Sermons

The 21st Sunday after Pentecost

October 18, 2026

50 years ago today, on the third Sunday of October in 1976, Seekers Church was born. There were 19 core members who had been shaped by their earlier commitment as members of Church of the Saviour. They were attracted to Seekers rather than to one of the other five communities being birthed that same day, which was also the 30^th birthday of Church of the Saviour.

The lectionary text for today seems singularly appropriate: Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render unto God what belongs to God. Looking at a Roman coin with the Emperor’s visage on it, Jesus seemed to be saying “Pay your taxes for what the state provides, and give your energy for life and love to God’s realm here and now.”

Doesn’t that sound like a call to be a Body of Christ? To learn how to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples– calling them away from a life of getting and spending? Teaching them to drop their prejudices and welcome everyone – including children? Inviting them into deeper communion with one another AND with the least and the lonely at the margins of their world? Always stretching beyond their comfort zone to embody God’s love for all of it?

The 20th Sunday after Pentecost

October 11, 2026

“Before I start, I want to say that I am feeling hopeful this morning – there are some things that came up at work this week. I used to feel afraid, always thinking that “conflict with others” was the big bad boogeyman, mostly because of how I grew up and how we handled conflict: fighting, withdrawing, and isolating. And now, through and because of God, I have options, a way forward, a better way.”

Good morning, Seekers. I am so happy to be sharing this morning, so I am going to jump right in. As I reflected on this week’s scriptures, I think Paul offers us a place to begin. In Philippians 4:8, we read, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

The title of today’s message is “Think on These Things.” This message is the fourth in a five-part series on commitment. Next week, on October 18, many of us will decide to commit or recommit to another year of doing life together in Christ as we understand it. To me, recommitment season is an opportunity to reflect and to find resolve, and this morning I want to think out loud with you.

The 19th Sunday after Pentecost

October 4, 2026

We are humans and along with other creatures of God’s creation – we are always learning.  We witness this most greatly in the early years of children, as they learn at an astonishing rate how to move their bodies, how to talk, how to share, and how to experience the world around them. Even as we grow older, we still have opportunities for learning and growing as we adjust to other changing conditions – of our bodies, of our capacities or opportunities for new and deeper awareness or creative expression. We can choose to be life-long learners. 

The benefits of life-long learning are many – expanding our understanding of spiritual teachings, deepening our connection and solidarity with marginalized communities, and adapting our social justice actions to a quickly changing political climate.

If we get stuck in a rut of thinking, world view, or self-image out of sync with our call, we can become stuck or spiritually bereft. Or as Wendell Berry puts it more bluntly in an essay by Parker Palmer, “We’re always beginning, or we’re dead.” This came to me through the class in the School for Christian Growth that Marjory Bankson is teaching, “What is My Call Now?” Our individual call and our collective call are integrally connected to what we are learning, about ourselves, about others, and our feelings and responses to life, through being in community and with the wider world.

The 18th Sunday after Pentecost

September 27, 2026

Good morning

I’m here to talk about my approach to recommitment, as we are in the season of recommitment here at Seekers Church.  But before going there, I have been invited to respond to the earlier questions of what brought me to Seekers and how that has impacted my spiritual life.  Those questions have been the subject of a series of recent sermons and do relate to recommitment. 

Coming to Seekers

Brenda and I finished law school in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1983, and I clerked for a federal judge there for two years.  But we were clear that we needed a more international location for our careers and young family, as we had both grown up in Japan as missionary kids.  I went to the senior pastor of the progressive church we sometimes attended in downtown Kansas City and asked if he had a church recommendation for us in DC, where I had just landed a job at a big law firm.  As I recall, the pastor had only one suggestion – the Church of the Saviour. 

The 17th Sunday after Pentecost

September 20, 2026

At Seekers, we have entered Recommitment Season. This is the period of time leading up to Recommitment Sunday (the third Sunday in October) during which members of Seekers are invited to examine their commitment to Seekers and decide whether they are called to recommit to Seekers for another year. Today I want to talk about what commitment means at Seekers Church and the role mission groups play in commitment.

The first thing I did when I started preparing this sermon was to look back at Elizabeth O’Connor’s book, Call to Commitment. She wrote this book in 1963 as a member of the Church of the Saviour, from which Seekers evolved. Rather than treating church primarily as a place to attend worship, the Church of the Saviour understood it as a community where people discerned their call, made commitments, and supported one another in living them out. Its members formed small groups and specialized ministries, including work with people experiencing poverty, homelessness, and other forms of marginalization. Seekers has maintained these traditions.