Sermons

September 27, 2020

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Our theme for this recommitment season is “The Mind of Christ in Us.”  That is quite a concept!  It’s very challenging to think about, and a bit hard to know where to start.

As I struggle to understand a difficult idea, I sometimes imagine I’m trying to explain it to a curious 10-year-old.  What could I say to such a child, to make clear what I’m talking about?  Maybe something like this:  “Well, if you had the Mind of Christ it would be as if you were still yourself but also different, in a really good way.  You would still see everything from your point of view, and hear the same birds, and smell the same bread baking, but it would all seem richer and more fun somehow, like it came to life all of a sudden.  And the really big change would happen when you started hanging around with your friends, and even with other kids you don’t like very much.  They’d still be the exact same people they were before, but now you’d want to help them out, and forgive them when they get stuck and do stupid stuff, and not worry so much about getting your own way.”

September 20, 2020

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

I started coming to Seekers Church in 2008, and made my first commitment probably the following year. I haven’t recommitted every year since then, but most years. And, occasionally, I’ve preached the sermon. I can’t recall a sermon that has been more difficult for me to get a handle on than this one. I have plenty to say, but somehow the message just kept slipping out of my grasp. It might become apparent, in what I say to you this morning, why this was happening.

My focus is on the parable we just heard from Matthew’s gospel, and I’m going to ask three questions:

1. What is Jesus saying to us, today, through this parable? Or, as Peter asked in a recent mission group meeting, “What is the Creator putting out there for us to learn?”
2. What is the good news, for us, today?
3. What does this have to do with commitment to Seekers Church?

I will share some possible answers, and I encourage you also to listen for your own answers, because yours might be different from mine.

September 13, 2020

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

This morning I am going to focus on the passage for today from Genesis, about Joseph and his brothers.  As you may recall, Joseph is the eleventh son of Jacob. Joseph is Jacob’s favorite, and Joseph’s brothers really resent that.

When the brothers get the chance, they kidnap Joseph and sell him into slavery in Egypt.  Amazingly, Joseph ends up becoming the second most powerful person in Egypt, after interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream, predicting seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.  Thanks to Joseph, Egypt stockpiles enough grain during the years of plenty to see them through the years of famine.

When the famine hits, Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt in search of food.

They end up presenting their case to Joseph, but they don’t recognize him.

Joseph eventually reveals himself to them and persuades the whole family to move to Egypt, where Joseph takes care of them.

Today’s reading takes place about 17 years later, when Jacob dies. Now, the brothers fear that Joseph will finally retaliate for what they did to him.  But he doesn’t.  Instead, he continues to take care of them.

September 6, 2020

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

It has been a chaotic summer. Avoiding the pandemic has isolated us from each other, giving us more time alone to worry and more pent up energy to react. Rising confrontation over racial injustice has stoked fear and concern. And the acceleration of election campaign combat is souring the media, leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. The tension has infected our lives in many ways. For most of us, this opens the gate to denial, depression, and disconnection.

These ARE the times that try one’s soul. In some cases, though, all this negativity has given us fleeting opportunities for deeper reflection and new action. We have shared some of those deeper reflections in different ways here in Seekers. Several recent sermons went very deep and have been received with open hearts.

This is not the first time that the human species has been in chaos. But so far we have found our way through. Our Hebrew Scripture reading for this week, the story of the beginning of the Passover, is a good example of how a people came together, committed themselves to God and each other, moved into an unknown future and found new stability. I know, none of these journeys of metamorphosis have been perfect. But cultures have survived and continue to grow as we find new ways to center in God.

August 30, 2020

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

In K-12 schools of the Onondaga people, every day starts with a prayer of thanksgiving, which begins:

Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one.

And I offer this as well: Let us pray that the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be of value to you, Holy One, ground of our being who opens the path to our personal and communal salvation.  Amen

Each time I preach, I say to myself afterwards, “that’s the last time.” Yet, sometimes the call is also felt as a need. Each in our various ways must raise our voices in response to the times we find ourselves in, to speak truth to power just as Jesus did. The sermon you are about to hear is not the sermon I had in mind when I said yes to the opportunity, as both the call and the inner need changed, day by day, if not minute by minute.