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.
“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.”
“Who Are You? or The Sacred Journey of Being De-centered” by Anna Gilcher
March 26, 2017
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Here is the sermon I preached at Seekers Church this morning. It provides a report on my time in Vancouver a month ago. The biblical text is John 9:1-41, the story of Jesus restoring sight to a man born blind. (Quotations within the sermon come from the Inclusive Bible, an egalitarian translation not available online.)
The sermon began with the experiential activity outlined here: “Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
• Find a partner
• One minute each — one person asks “who are you?” the other answers. “Who are you?” is repeated after every statement.
• Switch roles
• Find a new partner
• Same instructions– but no role or responsibility (no professional, no caretaker, sister/daughter/mother)
• Switch roles
• Find a new partner
• Don’t use anything you’ve used before in the other two minutes
• Switch roles
• Silent reflection: what did you notice?
A Sermon for Seekers Church by Mehreen Farooq
March 19, 2017
Third Sunday of Lent
I’d like to thank Sandra Miller and everyone here for the opportunity to share some reflections about my work.
For the past seven years I have been working with the World Org for resource Development and Education (WORDE) – an educational organization dedicated to enhancing communication and understanding between communities to mitigate conflict.
One day one of my colleagues looked at me and said, Mehreen what are we doing? It was the day that Trump signed the first executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim majority countries.
Another one of my colleagues had just gotten off the phone with us to let us know that she was on suicide watch for one of her clients…
Over the past three years, WORDE, had set up a small social service agency to provide counselling, mental health and other wrap around services for youth and families from the Middle East, South Asia, and North, West and East Africa.
One of our clients, had been waiting for her mother to apply for asylum status in the US – and with the new executive order in place, she feared that she would never see her mother again. Losing all hope, she had become suicidal.