Sermons

Mary Mehala

November 24, 2024

Reign of Christ

I breathed and finally surrendered to the longing to write something that could speak to my heart, which I hope will speak to yours, too. I pray these words are a light to those who long to see and oil to those who long to find hope.

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Telling the deeper truth: “The Reign of Christ.” What story will I share with you this morning? Shall I tell my story, my history? Or shall I borrow a history as I imagine it to be, a story from long ago, of an America once billowing with green trees, brown hays, soft winds, and sweet fruit from the land not yet soiled by blood, the blood of those who cherished, ate, loved, belonged, hoped, and spirited? Dispersed yet confined, their cry and spirits filled the air, saying to their God, as I imagine the prophet Habakkuk said unto his, “The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted,” and they ask for how long shall we stay hemmed in, and who is this Christ, that Reigns? Tell us this deeper truth, for the sight of pain and sorrow stains our hearts like a cloudy dew resting heavily upon our eyes, rendering all unable to see.

Erica Lloyd

November 17, 2024

Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost

I often start my sermons off with some kind of disclaimer, and this one is no different: when I agreed to preach a few weeks ago, my focus was entirely on how to frame our discussion, and it somehow did not occur to me that this would also be in the aftermath of the election. I feel profoundly ill-equipped to be preaching in this context.

But maybe today’s lectionary is of help. Jesus talks of power, of wars. These were, I imagine, topics that provoked some anxiety among the disciples. “When will this happen?” They ask, as if a timeline might make it all less scary, less unknown, less apocalyptic.

Margreta Silverstone

November 10, 2024

Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

On this post-election Sunday, with preliminary results in and candidates already conceding the race, I intend to give us all time to hear each other. We have been doing that already, some of us, via the emails that have been sent out on the Seekers email communication channel. I have been appreciative of the ping of new mail from another Seeker with a poem or prayer or recording, but it is not the same as being in person together.

Marjory Zoet Bankson

November 3, 2024

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: John 11:32-44

Today we celebrate all the saints who have gone before us – people who have shown us the way to live God’s intention for human life.

Although we may have grown up with a definition of what it means to be saintly as being exceptionally pious or bearing burdens without complaint, today we can broaden our definition of sainthood to include people who exemplified wholeness or completeness. In the class that John Morris and I led recently, we recognized that the root word for salvation is the Latin word salvus, which means wholeness or completeness. In other words, Saints are people who show us the way to new life. They are juicy! Compassionate! Connected to God’s evolving design for creation! As Howard Thurman says, they are people who are fully alive!

Peter Bankson

October 27, 2024

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

INTRODUCTION

For many years in worship at Seekers Church we have designated the weeks between our annual recommitment and the beginning of Advent as our “jubilee” season, a time of celebration and restoration. We came to that image to acknowledge the time between recommitment and Advent. These weeks leading up to the observance of Thanksgiving, as a time of gratitude, rooted in traditions celebrating the harvest, the time to gather together what we will need to sustain us over the winter.