in spirit with the monks at Taizé, we were nourished by their faithfulness as well as by their music. Our chants were accompanied and supported by Glen Yakushiji at the piano.

April 14, 2024

Third Sunday of Easter

Last Sunday, the Gospel reading was the familiar one from John 20, in which Thomas said that he could not believe that Jesus was risen unless he saw the mark of the nails in his hands with his own eyes, put his own finger in the mark of the nails, and placed his own hand in the wound on Jesus’s side. This week, as we have just heard, Luke 24:36b-48 also records a scene in which Jesus invites the disciples to look at and touch his hands and feet, saying “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And then, as if to prove that he is real and not a ghost, he asks for some fish and eats it, reminding the disciples that everything written about him “in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms had to be fulfilled.”

April 7, 2024

Second Sunday of Easter

Good morning, Seekers Family. I did not expect that I would be giving a sermon here again, yet here I am. Further proof that I do not see the future this is. The topic that I want to speak about and the scriptures I want to use are both Easter related, so when this date was open and just one week after Easter, I signed up. I am thinking that someone listening today needs to hear this message. In any event, I want to share it.

Resurrecting Faith is our current theme. My theme is a subset of that, how do we awaken spiritually and how can we establish conscious contact with God? My own spiritual awakening took place as a direct result of practicing a 12-step program. By the time I “hit bottom,” I was spiritually bankrupt. I had tried to fill the hole in my soul with alcohol and drugs. I did not understand that only God could fill it. Others try to fill their holes with a variety of mind-altering things also, like gambling, sex, shopping, watching tv, overwork, and so on. None of these things work. Only through utter defeat and surrender, an acceptance of my personal powerlessness, was I able to take my first steps toward liberation.