Seekers recognizes that any member of the community may be called upon by God to give us the Word, and thus we have an open pulpit with a different preacher each week. Sermons preached at Seekers, as well as sermons preached by Seekers at other churches or events, are posted here, beginning with the most recent.
Click here for an archive of our sermons.
Feel free to use what is helpful from these sermons. We only ask that when substantial portions are abstracted or used in a written work, please credit Seekers Church and the author, and cite the URL.
“My Search for a Very Good Gospel” by Lisa Sharon Harper
January 8, 2017
Epiphany
[Lisa Sharon Harper spoke without a text, but she has graciously offered the following blog post as a way of highlighting her major themes.]
More than ten years ago, I took a pilgrimage that changed my life.
At its conclusion, I found myself with one haunting question: If I were to share my understanding of the gospel to my ancestors who walked the Cherokee Trail of Tears (according to family oral tradition) and slaved in South Carolina and Virginia (according to Census Slave Schedules), would they receive my simple understanding of Jesus’ “good news” as good news? Would they jump for joy to find out “God has a wonderful plan for their lives, but they are sinful and therefore separated from God, but Jesus died for their sin, so if they pray a simple prayer they get to go to heaven?”
If this news would not lead my oppressed ancestors to shout with joy, then maybe it’s not good news at all — or at least it’s not good enough.
“What’s New?” by Ken Burton
January 1, 2017
New Year’s Day
Revelation 21:1-6a
Matthew 25:31-46
When I agreed to preach this Sunday, I had expected us to be working with the lections for the Sunday after Christmas. I realized only ten days ago that Celebration Circle, indeed, “my” mission group, had decided to use the lections for New Year’s Day as the biblical basis and our service this morning.
New Year’s Day, as a holiday, seems to me to be lacking in Biblical grounding. It is one of those secular holidays, like Thanksgiving, which, because it has some spiritual connection, has been imported into the church calendar. At Seekers, we only celebrate it when it falls on a Sunday, and sometimes not even then, so today is a somewhat special occasion in that regard.
Another qualification on the New Year’s holiday is the arbitrary basis of its dating, a problem it shares with most of the rest of our calendar, which, as you may know, was designed by a sixth century CE monk named Dionysius Exigus, or Dennis the Small, or, in a more current idiom, “Little Denny.”. His lack of physical stature is unrelated to the historical significance of his work. As a consequence of his efforts to correctly date Easter, Dionysius put together a system for numbering years which is used worldwide today and which includes January 1 as the beginning of each of them.
“Christmas Morning” by Deborah Sokolove
December 25, 2016
Christmas Day
Texts: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1:1-12, John 1:1-14
It’s Christmas morning. Most of us were here a good portion of the day yesterday, sharing a delicious feast, singing carols, and re-telling the story of how Jesus was born in less-than-ideal conditions. Last night, we heard that Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary had to travel a long way from where they had been living because Caesar Augustus wanted to register everyone for a new tax. We heard about angels and shepherds, and Mary pondering everything that had happened in her heart. So what are we doing here this morning, getting ready to share Communion instead of still comfortably in our jammies, sipping cocoa and unwrapping the presents that someone left under our gaily-decorated trees?
“Homily for Christmas Eve” by Brenda Seat
December 24, 2016
Christmas Eve
As we read these Lessons and sing these Carols every year, I always feel like the story seems a little too neat and tidy. Like the Christmas cards I get with the nativity scenes that always make the holy family look so serene, the words that we hear seem to gloss over all the difficult parts of this story. For example, I always wonder how pregnant Mary must have felt on that swaying donkey, traveling to Bethlehem. I am sure it gave morning sickness a whole new meaning! Or I wonder about the anguish and uncertainty Joseph must have felt when he found out Mary was pregnant. It cannot have been easy for him to accept a child that was not his, and maybe even more so when he found out that it was God’s promised one. How was it that they ended up in a stable? Why wasn’t there room for them in the inn? Bethlehem was where Joseph’s family was from; surely there must have been relatives they could have stayed with. Who helped Mary birth this baby? And what about those shepherds crowding into the stable all noisy and dirty, with sheep baaing and threatening to wake the baby Mary had just fed and put to sleep. No, the story of the nativity was far from neat and tidy. It was chaotic and, if I am honest, it seems like God could have done a little bit better in the planning department!
“Joseph’s Question” by Marjory Bankson
December 18, 2016
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Text: Matthew 1: 18-25
If you’ve seen a Christmas pageant, the role of Joseph is probably the most boring of all. He just stands there, itching with straw dust, while Mary and the baby get all the attention from the other characters, including the sheep and camels.
When Joseph stands there with his staff, there is NOTHING to indicate the turmoil it must have taken him to be there; nothing about the question raised by today’s gospel reading: should he quietly dissolve the marriage agreement that he had with Mary? Or go ahead with their plans, even though she has apparently been unfaithful to him – because he KNOWS he’s not the father of this child. Can you imagine his feelings of betrayal? Of being used?