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.
“Meet Me in Galilee” by Marjory Zoet Bankson
April 16, 2017
Easter Sunrise Service at Wellspring
Text: Matthew 28: 1-10
When I was here at Wellspring three weeks ago for the Church of the Saviour discernment retreat, Cheryl Hellner led us in two sessions of “gathered silence.” She began by saying that, during Lent, she had “apprenticed herself” to the pair of eagles nesting at the National Arboretum. Cheryl’s description of watching them protect their two precious eggs through the icey windstorm earlier that month made a deep impression on me. I felt that we, too, were gathered here to protect and nourish the possibility of new life in Church of the Saviour.
“Homeward Bound” by Billy Amoss
April 23, 2017
Second Sunday of Easter
How do we know where we belong? Where is home?
This week death has visited me twice.
On Thursday evening our beloved representative in Palestine, Costa Mustaklem, a Jerusalemite, an observant Christian and an Arab, died of metastatic cancer in Switzerland, where his wife and children live. He was a wonderfully kind and intelligent person, hard-working, openhearted, easy to love. And yesterday I learned that my 95-year-old cousin, Rosanne Blake, who with her husband Mel took me and my family under her wing when we first moved to Washington in 1988, is in hospice and on morphine to ease the pain from her Parkinsons Disease. Rosanne is a practicing Catholic. Her remaining life can be measured in days now, perhaps only hours.
Part of our Christian tradition – today most vocally expressed by Christian evangelicals – puts forth the belief that this world is not our home, that our earthly body is just a temporary residence for our spirit, thus only spiritual things matter because they last forever, and that our real purpose on earth is to please God by pursing spiritual matters – witnessing, reading the Bible, praying, or attending church, doing charitable work – so that when we die we can go to our true home, called heaven.
“Unimaginable” by David Lloyd
April 16, 2017
Easter Sunday
Christ is risen! (Christ is risen indeed.) Hallelujah!
After 2,000 years when we say “Christ is risen indeed” we may feel one or more of a range of emotions. We may feel joy so profound that it can bring us close to crying. We may have a feeling of absolute certainty that gives us hope and confidence for the present and the future. But some of us might feel uncertainty or even heaviness as we say it. Some of us might even say it with reluctance – while feeling that we shouldn’t feel reluctant. A few of us may even say it with disbelief, mentally rolling our eyes and crossing our fingers. Our range of emotions about the resurrection of Jesus reflects how challenging that resurrection is for us modern, rational, post-Enlightenment, educated folk.
“A Sermon for Palm Sunday” bv Brenda Seat
April 9, 2017
Palm/Passion Sunday
On Palm Sunday, we usually hear the Biblical narratives of Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem and the passion Jesus experienced in the days that followed. Although these readings are powerful, they can also easily become stale and routine and after hearing them every year they can wash over us with such familiarity that we are sometimes not even touched by them.
This year Celebration Circle decided to do something a bit different that might allow us to hear these stories with new ears and open hearts.
In a few minutes we will hear poems read by Lauren, Dave and Mary Carol, reflecting on the events of Palm Sunday and Christ’s passion. We hope that these new words, retelling this powerful and ageless story will touch you in surprising ways.
“The Work that is Ours To Do” by Marjory Zoet Bankson
April 2, 2017
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Last weekend, Judy Lantz and I represented Seekers at the Church of the Saviour discernment retreat at Wellspring. On Saturday, Cheryl Hellner led us in two sessions of gathered silence. She began by saying that, during Lent, she had “apprenticed herself” to the pair of bald eagles nesting at the National Aboretum. On a low altar in the center of our 23-person circle was an empty bird nest placed carefully on a hand-crocheted prayer shawl. For me it became the image of our work.
Bald eagles mate for life and they return to the same nest, year after year. This pair has used the same large flat nest at the arboretum for the past three years, so you can watch their activities LIVE from two hidden cameras. Like some other large birds, eagles share time on the nest, alternating the incubation duties with foraging for food. During the recent ice storm, Cheryl watched late into the night as one of them, covered with snow, clung to the nest and sheltered their two eggs in high winds. Their task, she reminded us, was to “shelter the possibility of new life.”