Sermons

The 12th Sunday after Pentecost

August 16, 2026

You are above us, O God, you are within. You are in all things yet contained by no thing. Teach us to seek you in all that has life that we see you as the Light of life. Teach us to search for you in our own depths that we may find you in every living soul.  Amen  (from Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter, by John Phillip Newell)

What brought me to Seekers? To answer that question I’ll share some threads of early growth in my faith life that illustrate why I came to Seekers. You may hear some familiar roots of your own story!  I grew up “unchurched,” but attribute my understanding of Jesus as the epitome of love in action to my paternal Grandmother. Her witness was what I held in contrast to the fundamentalist Christianity of empire and colonization expressed by Campus Crusade for Christ, that I wanted nothing to do with. When I learned about liberation theology from the reading to prepare me for a mission trip to Jamaica the Methodist campus minister Tom Jones was organizing, that sounded like Grandma’s Jesus I wanted to follow.

After moving from Michigan to California, I was baptized 2 years later in the United Methodist church that my Grandmother Viola attended in Napa on Easter Sunday.  That was where I heard Helen and Henry Moser teach a bible class in which we “held the scripture in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” (Karl Barth’s advice) Fast forward, I first felt the call to attend seminary about 5 years later when I was invited by my pastor, Dave Bunje to be one of the leaders at a youth camp, Christelation, where I initiatied a program for youth on experiencing God in Nature. There I met the first clergy women in my life. I’d never witnessed a woman preach and I was inspired to join their call in following God’s call to ordained ministry!

The 11th Sunday after Pentecost

August 9, 2026

In her sermon last Sunday, Trish gave us the questions Marjory raised at a recent Stewards meeting. Marjory said, “What I’d really like to know is what brought people to Seekers initially, and how has that contributed to their spiritual growth?”

This morning I’ll give you my answers to those questions and, as a bonus, I’ll add a few words about the gospel reading.

What brought me to Seekers initially was this building. The year was 2008; the season was Lent. I had recently started taking yoga classes at Willow Street studio, across the street from here. One day I saw in the lobby a flier for a daylong yoga retreat, to be held at Seekers. I signed up. I already knew a little bit about the church. My family and I were members of the Interfaith Families Project, and for a while Heather Kirk-Davidoff was our pastor. IFFP didn’t meet every Sunday; we met about three Sundays per month. On the Sundays off, Heather would often attend worship at Seekers.

The yoga retreat was my entry into this building. It was a wonderful day, led by an excellent yoga teacher, but just as impressive to me were the beauty and the spirit I found within this space. I took some Seekers fliers home with me, and started exploring Seekers’ website and then the history of the Church of the Saviour.

The 10th Sunday after Pentecost

August 3, 2026

I came to Seekers for my children; I stayed for the people I found here.

This wonderful summer series of sharing of the Word that Celebration Circle has invited us into is an outgrowth of a couple of conversations this past spring. In the Stewards debrief of the May 17 Call to Evolve all community meeting, Marjory Bankson said “What I’d really like to know is what brought people to Seekers initially and how has that contributed to their spiritual growth?” The next day, Marjory offered those questions to the Spiritual Companions group and we had rich and varied sharing, hearing each unique story.  I hope that, even after this round of preachings, Celebration Circle will continue to invite folks to engage this theme as they are inspired.

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My own answer to the first question is that I came to Seekers for my children.  Years later, when my spouse, Pat Conover and I were first getting together, he would say that I came to Seekers for answers to questions I didn’t know I had.  Pat had a higher regard for my spiritual curiosity than I did or do!  And bless him for that.

I want to tell you about a few of what we might call milestones for me at Seekers that might help me answer the second question.  And mind you, these are just a very few.  I’m not even talking about meeting and falling in love with Pat and then our  amazing wedding at Wellspring that involved so very many Seekers in so very many roles. Some items relevant to that are on the altar and I’m wearing a stole made for us and our wedding officiants by Kate Amoss.  Or the wonderful Team Seekers cycling team I participated with for many years – tee shirt is on the altar, too.

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

July 26, 2026

During our summer season this year, Celebration Circle has invited us to share from our personal faith journeys, reflecting on what initially drew us to Seekers, and how that has affected our spiritual journey since then.

That’s a challenging invitation for me. I’ve been part of Seekers Church for 50 years, so there are a lot of memories, more than I have the energy to share – or you have the interest to hear. What I’m ready to share today are a few reflections that seem relevant to where we are right now as a family of faith.

This is a time of change and growth for Seekers Church. We are approaching our 50^th anniversary as a distinct congregation. Last month we marked the 22^nd year in our own space. There are lots of conversations being coordinated for us by the Weave Team, re-evaluating who we are in the midst of lots of turbulence, including reconstruction of the neighborhood right around us in the midst of our argumentative city and the chaotic world.

So… looking back half a century, what brought me to Seekers Church, and what difference does it make? Here are a few reflections.

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

July 19, 2026

Please pray with me: Holy One in three, may the love in my heart for all your creation speak to those who hear me. May we remember the words of this season’s reflection: that you are not a distant judge nor sadist, but a God who weeps. You suffer for us and with us. May we be open to your transforming spirit. Amen

Dear Seekers, I stand before you again in a fairly short time. I stand today having heard a word in Matthew 13:1-9,18-23 from last week that shook me, and was followed a day later by a private email that fed me. It’s a familiar passage that I offer to you again. Jesus preached to the crowd: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. If you have ears, hear!”

The word that got stuck in my heart and screamed at me as I took the passage in was Incarceration. It’s a harsh word with as many syllables as the digits on a hand. The hand of a judge, a mere frail human being, who after the deliberation of twelve humans or closed testimonies, that is to say people as flawed as we all are, bangs a gavel and declares “guilty as charged” and renders a sentence that adds a lava flow on top of the hard and thorny ground of one person’s precious life. Hard scrabble, thorny, infertile, withering, dying. Incarceration is a hard and harsh reaction by a country that sings “My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty”. Swears the Pledge of Allegiance to “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all” with pride. Yet this same country gave rise to our system of grave injustice. To borrow a lead-in from a recent post on Unlock the Box, incarceration is: Punishment & Torture under the Guise of “Protection”. It is an apt descriptor of such a vast majority of the prison industrial complex. It tears at my heart and haunts me every single day. I’ve been privileged to be confided in by many incarcerated pen pals over the years, and what struck me about their stories is that they are about people whose seeds were sown on all the types of harsh ground to which Jesus refers. Yet many have managed to excavate through compacted dry soil, torn away thorns, and managed to find some drops of water. They have found a path through man’s inhumanity to man. It’s the story exemplified by Victor Frankl’s of living through the harsh reality of German concentration camps in his seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning.