Sermons

November 15, 2015

Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture: I. Samuel 1:4-20, 2:2-4; Daniel 12: 1-4; Mark 13:1-8

The Samuel and Daniel passages make reference to three periods of Jewish history. Each passage was written by priests as stories that expressed their visions of kerygma, a word that means “saving truth.” Each story was written for there and then guidance.

The strengths of each story is that they addressed the spiritual needs of their diverse audiences. The weaknesses of each story is that they obscure or distract from the kerygma that was valuable during the period of reference. The same is true of the Mark story, a Jewish-Christian version of the apocalypse story we have in the Daniel passage

November 8, 2015

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Jesus warns against hypocrisy of scribes (Mark 12:38-40)

A widow gives all she has  (Mark 12:39-43)

WHAT WAS THIS WOMAN THINKING?  SHE PUT IN ALL SHE HAD TO LIVE ON?  How is she going to eat tomorrow?  How will she pay her rent next month?  Was she so despairing of her status and circumstances as a widow that giving all her money away seemed as logical as any other course of action?  Perhaps she had children whom she expected to take her in.  Or was she trusting of the scribes to care for her in her utter destitution?  Jesus certainly wasn’t trusting of the scribes.  Maybe she had a house to live in now but according to Jesus, the scribes would “devour” it and then where would she be? Did she feel coerced by Temple culture to give whatever she had?  To whom was she making this wildly extravagant gift anyway?  And did she give it joyfully or grudgingly?

November 1, 2015

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Texts:

A feast of rich food for ALL peoples … Isa 25:6-9

I saw a new heaven and a new earth … Revelation 21:1-6a

Raising of Lazarus … John 11:32-44

 Today we celebrate all the saints who have gone before us in the worldwide family of God. In a religious tradition that goes back at least to the 8^th century, Christians have marked this day to honor those people who have made the spirit of Christ visible to others. At first, All Saints celebrated those whom the church had canonized. Later, it became a celebration of all baptized Christians, saintly or not. In predominantly Catholic countries, it is often known as the “Day of the Dead,” when families visit the graves of their loved ones with flowers and food.

A year ago today, I, too, was scrubbing the moss off of the graves of my ancestors in Lynden, Washington: first, my parents, then my grandparents, and my father’s grandparents, who had come there from Holland. While Jacqie Wallen preached here at Seekers, I was doing church differently by walking among those immigrants who left their homeland in search of a better life in America. Most never went back, even for a visit. One of the first things they did as a congregation was to buy land for a cemetery. For them, it was a singular act of freedom from state controlled burials and it claimed this land as their new home.

October 25, 2015

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost

As the Message for this morning, Celebration Circle (of which I am a member) is going to demonstrate for you a part of our process in which we invite God to speak to us and shine through us.

In preparing for each liturgical season, Celebration Circle has five tasks: 

·         To establish a theme

·         To select a reading to serve as the Reflection 

·         To write the liturgy

·         To design and create a bulletin cover 

·         To design and create the altar display, sometimes incorporating other                 portions of the sanctuary, as well. 

Our next liturgical season will be Advent, which begins in 5 weeks.  To help you understand how we do what we do, this morning – before your very eyes – we’re going to conduct the first step of our process – to establish a theme for Advent.  This has not been rehearsed – we are doing this in real time.  We hope you find it interesting, and perhaps instructive or maybe even enlightening.

Shall we begin?

October 18, 2015

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

What do you take seriously? Do you take the Bible seriously? Or is it just a bunch of once-upon-a-time stories that you can take or leave, depending on your mood? Do you take God seriously? Who or what is this God that created the earth “while all the choruses of morning stars sang and the heavenly court shouted for joy”[Job 38:7] and yet is somehow closer than our very breath? Do you take your spiritual life seriously? Do you think of your spiritual life as not just whether you pray, journal, and read scripture, but also how those practices affect your relationships with others, your ability to forgive, your sense of gratitude, your sense of joy? What do you take seriously?