Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Leaving Peace

May 25, 2025

Acts 16:9-15
John 14:23-29

These words of Jesus come from John’s account of the Last Supper, specifically from the long (three chapters worth) speech we usually call “Jesus’ Farewell Address to his Disciples.” During Bible study this week (and last week as well), I think it’s safe to say that people found these words to be assuring and, at the same time, confusing. Jesus spoke of coming and going and wouldn’t say where.

We get confused, and a little anxious, and we know how the story goes after this. We know that Jesus spoke of his crucifixion as leaving, of his resurrection as returning, and how were the disciples to understand what he told them without knowing about that? I suspect that Jesus’ friends listened to most of this address the same way I’ve listened to a number of speeches or lectures in my life: letting the words flow over me in the desperate hope that I’ll pick up something sometime that will make it all make sense.

Given our difficulties figuring out all Jesus said in the Gospel of John, I think the disciples didn’t figure it out until after the resurrection, and even then it probably took some time, wouldn’t you think?

Brian Peterson points out at Working Preacher that one of the important things Jesus was trying to convey was that whatever happened, they would not be left alone. He writes, “The first disciples asked where Jesus was staying (1:38); now they have their answer: Jesus is staying with them. Jesus is certainly going away, yet paradoxically, the life of the church is not marked by Jesus’ absence but by the presence of an abiding God.”

Jesus promised that presence through the Holy Spirit, and went on to promise something else: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Peace. Peace.

What did Jesus mean by peace?

Let’s face it, he didn’t mean, “You’re going to live an easy life.” His followers didn’t live easy lives in the first century, and they’re not living easy lives in the twenty-first century.

Even so, people accept an all-too-limited idea of peace. If there’s no war, we might think, there’s peace. Mind you, an end to war is an important step toward peace. There’s no peace in Ukraine or Gaza or Myanmar these days because there are wars going on. Organized violence destroys peace.

So does the violence of official coercion. Osvaldo Vena writes at Working Preacher, “The peace that Jesus gives contrasts sharply with the world’s peace. Even though this affirmation has been spiritualized by conservative and fundamentalist readings of John it is pretty obvious that in its present context this text has in mind the first century world and its understanding of peace as that of the Pax Romana. Therefore, we have here a profound critique of the social and political order of the day.”

The Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, was enforced by a military establishment that routinely committed mass executions, enslavements, and savage punishments. Thirty years after Jesus was crucified – a torturous method of execution used by Romans against non-Romans – a British chief named Prasutagus died, leaving authority over the Iceni tribe to his two daughters. The Romans in Britain ignored his will and annexed his territory. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, “…his kingdom was pillaged by centurions, his household by slaves; as though they had been prizes of war. As a beginning, his wife Boudicca was subjected to the lash and his daughters violated: all the chief men of the Icenians were stripped of their family estates, and the relatives of the king were treated as slaves. Impelled by this outrage and the dread of worse to come — for they had now been reduced to the status of a province — they flew to arms, and incited to rebellion the Trinobantes and others, who, not yet broken by servitude, had entered into a secret and treasonable compact to resume their independence.“

Boudica’s rebellion failed, of course. A Roman force broke her army and slaughtered not just the soldiers but the women and even the pack animals.

Pax Romana.

The peace the world gives. You may recognize it. It’s been popular for millennia.

It was not, is not, the peace Jesus gives.

In the 1985 Pronouncement “Affirming the United Church of Christ as a Just Peace Church,” the 15th General Synod defined Just Peace as “the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence.” In a just and peaceful community, people live without concern about imminent violence, enjoy the political rights we highly value, and have access to the necessities of life including clean water, health care, food, housing, and employment.

Any other peace, I’d say, and I think Jesus would say, is not peace. It’s better than outright war, but it’s not peace. Not fully. Not completely. Not truly.

There are a lot of people out there, many of whom claim the title of Christian as not just their identity but their authority for what they say, who assert that peace is gained by adhering to their rules and nobody else’s. It’s an historically popular opinion. I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Emperor Charlemagne imposed the death penalty on non-Christian religious observance in parts of his empire. The Church created the office of the Inquisition in the 12th century and through it instigated full-on wars of massacre and pillage against groups with differing Christian theologies. They went on to bring torture and death to non-Christians in Europe. One of the early English translators of the Bible, William Tyndale, was burned to death in 1536 for his Protestant writings. The wars between Protestants and Catholics have stained the world with blood and the Church with shame.

Would that it had ended there. But force as a substitute for peace is as popular as it ever was.

Its most obvious face in the United States is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They’ve come to coffee farms on this island. They’ve staked out schools. They’ve claimed that political speech is equivalent to terroristic threatening. At a recent meeting of the Micronesian Ministry Committee of the Hawai’i Conference, we learned that some Micronesians are avoiding even travel within the United States because they fear their status will be arbitrarily questioned when returning to Hawai’i.

In the meantime, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that reduces funding for Medicare, which provides access to medical care to the nation’s kupuna, by an estimated $500 billion, according to Robert Reich. Medicaid cuts, which serve the nation’s poor, will cause an estimated 8.6 million people to lose coverage. He writes in a recent post on social media:

“4. How much will the top 0.1 percent of earners stand to gain from it? (Nearly $390,000 per year).

5. If you figure in the benefit cuts and the tax cuts, will Americans making between about $17,000 and $51,000 gain or lose? (They’ll lose about $700 a year).

6. How about Americans with incomes less than $17,000? (They’ll lose more than $1,000 per year on average).

7. How much will the bill add to the federal debt? ($3.8 trillion over 10 years.)”

Pardon me if this doesn’t sound like Jesus’ peace to me. It sounds like the Pax Romana. It sounds like “more for me, less for you.” It sounds like…

Well. It doesn’t sound like Jesus.

Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “Those who say they ‘keep Jesus’ words’ and yet whose words — and actions, for that matter — in no way reflect Jesus’ love. How should we and do we respond to such observable duplicity? Do we look away? Do we remain silent? And why? Because of anxiety? Too worried about the bottom line to be bold in the proclamation of God’s love? Because of fear? Too concerned about securing our future and forgetting that our future, and the future of the church, is in God’s hands? Because of misplaced conviction? Thinking that success of ministry is all up to us, leaving behind the truth that it’s in God we trust?”

The truth is that when Jesus left peace with us, he left a challenge with us. He didn’t leave us a peace that had been accomplished. He left us a peace toward which we strive. He didn’t leave us a peace that makes us feel good. He left us a peace for which we hope. He didn’t leave us a peace that already stands. He left us a peace for us to build.

Yes, that’s not as the world gives. The world will happily give us a peace that is not peace, and insist that it’s the only peace there is.

It’s not. Christ’s peace lies before us. Christ’s peace is the only peace worth having. Christ’s peace is worth building.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric changes things while preaching. Sometimes intentionally.

The image is Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles by Duccio di Buoninsegna (between 1308 and 1311) – Web Gallery of Art: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7922656.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Welcome

May 18, 2025

Acts 11:1-13
John 13:31-35

Simon Peter had had some really good days. As I mentioned last week, the wave of hostility to followers of Jesus led by Saul had subsided when Saul, himself, became a follower of Jesus. That had allowed Peter to travel to Lydda where he’d healed Aeneas, then to Joppa where he’d raised Tabitha. If I were Simon Peter, I’d have been really excited. Safety. Healing. Resurrection. That’s a hat trick to me.

Not that Simon Peter would have heard of a “hat trick,” of course.

As Luke told the story in the book of Acts, those events led to another event, an event so crucial that Luke couldn’t tell it just once. Just to give you something to compare, Luke told the story of Aeneas’ healing in five sentences. He told the story of Tabitha’s resurrection in twelve sentences. He told the story of Saul’s conversion, the person we know as the Apostle Paul, in nineteen sentences. But this story? The story of Simon Peter’s visit to Cornelius, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of the household?

Sixty-four sentences.

What we read today is about a third of the text. One of the reasons it takes so much space in the book is that Luke repeated this story. He described it as a narrative, “as it happened,” and then he had people report on their dreams in the narrative, repeating a portion of what happened “as it happened,” and then we get this section in which Simon Peter reported on what happened to his fellow leaders in Jerusalem.

If you’re tempted to let this story glide by as if it weren’t important, Luke has put up a great big sign and has waved flags at you, saying, essentially, “Important story here! Do not pass it by!”

Kyle Fever writes at Working Preacher, “But this is not just repetition for repetition’s sake. Each time the acceptance of Gentiles is relayed a different aspect shines through, depending on the audience and particular situation. The constant remains, however, in that each telling focuses on God’s initiative through the Spirit and its effects.”

When he told this story to the church leadership, Simon Peter had already had time to digest these events. He’d had time to consider his vision in which God declared unclean foods clean. He’d had time to move past the shock of being summoned to visit a Roman centurion, an invitation that he might have expected to lead to his own arrest and crucifixion. Romans had executed Jesus, after all. He’d had time to absorb the warm welcome he’d received in Cornelius’ house, a welcome that actually included the centurion kneeling to him. He’d had time to feel relief that he’d found words to describe Jesus’ life, ministry, purpose, and meaning.

Most of all, he’d had time to reflect on the movement of the Holy Spirit among people who he had known, for a fact, couldn’t be moved by the Holy Spirit. Jewish men? Certainly. Uncommon, but if it was going to be anyone it would be God’s people, and, let’s face it, God’s men. Jewish women? Unlikely, but look, it had happened a couple times over the centuries, so they could cope.

Non-Jews? No. Not possible.

Simon Peter knew that. Tabitha’s friends had probably known that there was no relief from her death. Aeneas had probably known that there was no likely relief from his pain. Ananias had known that there was no way that Saul could change his ways. Saul had known that there was no truth to the message about Jesus.

Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong. That doesn’t change the shock of it, but when you know that something can’t be, how nice it is to discover that it can.

“When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”

Six years ago Brian Peterson wrote at Working Preacher, “The church’s Spirit-led experience has brought new insights regarding things like slavery, racial equality and justice, women’s ordination, and LGBTQ dignity. Some of that may look obvious in history’s rearview mirror. Still, encountering the Spirit who is alive and pushing the church in new and astonishing directions can be frightening. However, the Spirit is not random or incoherent. The Spirit always pushes the church into greater practice of God’s love for all people of the world.

“This is a text about crossing borders. We know how contentious that can become! We put up walls, concrete or steel or metaphorical. It would have been more comfortable and seemingly safer for the early church to keep Cornelius and his Gentile household at arm’s length.”

Boundaries and borders, it must be said, have their uses. They are necessary. If you look at the simplest forms of life, those single-celled creatures we can see only through microscopes, they have a cell wall. Take away the cell wall, the creatures cease to exist. The reality of a boundary makes life itself possible.

We ourselves consist of somewhere around 30 trillion cells, give or take a few trillion. They’ve all got cellular walls to permit them to perform their different functions around the body. A red blood cell without a cell wall won’t carry oxygen anywhere. A skin cell without a cell wall won’t hold all the other cells in. Skin cells, in fact, are pretty remarkable for establishing a boundary that preserves the life of the other cells. During COVID we saw the results of a virus that could get around the skin barrier, and it wasn’t pretty.

Boundaries have a function.

Boundaries, however, are rarely absolute. A cell wall that won’t admit oxygen and nutrients is one that spells the death of the cell. I just talked about the way skin cells keep other organisms out, but it turns out there’s a bunch of organisms in the body already, and they do very useful things there. Research has shown that bacteria in the digestive tract actually help digest food. There’s plenty of germs that don’t help, but there’s also a lot that do, and our bodies don’t produce those bacteria. They’re with us for the ride.

Boundaries mean that we can have relationships of mutual support and benefit at the cellular level.

Boundaries mean that we can have partnerships at the human level.

Some years after Cornelius had his encounter with the Holy Spirit in Simon Peter’s presence, the Apostle Paul wrote that the Church is like Christ’s body, and like a body, it is made up of many parts, and the many parts aren’t the same, but they support one another. One part can’t do without another, he said.

It turns out that men can’t run the Church without women, though God knows we’ve tried and God knows how badly that’s usually turned out. It turns out that God has called gay men, lesbian women, and transgender persons into the community and into leadership, and God knows we’ve struggled as much or more as the Jerusalem council did at that. It turns out that Micronesians and Filipinos, Hawaiians and Fijians, and people from all the Pacific have been summoned by God.

Mitzi J. Smith reminds us that we do not fulfill God’s welcome without coming to terms with our failure to welcome. She writes at Working Preacher, “Many white brothers and sisters and some people of color deny that they ever perceive or treat people who are racially or economically different from themselves with bias. This is despite being entrenched in racialized, class-conscious institutions and traditions that presume people of color, women and others to be inferior. But the only way we begin to put an end to making distinctions between ‘them’ and ‘us’ is to learn to recognize and admit our biases and their impact on human relationships. Racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and other biased behaviors and thinking are not godly; they are motivated by fear of the other and not by love of humanity. ‘God shows no favoritism’ for one human being other another.”

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality,” said Simon Peter in Acts 10:34. He understood it then, but he knew he hadn’t understood it before. He had to learn to extend a welcome, and he had to keep learning it all his days.

Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “What proof do we offer the world of our discipleship? How do we wash the feet of our companions? How do we extend hospitality? How might we organize our local church for reaching out and creating a more inclusive and engaging community within? How do we show up when the world is looking for love?”

There’s our challenge. There’s our summons: to extend ourselves in welcome to those seeking a home for their spirit and healing for their souls.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric preaches from a prepared text, but he often improvises while preaching, so what you hear in the recording will not precisely match the text above.

The image is Saint Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius by Jan Erasmus Quellinus – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59323889.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Peter Like Jesus

May 11, 2025

Acts 9:36-43
John 10:22-30

Simon Peter had been enjoying a time of relative peace for the People of the Way, as Christians were known in those early days of the Church. After Saul’s conversion, which we read last week, efforts to suppress followers of Jesus had subsided quite a bit, so Simon Peter was able to move around and visit some of the communities that had emerged along the coast of the Mediterranean. In Lydda he’d healed a paralyzed man named Aeneas.

In Joppa they heard he was there and asked him to come visit them, because a valued woman in their community named Tabitha, also known as Dorcas, had died.

At Working Preacher, Eric Barreto asks one of my questions: “Peter’s arrival brings hope in its wake. One wonders, however, what Tabitha’s friends expected when they called Peter. Did they want Peter to know about this extraordinary believer? Did they wish for the memory of her dear friend to be shared with this pillar of the burgeoning church? Did they perhaps hope for a miracle beyond miracles? Did they perhaps hope against hope for a reprieve from death?”

Had they asked for what they received?

This story looks a lot like a healing story from the Gospel of Luke (Luke wrote the book of Acts) and the Gospel of Mark (Luke used Mark as a source for his gospel). Raj Nadella writes in Working Preacher, “In both stories, the miracle occurs in a private setting. Just as Jesus sends everyone except Peter, James, and John out of the room prior to the miracle, Peter sends everyone out in this story. In both accounts, the deceased comes back to life after being ordered to get up. It is as if Peter, who was present when Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, replicates a similar miracle at Joppa.”

Simon Peter imitated Jesus.

Imitation frequently isn’t welcome in our society. We may exclaim, “How cute! He’s so much like his dad!” when a child is three or four and, let’s face it, might have Dad’s nose but is he working for a bank? No. We dislike imitation in the creative arts, or at least we do most of the time. Someone who makes sculptures meticulously by hand but does so as an exact copy of somebody else’s work doesn’t get a lot of credit. Of course, if they sell the sculpture as if it was produced by the artist they’ve imitated, they’re subject to arrest and prosecution. In the ministry, there’s a long history of preachers reading sermons written by other people. Sometimes they’ve acknowledged this, and sometimes they haven’t.

Heaven help the eight-year-old who copies from the student’s paper next to them while they’re taking a test.

Imitation might be a sincere form of flattery – Oscar Wilde didn’t say that, by the way; it was published at least thirty years before he was born – but our affection for flattery goes only so far.

Simon Peter, though. He imitated Jesus.

So, in different ways, had Tabitha herself. Raj Nadella continues, “Tabitha became a prominent disciple not because of any familial connections, or even because of her apparent wealth, but because of the networks she built with widows, the most marginalized in the community. Her ministry reminds readers of the early Church’s commitment to ensure that no widow was overlooked in their everyday needs (Acts 6:1-6).” When Peter arrived, her friends did the things that people do. They started telling him Tabitha’s life story. This is an outfit she made for me. These are the ways she helped our family to thrive. This is the way she kept us all together in the Way.

So many times when I’ve spoken with people after a loved one has passed, they’ve showed me things they made, told me things that they’d done. That’s what Tabitha’s community did when Peter appeared.

Then Simon Peter imitated Jesus.

As Jesus had done at the bedside of the little girl, he sent everyone out of the room. As Jesus had done at the bedside of the little girl, he prayed. As Jesus had done at the bedside of the little girl, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” Jesus had said, “Talitha cum,” Aramaic for “Little girl, get up.” As Jesus had done at the bedside of the little girl, he saw her eyes open.

Simon Peter imitated Jesus.

Peter. Like Jesus.

There’s a phrase that flies about the Christian world, or at least the American Christian world, that goes, “What would Jesus do?” You’ll sometimes see WWJD on bumper stickers or small signs in a home. Personally, I think that’s an awfully good question most of the time. Looking at the things that Jesus did – or didn’t do – can help us avoid major mistakes and guide us to better actions.

The difficulty is that Jesus didn’t live in the twenty-first century, and we face realities he didn’t. It’s not that he couldn’t have something to say about them, but in the first century he didn’t say anything about them. What would Jesus do about Generative Artificial Intelligence? I don’t know. How would he parse the competing goods between automation that reduces human risk of death and injury and also deprives them of income-producing labor? I don’t know that, either.

I did appreciate David Hayward’s recent cartoon picturing Jesus saying, “You have heard me say: be humble, forgive, love and show mercy. But now I say unto you: ridicule those who disagree with you, despite people of other orientations, denigrate women, and above all be arrogant and rude!”

I hope David Hayward didn’t hurt himself putting his tongue that far into his cheek.

A lot of imitating Jesus can be done through the first part of that message: “Be humble, forgive, love and show mercy.” There is no particular skill level required. I grant you that there are ways to get better at loving, it takes a lot of practice to live humbly, and forgiveness will always challenge us. But a five year old can say, “I’m sorry,” and a five year old can say, “That’s all right.” A five year old can imitate Jesus.

So how about you and me?

Not all of us will imitate Jesus as Simon Peter did. If I have talents for human resurrection, I’m not aware of it and for sure I haven’t demonstrated it. It has to be said, however, that that was a rare manifestation of the Holy Spirit in Peter’s day. It’s more common in ours. People return to living from near death and from death itself more often today than they did two thousand years ago. Someone I know recently had open heart surgery, and you know, the heart stops during open heart surgery and then gets started again. Simon Peter himself would be astonished.

If it takes us more work than it did Simon Peter, is that really less astonishing?

It’s not just resurrection or even healing. It’s solidarity and community. Remember that Tabitha imitated Jesus by caring for the widows around her, some of the people at most risk for neglect and deep need. Tabitha imitated Jesus so well that her friends wept deeply for her loss.

I keep saying that we have a distorted view of greatness. I’m afraid rulers called “the Great” have usually done a lot of harm through wars and conquest. Some years ago I stood on the Nu’uanu Pali with a child of O’ahu who described the terrible battle in which Kamehameha I’s army had driven the soldiers of O’ahu over the cliff. “Some of us,” my friend said, “aren’t of one mind about Kamehameha.” Charles the Great of France, usually known as Charlemagne, applied the death penalty to pagan practices. Genghis Khan brought war and terror to large areas of China and central Asia.

The list goes on.

Every once in a while I meet somebody truly great. I meet somebody in whose simple presence my spirit lifts. I meet somebody whose graciousness just flows. I meet somebody who brightens my day. Every once in a mile I meet somebody great.

Like Tabitha. Like Peter. Like Jesus.

As Jennifer T. Kaalund writes at Working Preacher, “Although [Tabitha] may not have been famous or well-known, she was important to those who did know her. It is clear that she loved and that she was loved. They did not want to lose her. She was a disciple who was giving and faithful—would that we all might be described as such.”

Would that we all be described as such. Like Tabitha. Like Peter. Like Jesus.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric preaches from a prepared text (it’s what we’ve provided above) but he does tend to improvise while he preaches, so what you just read is not exactly what he said.

The image is of a Byzantine mosaic in the Capella Palestina in Palermo, Sicily. Photo by Rmsrga – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31666134.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Instrument

May 4, 2025

Acts 9:1-20
John 21:15-17

Saul knew he was right. He had no doubt about it. This group of ill-educated Galileans – can anything good come out of Galilee? – had gone beyond the acceptance of resurrection. Plenty of people believed in resurrection. But they weren’t running around saying that it had happened.

Plenty of people believed in a Messiah. But those who ran around saying that they’d found one usually found themselves in deep trouble with the Romans. Briefly. Brief, deep trouble that only ended at a cross.

This group of Galileans, however, said that their Messiah had not only been crucified, he’d been resurrected. Can you imagine how much trouble that would cause? Things were tense enough in Jerusalem and all the towns and villages with Jewish populations. These people needed to be suppressed. If the established authorities needed help, Saul was willing to volunteer.

He volunteered. He got authority. He scattered the group in Jerusalem. He set out for Damascus to do it again. As Amy G. Oden writes at Working Preacher, “We tend to assume that Saul is the bad guy in the story. But is he? It’s important to remember that Saul sees himself as the good guy trying to protect the faith. Saul loves God and wants to stamp out anything that, in his view, dishonors God.”

Saul knew he was right.

Until a light and a voice shook his confidence to the core.

Raj Nadella observes that someone else in the Bible had also been confronted with a light and a voice: another person who had known they were right, a person known as Moses. “In both stories,” writes Dr. Nadella at Working Preacher, “the divine sees the suffering of the people and advocates on their behalf. In a striking moment in this story, when Saul asked to know who confronted and addressed him by name, the voice responded saying, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’ In locating itself in and with the victims of Saul’s violence, the voice was not just expressing solidarity with them, but was also asking Saul to see the divine in those he was targeting.”

“To see the divine in those he was targeting.”

How wrong can you be?

I don’t like being wrong. If I’m able to acknowledge my errors and my misdeeds with an apology and sincere reformation – and you know better than I whether that’s true – it’s because I’ve had lots of practice being wrong and I’ve had to practice making up for it. Most of us have. That doesn’t mean I like it. “I’ll be the first to tell you if I’m wrong,” may be the most common self-deluded untrue statement after, “I’ll have just one of those candied mac nuts.”

It wasn’t just Saul who knew he was right in this story, however. There’s Ananias, too. He protested. “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem,“ he said. Don’t make me heal this guy. He’s a bad man. He’s done bad things. Make me do this, Lord, and more bad things are going to happen.

He knew he was right.

We live in a time when a lot of people believe, deeply and passionately, that they’re right. Sometimes those varying beliefs can be reconciled. They’re not so far off. People will find compromises or accommodations or a completely different solution that those involved can accept. That’s the work of the Ku’ikahi Mediation Center, and I’m really glad to have been at their volunteer celebration event on Friday to mahalo the volunteers who help people find their own agreements.

Sometimes, though, differing beliefs can’t be reconciled. There is such a thing as objective truth. I had an argument with a three year old many years ago in which she insisted that the sky was not blue. I said it was blue. She said it wasn’t. And, well, it’s blue. Also, vaccines reduce the spread and severity of lots of diseases. Also, the Constitution says that people born in the United States of America are citizens of the United States of America. Until you change the processes of human physiology or the text of the Constitution, those things are true.

Sometimes differing beliefs can’t be reconciled because one harms people and one doesn’t. There is no compromise with ideologies that demean, discount, or disempower people. There’s no acceptable “little bit of racism,” for example. A “little bit of racism” imprisoned American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, housing them in concentration camps, including children.

They knew they were doing right. They were wrong, but they knew they were doing right. I sometimes think that doing what you know is right might be the most dangerous thing to do to those around you.

Saul went from knowing he was right, to knowing he was wrong, to knowing he was right in a different way. He changed. He did different things. He became one of the most industrious of all Jesus’ messengers. He became God’s instrument, a trumpet, I think. I don’t think we can call him the most widely traveled, because Thomas – you know, doubting Thomas? – is said to have made it to India. Still, Saul got around, and when he couldn’t get there, he wrote letters. People saved them. But because he was writing in Greek, he used an adapted version of his name: Sheoul, Saul, because Paulous, Paul.

You knew that already, I’m sure.

You also know from hearing Paul’s letters over the years that Saul lost none of that sense of knowing what was right. My goodness, he loved to give his readers good advice, and we’ve been both benefiting from it and sighing with exasperation from it over the years. Because, well, he knew he was right, and we know how dangerous that can be.

He knew that, too, or God knew and told him. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, among a passage which is, to be sure, a bunch of boasting about how right he was, Paul wrote these self-revealing words: “Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for poweris made perfect in weakness.’” 

We know we’re right, about political policy, about medical precautions, and about the color of the sky. We know we’re right about who is good and bad, who is on Santa’s naughty and nice lists, and who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. We know who is one with the light side and the dark side of the Force. We know, but even in Darth Vader there was something that could be awakened and a new way chosen.

If it could happen to Vader, or Saul, or Ananias, it could happen to anyone. Even the most unlikely person you can think of. Even you. Even me.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

The video above includes the entire service of May 4, 2025. Clicking “Play” will jump to the beginning of the sermon.

Pastor Eric writes a manuscript but improvises as he preaches, so the video will not precisely match the text here.

The image is The Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio (ca. 1600-1601), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15219516.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Fulfilled

January 26, 2025

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Luke 4:14-21

The four Gospel writers had a common task – to help their readers understand the nature and significance of Jesus the Christ – but each had different notions of how to go about it. All four chose a different way to describe Jesus’ entry into ministry after his baptism and the gathering of his first disciples.

Last week we heard John’s version. He told the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the first of his signs. What did it signify? Jesus’ power, yes, but also his compassion and his abundant grace.

Mark, probably the first of the Gospel writers, had a similar idea. He focused on Jesus’ healing ministry to begin his account. Matthew took some time, lingering over the stories of John the Baptist and the forty days in the wilderness, before giving us the words of Jesus in what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

For Luke, the best way to introduce Jesus was to hear him read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then to hear him say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The quote came from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah. Five hundred years before Jesus, the grandchildren of those taken into exile in Babylon read those words and took heart that they might be able to return to Jerusalem. They were the captives; they were the ones oppressed. They hoped and prayed for a year in which God favored them.

Their prayers were answered. The Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians, who felt no need to retain custody of their former enemies’ former enemies. The reading we heard from Nehemiah this morning is the account of a celebration held in the rebuilt Jerusalem. It was the people’s rededication to their faith, a day which brought such a range of emotion. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “It’s an astonishing image of a communal Bible reading experience that takes a diverse group of people on a journey from attentiveness to comprehension to affirmation to wonder to grief to worship to joy to celebration.  I read it over and over again with an aching sense of need, desire, and envy.  When was the last time I read the Bible with such sustained attentiveness and expectation?  When was the last time I savored the sweetness and the sorrow it contains?”

In the reading of the Law, the people of Jerusalem affirmed their identity as people of God.

Jesus, likewise, chose to identify himself with this reading from Isaiah, speaking in the synagogue of his childhood. Karoline Lewis asks at Working Preacher, “What would be the words that could sum you up? How much are you willing to reveal about yourself, to the world, to others, even to yourself? I know it’s Jesus, but still, these are bold words. You want to know who I am and why I am here? Well, here you go, and no euphemistic, metaphorical, or figurative hermeneutical gymnastics allowed. What if Jesus really means what he says because it says who he is?”

Bold indeed. Jesus declared that his ministry would be one to bring good news to the poor. He would proclaim release to the captives. He would bring vision to the blind. He would set free the oppressed. He would proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

That message went over well. For a bit. The next sentence in Luke reads, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Not to give anything away, especially because I believe Rev. Weible may preach on the next part of this story next Sunday, but it went downhill from there. I admit that Jesus said some rather pointed things, but by the end of the story, the people with whom he’d grown up wanted to push him off a cliff.

I guess that’s what happens when you ask people for mercy.

As you know, this is my last Sunday leading worship before beginning a three-month sabbatical. I can make a case that this is following the example of Jesus. Just before he spoke in that synagogue in Nazareth, he’d spent forty days on a wilderness retreat. A sabbatical is sort of my wilderness retreat, though I hope to avoid lengthy encounters with the Tempter during it. It is a time to prepare for resumed ministry. As for why it will take me eighty-eight days where it only took Jesus forty, well, I’m not Jesus.

I almost cancelled the sabbatical. I strongly considered it after the election results in November. I anticipated then that we were in for some very hard times, and I didn’t and don’t want to abandon you in them. I told the Council this, but I also told them that I’d decided to take the sabbatical. The simple truth is that we’ve gone through a lot these last eight years and my reserves are getting pretty thin. I do think we’ve got rough times ahead and I need to be at my best to get through them with you. I ask for your prayers that I can be the pastor you need me to be.

Just so you know, I will be guided by these words of Jesus. I will speak good news to the poor. I will call for release for the captives. I can’t do much about blindness of the eye, but I will do my level best to increase the vision of the heart. I will shout for liberty for the oppressed.

These are the things that make a year of the Lord’s favor.

May they be fulfilled in your hearing.

I was not going to speak about events this week. There have been a flurry of actions of which I disapprove, things that I think are bad policy, things that I think are potentially catastrophic in their folly, things that I think will cause great harm to people. If I am guided by these words of Jesus, I will have a good deal to say about such things over the next few years. Oh, yes. But I thought I’d let it wait. It was enough, I thought, to reflect on the implications of Jesus’ adoption of Isaiah’s commitment.

I thought I’d let it wait even after hearing the words of the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde. Bishop Budde does not need me to supplement her or explain her. She preached the Gospel. She said, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

She asked someone to have mercy. I don’t need to add anything to that.

But House Resolution 59 has been introduced to the House of Representatives. It has two “be it resolved” clauses:

“(1) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the sermon given at the National Prayer Service on January 21st, 2025, at the National Cathedral was a display of political activism; and

(2) the House of Representatives condemns the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde’s distorted message.”

To be clear, the House has not yet passed any such resolution. It’s been introduced and referred to committee.

She asked for mercy.

They said, “No.” Not only that, they’re claiming that the mere request for mercy, delivered by a pastor from her own pulpit, is political activism and a distorted message. This is literally a branch of government seeking to define what is true religion.

Maya Angelou wrote in Letter to My Daughter, “My dear, when people show you who they are, why don’t you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can’t you get it the first time?”

Jesus told us who he was: one who would bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, vision to those who would not see, liberty for the oppressed. Jesus told us, and Jesus fulfilled it before the people of Nazareth, of Galilee, of Judea, of the world.

This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Bishop Budde did the same. She asked for mercy. This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Please God that when I’m back with you, I will bring good news, calls for release, vistas of vision, and the promise of liberty.

May this scripture be fulfilled in your hearing.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

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Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the prepared text above may not match what he actually said.

The illustration is “The Rejection of Jesus in Nazareth” (“Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown”); 18th-century tile panel by António de Oliveira Bernardes in the Igreja da Misericórdia, in Évora, Portugal. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97133284.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Can You Turn Water into Wine?

January 19, 2025

1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11

Can you turn water into wine?

The answer, of course, is yes. You can. You can turn water into wine. There’s a trick to it.

The secret is to add grapes.

I am not the first to make that joke. Augustine of Hippo wrote in the fifth century, “The miracle indeed of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby He made the water into wine, is not marvellous to those who know that it was God’s doing. For He who made wine on that day at the marriage feast, in those six water-pots, which He commanded to be filled with water, the self-same does this every year in vines. For even as that which the servants put into the water-pots was turned into wine by the doing of the Lord, so in like manner also is what the clouds pour forth changed into wine by the doing of the same Lord. But we do not wonder at the latter, because it happens every year: it has lost its marvellousness by its constant recurrence.”

The world, Augustine observed, is full of God’s miracles, so full that we’ve ceased to recognize them as God’s handiwork.

It seems, however, that somebody goofed among the wedding planners in Cana. They ran out of wine. The hosts may not have been entirely at fault. As Lindsey S. Jodrey writes at Working Preacher, “We may read the story and wonder why the family of the bride and groom failed to provide enough wine. However, it was ancient custom for guests to bring wedding gifts in the form of food and drink to share the burden of providing for such a large group. Thus, the family’s lack of wine may indicate a lack of community support in addition to their own lack of resources. Jesus’ actions are that of a friend and faithful community member; the provision of wine is a sign of shared hospitality.”

When Mary came to her son to tell him there was no wine, his reply, “What concern is that to me and to you?” was a little discomforting. As a guest, he had some obligation to aid his host. Perhaps he had already contributed something to the feast. But perhaps – and John’s narrative of a short time period between Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan valley and his attendance at this wedding some miles away suggests this could have happened – perhaps Jesus and his new followers hadn’t brought anything, or hadn’t brought what his mother considered enough. Even if he had, it’s clear that she thought he could and should do more.

The other half of Jesus’ response, though, was more complicated. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ “hour” (“My hour has not yet come”) was the time of his crucifixion. If it seems like a stretch to say that Jesus saw this moment as one that set him on the path to that terrible Friday, I’ll just say that the author didn’t see it that way. Jesus’ mother appears only twice in John’s Gospel: here, and at the foot of the cross; when the hour had not yet come, and when the hour had come.

There was a simple way to deal with the situation. Jesus might have turned to Peter, Andrew, Philip, and Nathanael, and said, “Come on, guys. Let’s pool our money and go to the wine shop. Between us we might get enough to last out the evening.” If he was concerned that five of them couldn’t carry enough, Mary was enlisting the servers to help. Jesus didn’t have to do what he actually did.

John called it the first of his signs. He meant something specific by that. It wasn’t enough that Jesus did something remarkable, or powerful, or miraculous. That act revealed something about Jesus. It said something about his purpose. It said something about his nature.

John wrote that turning water into wine in Cana, the first of his signs, Jesus “revealed his glory.”

But hardly anyone recognized it at the time.

The chief server didn’t know. Nobody told him where the good wine had come from. The hosts didn’t know. Nobody told them, either. The other guests didn’t know. The servants knew, but if they told anyone else, John left it out. Jesus’ mother knew. Jesus’ closest friends knew, because they were paying attention.

As far as I can see, Jesus revealed his glory to less than a dozen people.

That tells us a lot about Jesus’ glory, doesn’t it? It’s not a glory for show, to display or to impress. It’s not a glory that cries, “Look at me!” It’s not a glory about ego. It’s not a glory that demands worship. It’s a glory that can go unnoticed. It is, to go back to Augustine for a moment, a glory that can lose its marvellousness by its constant recurrence.

It was also a glory of profound compassion.

It’s not clear just how much the hosts would have suffered if they had, in fact, run out of wine at the feast. Some scholars suggest it would have been shameful, which is no small thing in a culture based on honor and shame. Others don’t think they would have experienced any long-term consequences. At the least, it would have been embarrassing. I’m pretty sure that years later, they’d have blushed when the story came up – again – “Remember when the wine ran out at the wedding? Good times!”

Mary thought that was worth avoiding. In the end, Jesus thought so, too.

I’m afraid that doesn’t mean that Jesus will always act to preserve us from simple embarrassment. I can tell you that Jesus might have done done that at various times in my life, but certainly not every time. I’ve been embarrassed more times than I care to count or remember. It does mean that Jesus cares more about the seemingly trivial parts of our lives than we might imagine. It’s not all about life and death, suffering and wholeness, damnation and salvation. It’s also about helping us through the other challenges of life.

Jesus’ compassion extends not just to our health, but to our joy. As Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “Turning water into wine is revealing of abundant grace in this season of Epiphany. And what does abundant grace taste like? Like the best wine when you are expecting the cheap stuff.” Jesus’ compassion delights.

Abundant grace is also easy to miss. How many people were at the wedding feast that day? I don’t know. How many received this grace without knowing it? Nearly all. Nearly all.

So can you turn water into wine?

It turns out you can. You and I just have to work harder to make it happen. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Maybe we can be like Mary. Maybe we can notice, name, persist, and trust. No matter how profound the scarcity, no matter how impossible the situation, we can elbow our way in, pull Jesus aside, ask earnestly for help, and ready ourselves for action. We can tell God hard truths, even when we’re supposed to be celebrating. We can keep human need squarely before our eyes, even and especially when denial, apathy, or distraction are easier options. And finally, we can invite others to obey the miraculous wine-maker we have come to know and trust.”

We can turn water into wine.

We can bring more joy into the lives of our families, friends, and neighbors. We can act such that the needs we see get addressed, whether they’re urgent and important or seemingly trivial. We can gather the supports to get things done. We can name and proclaim the acts of grace, the deeds of mercy, the times of transformation, and we can declare, “This is glory, people. Ignore the prattle of the powerful and their pathetic posturing. Glory is compassion. Glory is humility. Glory is love. This is glory.”

Yes. We can say that. We can live that.

We can turn water into wine.

We can also turn wine into water, and for those who have addiction to alcohol, we might have to do that sometimes. There’s a trick there, too. Boil it. The alcohol evaporates first. The point is: Don’t let the metaphor get in the way.

Jesus displayed his glory with compassion, humility, and grace. Let us display our glory with compassion, humility, and grace.

Let us be like Mary. Let us be like Jesus.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

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Pastor Eric does depart from his prepared text from time to time. Sometimes he’s trying to improve it.

The image is The Marriage at Cana by Frans Francken the Younger (ca. 1605) – https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/frans-francken-ii-the-marriage-at-cana-6182794-details.aspx?from=salesummery&intobjectid=6182794&sid=7c5b9177-028d-4214-857b-35022d21ca55, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80461976.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Children of the Spirit

January 12, 2025

Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Jesus made a pretty good journey to see and hear John the Baptist.

According to Google Maps, that’s about a 95 mile journey. They estimate it would take 35 hours to walk that distance. Jesus probably spent four days on the road. I would guess he was hot, dusty, and pretty uncomfortable when he arrived.

But he had to see John.

As I remarked during Advent, John the Baptist was a celebrity at the time. He was a rock star. He’d… made a splash.

Sorry about that one.

The point is that people came to see him. Some were probably the celebrity seekers who have to get close to the Big Name. John the Baptist, Governor Pilate, it didn’t matter. Go and see. Some were certainly the suspicious religious authorities, the people who get perturbed when unauthorized people start saying religious things. Remember that John promised forgiveness with baptism, and forgiveness was something that happened when you made sacrifices in the Temple. I’m pretty sure there were priests saying, “That’s not right.” So they were there.

Some were the folks who desperately wanted some sense of God’s forgiveness, who were aware they’d said and done things they shouldn’t. Some probably wanted to turn their lives around. Some probably intended to go and do the same things again. People are people, after all.

Quite a few, I imagine, felt a gap in their spirits and didn’t know why. Quite a few weren’t satisfied with life in their land. Quite a few felt the need for a big change. Maybe this John the Baptist would bring it. Could he be the Messiah?

It was a crowd full of people asking very different questions.

Among them stood Jesus. We don’t know what questions rolled around in his head. I think we know he felt the need for a change, because he went down to be baptized, and changed his life.

Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Jesus’s baptism inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with what Mark describes as ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.’ He allied himself with the faults and failures, the pains and the problems, and with all the broken and hurting people who had flocked to the Jordan River. By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us and among us. Not long into his public mission, the sanctimonious religious leaders derided Jesus as a ‘friend of gluttons and sinners.’ They were right about that.”

Jesus’ baptism was marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit. All four of the Gospel writers described the Spirit descending “like a dove.” All four identified this moment as the beginning of Jesus’ teaching and healing ministry. All four mentioned the similarities between Jesus’ message and John’s. Not one said that Jesus ever baptized with water.

Jesus, after all, would baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Thought of as a dove, the Holy Spirit is a comforting presence, don’t you think? Doves make soft sounds. They don’t scream like mynas. They don’t fuss like finches. I agree that they don’t sing as sweetly as mejiro, but their gentle coo comforts.

The Holy Spirit means that we followers of Jesus are never alone. We don’t face the sorrows and struggles of the world unaccompanied. We don’t deal with sadness alone. We don’t bring our strength alone.

Is that different from anyone else? Honestly, I believe that God accompanies everyone, of every faith, and of no faith. Hopefully, we’ve been given a better understanding, and better understanding does mean that we should be better able to appreciate the Spirit’s presence, to rest upon the Spirit’s comfort, and to receive the Spirit’s support. I’m pretty sure that we Christians are as capable of closing ourselves off to the Spirit as any non-believer. I’m also pretty sure that when we open our hearts to the Spirit, we are filled to overflowing.

As Dan Clendenin continues, “Many malignant forces try to name and claim us. Baptism reminds us that first and foremost, above and beyond all other claims — however legitimate or oppressive — we belong to God. He knows and calls us by name.

“We don’t belong to our boss or the bank. We don’t belong to an abusive spouse or our addictive impulses. We’re not defined by sickness, success or failure. We don’t belong to the political propagandists or the advertising industry. We’re not the sum total of our poor choices, painful memories, or bad dreams.”

We are none of those things. We are children of the Spirit.

Around 850 years ago the abbess Hildegard of Bingen wrote:

O comforting fire of Spirit,
Life, within the very Life of all Creation.
Holy you are in giving life to All.

Holy you are in anointing
those who are not whole;
Holy you are in cleansing
a festering wound.

O sacred breath,
O fire of love,
O sweetest taste in my breast
which fills my heart
with a fine aroma of virtues.

O most pure fountain
through whom it is known
that God has united strangers
and inquired after the lost.

The Holy Spirit didn’t let either John the Baptist or Jesus alone. They were always accompanied by the Spirit – but they were also moved, led, driven by the Spirit. After his baptism, Luke wrote, Jesus “was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” John the Baptist, as we know, didn’t preach in the towns. He baptized at the edge of the river, away from the cities and the villages. The Holy Spirit cares for us, but not necessarily for our comfort.

And… I should also mention the gap that our lectionary editors have left us in Luke’s account. You may have noticed that we jumped over verses 18, 19, and 20. Here’s what they say:

“And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.

“But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.”

It was an odd place to put that part of the story. For one thing, you could read it that John had been arrested before baptizing Jesus, which doesn’t match any other gospel account. I don’t think that’s what Luke had in mind. Instead, I think Luke meant to highlight the risks of following the call of the Holy Spirit.

As Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “The imprisonment of John reminds us of what happens to those who tell the truth, or, to those whose words we don’t want to hear. This will certainly be the case for Jesus. Hearing Jesus’ first sermon, the hometown folks want to throw him off a cliff. Jesus will be rejected by his friends, his family, his community before he even does anything.”

The Holy Spirit may lead us into places we do not want to be.

That might be into a public space, calling for change in the way we assist those without homes. It might be into a family conflict, where nobody really wants to listen to a peacemaker. It might be into advocating at work for people who will be affected by some action of the company but whose voices have not been welcomed. It might be to learn a new skill, one that doesn’t come easily, to make a home a little brighter.

It might be to take on a new message and purpose in life.

Melissa Bane Sevier writes in her blog, “Purpose is something that unfolds over time. It is rarely something we can fully grasp at any one moment, because we never know what new episode is around the next corner, outside our current vision. What new opportunity, or new problem or challenge, may present itself tomorrow? In our rapidly changing world, it’s rare that many of us will stay in one job for our entire working life, or live in one place, as many of our parents or grandparents did. How do we find our purpose when we have less rootedness?”

Jesus took over a month in the wilderness to discern his new purpose. None of us will find it in a moment.

We are Children of the Spirit. We are created by God and we are adopted by God. We are strengthened and comforted by God. We are led by God.

Jesus joined us in baptism by water. Jesus also joined us in baptism by the Spirit. May we follow the Spirit as faithfully as Jesus did, as the Spirit leads us in our own unique and blessed journeys.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

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Pastor Eric sometimes makes changes as he preaches. Sometimes he even intends to make them.

The image is the Baptism of Jesus by Anonymous (19th cent.) – http://www.auctions-fischer.de/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12348872.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Mystery

January 5, 2025

Jeremiah 31:7-14
John 1:1-18

When I was in seminary, one of my professors had something useful to tell us about theological mystery, that is, the things we had to admit we did not know and probably would not know. “Before you call it a mystery,” said Dr. Carlston, “do the work to see what you can learn about it.”

Do the work before you call it a mystery.

I don’t know if it made the papers he read any better, but it certainly made them longer. His students couldn’t get away with writing, “It’s a mystery,” as the first and last line.

Do the work before you call it a mystery.

Like the ‘apapane trying to find the source of nectar’s sweetness, you may not have the resources to learn the truth. You may not be able to peer into the workings of leaves and chlorophyll, or the daily work that roots do to pull water and nutrients from the soil. The chemistry of it all might be beyond your education or the tools available. That’s OK.

Do the work before you call it a mystery.

John’s Gospel opens with this profound section that, for nearly two thousand years, has swept its readers into the realm of mystery. As Meda Stamper writes at Working Preacher, “Because the prologue is poetic and mystical, it moves us in a way that transcends thought. The glory of the Synoptic angels and star is expanded into a view from before time into forever. Then the ‘we’ of 1:14 draws us into this cosmic love story of God and the world and every human in it.”

That’s the “we” of “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

Now, it’s likely that when we’re done with this sermon, it will still be a mystery. But… let’s do the work.

The opening of John’s Gospel has roots in the life of Jesus Christ, of course. It also has roots in Jewish and Greek thought. The “Word” that was in the beginning with God strongly resembles the figure of Wisdom from Proverbs 8. In Proverbs, Wisdom labored beside God in the Creation of the world: “Then I was beside him, like a master worker.” (Proverbs 8:30)

Greek philosophers, probably somewhat later, developed the concept of Word, or logos in Greek, that connected the rational structure of the world with rational speech. Heraclitus wrote, “This logos holds always but humans always prove unable to ever understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep.”

Philo of Alexandria, who was born about fifteen years before Jesus, incorporated that Greek idea of a rational universe expressed by logos, by Word, and wrote: “…No material thing is strong enough to bear the burden of the world. But the everlasting Word [logos] of the eternal God is the firmest and surest support of the whole. He stretches to reach from the middle to the edges and from the heights to the midst, uniting and binding all the parts with nature’s unfailing course. For the Father who begot [gennésas] him made him the unbreakable bond of all.”

Does that sound familiar? “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

I don’t know whether John read Philo. I don’t think it matters. People were comparing the thinking of Greek philosophers and Jewish theologians in the first century, finding similarities between a rational universe that resembled rational thought, and a universe created through the exercise of Divine Wisdom. It seems John knew about that.

And along came Jesus.

During his life and ministry, it has to be said, people didn’t seem to make a connection between Jesus and logos, Wisdom, or Word. They knew him as a healer, storyteller, and healer. They began to ask questions about whether he fit the definition of a Messiah – and enough people asked that question loudly enough that the Romans stepped in to crucify him as an attempted rebel. As impressed by his wisdom as they were, even his closest friends don’t seem to have asked, “Are you the Wisdom who created the universe with God when it began?”

After Jesus’ resurrection, however, people began to ask that very question. They began to employ the phrase, “Son of God,” which might not have meant more than the idea that we are all children of God, but they meant something different. The Apostle Paul wrote the Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:15-16)

Sound familiar?

Logos. Word. Wisdom. Son.

“God choosing to put skin on and walk among us,” writes Karyn Wiseman at Working Preacher, “is one of the pivotal points in salvation history, which begins with the redemption of the Hebrew people and continues in the story of Jesus, his ministry with his disciples, and his death and resurrection (verse 14). This point of Jesus being fully human and fully divine has been a bone of contention in history and continues to baffle some in the faith today. But for me it is one of the most important tenets of the faith — that God loved the world so much that God came to dwell among us, teach us, and die for us (John 3: 16).”

I can connect the dots from Jewish and Greek thinking to John’s opening words. I can connect the dots from the figure of Wisdom to the Apostle Paul’s declaration of “the firstborn of all creation.” What I can’t do is describe the process by which God’s grace became flesh and dwelt among us. It’s as mysterious to me as the processes of roots and light and chlorophyll are to the ‘apapane – and it’s possible that the ‘apapane has a better understanding of those things than I know. Christ’s incarnation remains, in great degree, a mystery.

The impact of the Incarnation, though: ah, that’s another thing. Dr. Wiseman is right. “This point of Jesus being fully human and fully divine has been a bone of contention in history and continues to baffle some in the faith today. But for me it is one of the most important tenets of the faith — that God loved the world so much that God came to dwell among us, teach us, and die for us (John 3: 16).” I don’t think I can put it better than that.

By whatever mysterious mechanism, God chose to be born as one of us, to live as one of us, to eat and drink and speak and listen and do all the things as one of us, to die as one of us. Why? To love us in a new and different way. To show us the depth of that Divine love. To invite us into that love now and for eternity.

Yes, it’s a mystery. But it’s a mystery of love, which always has some mystery in it. It’s a mystery that lifts and comforts the soul. It’s a mystery that invites us to keep looking into it, to learn more, and to encounter God’s love once again.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

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Pastor Eric preaches from a prepared text, but he is inclined to vary from it. Sometimes he thinks that’s better.

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Gentleness

December 15, 2024

Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”

That seems like such a wonderful text as a basis for a sermon entitled, “Gentleness.”

It’s a pity that I’m preaching from the Gospel of Luke, isn’t it?

“John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?’”

Isn’t that gentle?

Well, no. Calling people snakes, especially in a religious context where “snake” summons up the memory of the snake that deceived Eve, is not gentle. “Who warned you?” is an accusation, and “the coming wrath” implies that we, those who have been addressed, have done something that will bring wrath upon us.

In other words, “You’re snakes, you’ve earned some fearful fate, and I can’t believe you were smart enough to heed a warning.”

Not gentle.

So… why were they there?

Melissa Bane Sevier writes in her blog, “So, all these people were coming to hear John and he called them a bunch of snakes.  Not very welcoming.  I have no idea why they didn’t just slither back to their homes to get away from his venomous rantings. There had to be something in his words that appealed to them, though, or they wouldn’t have kept coming in droves.”

John was a big name in the first century. When the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote The Jewish War around the same time Luke was writing his Gospel, he gave John the Baptist three times as much space as he gave Jesus. In our day, I suppose we’d call John an influencer. His reputation drew people down to the riverbank from nearby Jericho, from Jerusalem at the top of the ridge, and all the way from Galilee. John packed them in even as he called them vipers.

When John answered the question, “What should we do?” however, he was a lot more gentle. In fact, he had a very light touch. The hardest thing he said was to give up a coat if you had two. As Richard W. Swanson writes in his blog, ProvokingTheGospel, “This isn’t a call to become a minimalist, however.  John is simply saying that everyone needs a coat, and if you have to look like a ‘minimalist’ to get that done, then share your extra coat.  We all need a coat.”

We all need a coat.

Then there are the other two groups. The soldiers are almost certainly not Roman legionnaires. These are the local soldiers, and we’d probably think of them more as police officers. They’re the ones who guard the officials, the ones who break up the fights, the ones who bring the defendants to face their judges. What’s the great temptation to poorly paid people given authority and weapons? It’s simple: “Pay me or I’ll have you charged. Pay me or I’ll beat you up.”

John’s prescription: Don’t do that. Be content with your pay. It’s not complicated.

What about the tax collectors, though? They did represent the foreign occupiers, even did their dirty work for them. First century Jews, along with a lot of other residents (but not citizens) of the Roman Empire, deeply resented Roman taxes and their agents. The third century Tosefta, which like the Mishnah recorded a lot of the thinking of the first century rabbis, states that a visit from a tax collector would render a house ritually unclean. You’d expect that John’s directions to those people would go something like this: “Give it up. Do something else. Stop.”

Instead: “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”

John’s bark was a lot worse than his bite.

That might be a clue to his popularity. Yes, John’s rhetoric was harsh, but his advice was clear, direct, practical, possible, and dare I say it? Gentle. As David Lose writes at Working Preacher, “This feels more like the stuff of Kindergarten than Apocalypse.  Which may be Luke’s point.  Fidelity does not have to be heroic.  There are opportunities to do God’s will, to be God’s people, all around us.  These opportunities are shaped by our context: the roles in which we find ourselves and the needs of the neighbor with which we are confronted.  But make no mistake, opportunities abound.”

They came to John because they knew things weren’t right in the world. They came because they had lots of explanations for why things weren’t right, but they weren’t sure whether those explanations made sense, and they weren’t sure what to do about it if they’d known. They came because so much seemed beyond their power and their reach. They came because they were tired of being stuck in the wrongness, and they wanted to be part of the improvement toward right.

What should we do?

Like the nene who wanted to change the world, we start with ourselves. How can we, as Paul put it, let our gentleness be known to everyone? How can we see that we do not abuse the power entrusted to us by position, custom, or election? How can we see that we do not pursue our wealth and welfare to the harm of others? How can we see that everyone has a coat?

As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “What John is daring to suggest to his listeners is that holiness is not the ethereal and mysterious thing we tend to make it.  If we’re willing to look closely, if we’re willing to believe that nothing in our lives is too mundane or secular for God, then we’ll understand that all the possibilities for salvation we need are embedded in the lives God has already given us.  There is no ‘outside.’  We don’t have to look ‘out there.’  The kingdom of heaven is here, within and among us.”

We all need a coat.

We start with ourselves because it’s better for us as well. I’ve borne the awareness of guilt a few times in my life – more than a few times – and it’s a burden. It’s a burden because I don’t like to be less than the person I want to be. It’s a burden because it takes up room in my soul that I’d like to give to something else, like awareness of God’s grace. It’s a burden because I try to justify this thing I know I shouldn’t have done, and that just gives me a brain spinning to no purpose.

That’s brought me to my own equivalents of a grouchy preacher speaking by a shallow river, because of the possibility that a confession and washing might just send that burden floating, then sinking, into the current, disappearing downstream, out of sight, and at last out of mind. The crowds came to ask, “What should we do?” but they also came so that they could do those things with freed spirits. As Troy Troftgruben writes at Working Preacher, “John’s message is more constructive than condemning—and more expansive than excluding. Repentance in Luke, after all, leads to joy and a life better aligned with God’s purpose. And that is good news.”

What should we do?

Be gentle first with ourselves. This is the gentleness, though, that faces reality and does not deny it. This is the gentleness that changes the bandages on the wounds even though it hurts. This is the gentleness that takes the soft brush to the grimy fingers so that the dirt comes free but does not break the skin. This is the gentleness that knows that however painful it is to face the sins of our soul, it is less painful than carrying those burdens, and that forgiveness brings joy.

Brings joy.

Be gentle as well with those around. I still don’t know how John got away with calling people snakes, but clearly he knew his neighbors better than I. Be gentle because you offer healing more than correction. You offer an opportunity to live better rather than a summons to self-destruction. You offer the promise of grace.

Let your gentleness be known to everyone.

The world wasn’t gentle with John, or with Jesus who came after. It hasn’t been gentle with a lot of people who came calling for repentance and declaring forgiveness. Not gentle at all.

May our gentleness be known to all.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric improvises when he preaches, sometimes intentionally, so what you read is not an exact match to the recording.

The image is La Prédication de saint Jean Baptiste (The preaching of Saint John the Baptist) by Joseph Parrocel (1693) – Own work, FFF72, 2015-07-18 14:28:26, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41931511.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: What Really Matters

December 8, 2024

Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

The Apostle Paul was, it seems, accustomed to repeat himself. In chapter three of this letter, having spent some time telling the Philippians things he’d already told them, he wrote, “To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a source of steadfastness.” After that, he told them some more things… that he’d already told them.

In some ways I can safely say that I emulate the Apostle Paul. Or in at least one. I repeat myself.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you that I repeat myself before… probably in that sermon I titled, “Repeating Myself.”

No surprises today, I’m afraid.

We don’t know exactly when Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians, or what city he was in. He was in prison, but that doesn’t tell us much. In Second Corinthians, he wrote that he had “far more imprisonments” than some other people with whom he was in conflict. Apparently he had the capacity to annoy local authorities with his preaching – and he had the will to do so rather than stay safe and silent.

While it’s no surprise to find Paul imprisoned, he did set a different tone in this letter. For one thing, it sounds like he’d been held longer than he had previously, long enough for the Philippians to hear about it and start worrying about him, long enough for them to worry about his companion Epaphroditus as well. In the first century, jail was not a punishment. People were held for trial and after trial to await punishment, and Paul had experienced “countless floggings” in his career. This time, though, the possibility of execution loomed. “Living is Christ,” he wrote in verse 21. “Dying is gain.”

In the midst of all that, Paul wrote what is safe to describe as the most joyful of his letters, at least the ones we have. This is no Second Corinthians, full of contention and conflict. This is no Romans, dedicated to a thorough explanation of his ideas. This is not even Philemon, encouraging a friend to do something extraordinary. In Philippians, Paul rejoices in the faithfulness and compassion of this congregation he has loved and cared for.

As Carla Works writes at Working Preacher, “Joy permeates this letter. Paul will make use of the language of joy or rejoicing sixteen times. The apostle can have joy in the midst of suffering because of his confidence in God’s work through Christ. His joy is wed to God’s activity rather than to his own personal circumstances. Joy is an appropriate theological response. It is not joy because of suffering, but joy because those who cause the suffering will not have the last word.”

Joy is the first of things that really matter.

Another thing that really mattered, and really matters now, is the presence and support of other people. As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Paul’s letters to the churches of his era and to the church today, remind us, across time and distance, that our faith is shared. Our journey is communal. If we are called to be a righteous branch, we recognize that branches are connected to a tree, bush, or vine.” Over the course of the letter to the Philippians, Paul mentioned four of his comrades in the gospel by name: Epaphroditus, Timothy, Euodia, and Syntyche. In fact, Paul routinely named other people as he wrote his letters, either because he wanted to greet them specifically in the church to whom he wrote, or because he was passing along the blessings of people with whom he was working at the time.

What really matters? Don’t do it alone. You don’t have to. And you shouldn’t. Get together, and stay together.

What else matters? Paul named something else in this one-sentence prayer that closed today’s reading: “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvestof righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”

Love. Love matters. Love really matters. Love. Agape. Hesed. Aloha. Love really matters.

This is the love that puts someone else’s welfare and interests at or above your own. This is the love that not only knows that we don’t have to do God’s work alone, this is the love that doesn’t let someone else do God’s work alone, either. This is the love that Epaphroditus demonstrated by coming to Paul and getting sick. This is the love that Paul showed by sending the recuperating Epaphroditus home, not just for his benefit, but to comfort the Philippians who were worried about both of them.

This love is not a feeling, but it nurtures feelings, doesn’t it? This love is audible in words, and it is visible in deeds. This love is tangible in making change in the physical world. This love tastes like my friend’s favorite meal. This love has the perfume of blossoms after rain.

These things make us feel good. They make others feel good. This is what love is. And: it really matters.

Paul’s prayer didn’t stop there, though. As L. Ann Jervis writes at Working Preacher, “Paul calls for love that is discerning and courageous, not simply tolerating everything in everyone; love that has insight and wisdom; love that reflects the moral character of God as reflected in Christ.” I’ve said it before, love carelessly expressed may not comfort, may not heal. It may, in fact, annoy, irritate, and mislead. People who dearly loved me have given me some real clinkers of Christmas gifts over the years. I love the people, but I do occasionally wonder how they thought I’d like… you know, that.

Christmas gifts are one thing. Day to day gifts are another. How often do we take on some regular job in the household firmly believing that we are providing relief or relaxation to someone we love? How often did we take it on because, well, it’s easier to do it ourselves than to share it? How often did we take it on because it’s something we were good at and the other person wasn’t, and we just couldn’t be bothered to teach it?

How often do we find ourselves unintentionally limiting the roles our loved ones can take on or the skills they can learn?

Did we ask?

It turns out that knowledge matters when we set out to love. It turns out that we can lovingly do exactly the wrong thing. It turns out that ignorance isn’t loving. Shouldn’t we care enough to ask?

Yes. We should.

Care enough to ask. It really matters.

Care enough to observe, as well. That’s where insight comes from. That’s what allows us to make those inspired guesses about things that will delight those we love. When we pay attention to what pleases those we love, we can make better and better judgements about what will please them next. Insight isn’t a gift that some have and some don’t. Insight is something you build from experience, observation, and consideration. Insight, like knowledge, takes work.

Do the work. It really matters.

What really matters?

Joy. Joy matters. Joy in the grace of God that rises above the current circumstances. Joy matters.

Togetherness. Togetherness matters. Living out our calling from God in company with others, supporting one another in righteousness. Togetherness matters.

Love. Love matters. Sharing and caring for others as we would have them share and care for us. Love matters.

Knowledge. Knowledge matters. Asking when we do not know, so that we can love well. Knowledge matters.

Insight. Insight matters. Paying attention to those we love so that we can love well without asking every question. Insight matters.

Paul repeated himself. So do I. Because it’s so important that we know what really matters, and that we do what really matters.

Love with knowledge and insight. Love together, not alone. Love God’s creation, and celebrate God’s joy.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric preaches from a text, but he does vary from it, as he has done today.

The image is Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (ca. 1618-1620) – Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=596565.