Sermons

March 31, 2024

Easter Sunday

Text: Mark 16:1-8

When Paul Holmes came up here to preach a few weeks ago, he commented that Erica’s sermon of the previous Sunday was a tough act to follow. Then, during the time of reflections after his sermon, Erica said that she wouldn’t want to have to follow Paul, either. And Dave, who was set to preach the next week, said he was a bit nervous about following both of them.

Throughout the six weeks of Lent, members of Seekers’ Racial and Ethnic Justice Ministry Team have brought to us the word in a series of sermons that went beyond anything I’ve heard before in their probing of topics around White privilege and White supremacy, their relentless questioning of our assumptions and habits, and their unblinking courage in confession. Besides the sermons, we also prayed with the ministry team’s liturgy and prayers, and we watched and puzzled over and debated the evocative, changing scenes they set on the altar each week.

March 24, 2024

Text: Mark 11:1-11

I’ve always been bothered by the hoopla and Hosannas of Palm Sunday. It didn’t seem like the appropriate response to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but I assumed that was because we knew the rest of the story and they did not.   And yet…   His followers knew what the Romans did to any signs of rebellion, and they knew the Temple authorities reported to Rome. Any rebellion would be brutally crushed. If Mark was an accurate account of Jesus’ final week, waving palms and shouting for joy seemed oddly out of place.

March 17, 2024

Over the past five or six weeks, the Racial and Ethnic Justice Ministry Team (REJMT) has been leading us through the Lenten liturgy, calling us to pay attention to the harms that white supremacy has made to our church, and perpetuated through our church.  As we planned these six weeks, we thought about whether we needed to structure the content of what our team would collectively preach on, and while we ultimately decided to let the Spirit speak through each of us individually, I think at one point Peter came up with a nifty five “A”s framework for us preachers to consider – awareness, acknowledgement, acceptance,  action/accountability.

March 10, 2024

In our scripture from the book of Numbers, the Israelites were wandering through the desert. They weren’t a unified community, but rather a combination of (1) Moses and Eleazar — Aaron’s son, (2) the Levites, and (3) all the rest of the Israelites, who complained, “Why did you bring us from Egypt to die in the desert? We don’t have bread, we don’t have water, and the manna tastes disgusting!” God sent poisonous snakes among them. Many were bitten and some died. So the people apologized to Moses for speaking against God and against him and they begged him to ask God to take away the snakes. And Moses did.

March 3, 2024

“We are all the same in God’s eyes.”  “We are all the same in God’s eyes.”  We say it, but do we truly believe it?  Do we really live it? And to what extent does scripture validate it?

It’s human nature to constantly compare ourselves to one another.  Some are smarter.  Some are stronger.  Some have better jobs.  Some are more centered or compassionate.  Some drive newer cars or live in bigger houses.  Some are more articulate, have better hair or better lawns.  Etc. Etc.  Swimmers compete to see who is fastest.  Football teams strive to be “the best.”

While I love sports, I have to admit that the concepts of competition, hierarchy, caste, superiority and winner-take-all are dominant in our country and around the world, and those concepts can be damaging.  They pervade virtually every aspect of our lives and culture.  If they do better, it must mean that we are doing worse.  It seems like competition reigns supreme.  Meanwhile, we and our entire culture struggle to collaborate, cooperate, compromise and work together.