Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Light of Wisdom

November 8, 2026

Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-16
Matthew 25:1-13

Usually when Jesus told a story, he described a set of actions and characters that would be basically familiar to his listeners. A woman searching for a coin in her home. Day laborers looking for work. A sower scattering seed.

Here we have another familiar situation – wedding attendants waiting for the groom – that would have been familiar to anyone. The delay was probably pretty common, too. In thirty-eight years of ministry, I have never once had a wedding begin on time. We’re always waiting for somebody. The groom is late? Not a surprise.

Surprise, however, is important. O. Wesley Allen, Jr., writes at Working Preacher, “Parables by definition have a twist in them that is key to understanding the intended impact of the parable (for example, a tiny mustard seed becoming a great tree, when everyone knew there was no such thing as a mustard tree; Luke 13:18–19). That is a problem for this parable because our knowledge of ancient Jewish and Roman wedding practices is somewhat sketchy. It is difficult to know which elements in the parable reflect actual practices and which the original audience would have recognized as being twisted.”

I did officiate at a wedding once where all the bridesmaids carried lit candles, but I don’t think that’s relevant to Jesus’ story. That wedding didn’t start on time, either.

It’s the surprising moments that count in Jesus’ parables. It’s the departure from the expected, from the accustomed, that makes the teaching point.

Jesus described half of the women as wise, and half of the women as foolish. All ten came to meet the bridegroom on time. All ten brought lamps. All ten fell asleep as they waited. All ten awoke to the announcement that the groom was on his way.

Then the differences appeared. The five wise women had extra oil. The five foolish women didn’t. The five foolish wisdom asked the five wise women to share, and they said there wouldn’t be enough oil left. Then they suggested that the foolish women go wake up the oil sellers and buy more oil – at midnight. The foolish women took the suggestion, missed the procession they were supposed to be part of, and missed the wedding feast.

D. Mark Davis writes at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “Most first graders will wonder why the wise ones do not share. In the parable’s terms there is not enough oil to supply for all of them. The story does not suggest that the wise are being greedy or unhelpful.”

Is that the surprise? Is that the teaching point? I don’t think so. That’s the thing I’d expect a prudent and prepared person to do. “I brought extra. But everything is now so late that I don’t have enough extra for more than one lamp. If there’s to be enough light for the procession I’ve got to have it for my lamp.”

I’d say that. You’d probably say that, too.

But would I, would you, say at midnight, “Go buy oil”? I wouldn’t. At least, I wouldn’t if I liked you. Or if I liked the oil seller I’d just doomed to be awakened in the middle of the night. No. It makes no sense. It sounds vaguely wise, but I don’t think it is.

Off they went to buy oil. It was foolish not to have extra oil. I think it was probably more foolish to leave the place where the bridegroom was expected.

As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “You’re more valuable than your oil supply. So stick around. As far as I can tell, the fatal mistake the five “foolish” bridesmaids make is that they leave. They assume that their oil supply is more important to the groom than their presence at his party. So they ditch the scene at its most crucial moment and go shopping, thus depriving themselves of a wonderful celebration, and depriving the bridegroom of their companionship, support, and love on his special day.”

They were foolish not to anticipate that the groom might be late, and to prepare for that. They were probably more foolish to leave as the crucial moment approached.

The ancient wisdom writers of Judaism, those who wrote the materials later collected in Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon we heard from today, those ancient writers liked to compare wisdom and light. For most human beings, light really helps them perceive and learn things. It’s hard to see in the dark. If you’re accustomed to dealing with the world mostly through your eyes, it’s helpful to have light.

People have said over the centuries that if you want to deal with the world, if you want to live a life of faith, it’s helpful to have wisdom.

What is the wisdom of this story?

For Matthew and the Christians he wrote his gospel for, one of the crucial learnings of this story was that the followers of Jesus had to anticipate a delay. They expected Christ’s return any day now, but forty odd years after Jesus’ resurrection, it hadn’t happened. As Kimberly R. Wagner writes at Working Preacher, “The ones who brought oil are labeled as ‘wise,’ not because they had some kind of predictive powers to know how much oil to pack. Instead, their wisdom was in being ready for a timetable that might be different than the one they would have preferred.” Two thousand years later, we’re pretty well reconciled to the idea that Jesus’ return might be imminent, but probably isn’t. Nevertheless, wisdom calls for preparation, for seeing that we have the resources to maintain our light for when it’s needed to illuminate the celebration.

So when you think about what your wisdom might be, think about the things that keep you alight. What keeps you energized and engaged? What equips you to help someone else? What fills you so that you can celebrate?

I think that’s why the oil couldn’t be shared. The things that maintain your spiritual light aren’t strictly sharable, are they? Someone can inspire you. Someone can guide you. But they can’t hand that energy to you. That’s something you summon yourself.

I think Debie Thomas is also right to tell us that we are important, you and I are important, more important than the light we may or may not be able to shine. Yes, it’s better if our lamps are lit, but our presence, even in shadow, is desired more than our absence to gather resources. If you don’t have the stuff to shine at the moment, that’s OK. Come to the party anyway. If you need to sit quietly in a corner to catch your breath, do that. But be in the celebration. When you’re ready to shine, you’re ready to shine.

As Elisabeth Johnson writes at Working Preacher, “Are our priorities aligned with God’s priorities, or are we so distracted with secondary concerns that we risk missing what is most important — the presence of Jesus in our midst?”

The presence of Jesus in our midst. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst. The very embodiment of wisdom in our midst. Are we prepared to look for wisdom, for the Spirit, for the Christ, in the world around us? Are we prepared to listen to the words of others, to delve into the Scriptures, to appreciate the beauty of Creation, to attend to the movements of our own soul, to discern the promptings of wisdom?

The presence of Jesus is one of the sources for filling your lamp. It’s not the only one, but it’s definitely one, and it might be one that can’t be duplicated. Wisdom “hastens to make herself known to those who desire her,” wrote the author of the Wisdom of Solomon. Jesus hastens to make himself known to those who desire his grace.

There’s also something that lies outside this parable proper. Matthew included a series of parables on this theme of waiting. What do you do while you wait?

In chapter 24, you don’t abandon your responsibilities and abuse your co-workers. Here in 25, you don’t leave the preparation to the last minute. The next story in this chapter is the one about two servants who actively worked to increase their master’s wealth, and one who hid it away. And finally there’s the story about the judgment, when some will be rewarded for showing compassion to their neighbors, and some will be rejected for withholding their support.

What is wisdom in the mind of Jesus? Letting your light shine in kindness, caring, and love.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Unfortunately, we were having technical problems on this day and the sound recording is very low. We regret the error.

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as presented.

The image is Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins by William John Wainwright (1899) – Art UK: entry parable-of-the-wise-and-foolish-virgins-33822, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46118588.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Preparation

What did Jesus repeatedly urge on his disciples in the last days of his ministry? Attention, awareness, and preparation.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 25:1-13)

It opens with Jesus’ story of the ten bridesmaids who came to light the way of the groom into the wedding banquet. They had brought lamps filled with oil in order to do so, but the groom was delayed. By the time he arrived, the oil supplies had depleted.

Five of them had brought additional oil. Five of them had not.

They went out to try to find some, but of course it was nighttime. When they had found some and returned, the festivities had begun, and they were not let in at the door. Be awake, said Jesus, because you do not know the day or the hour.

In that last week of his life, a number of Jesus’ parables concerned precisely this issue. Are you prepared for what is coming? Now, the parable itself does not describe what was coming. Jesus told other stories, said other things, about what that might be. But preparation, wakefulness, attention: that was what Jesus asked of his disciples in those last days.

In our days.

In any days.

It turns out that discipleship is not about withdrawing from the world, or rather it’s not about ignoring the world. We have to understand of the world, we have to be aware of the world, we have to be prepared for what the world might bring. Sometimes that will be good and sometimes that will be bad. Notice that these were people who were preparing, successfully or not, for a celebration, for a party, for a wonderful time.

Some of them were ready. Some of them thought they were ready and were not.

So pay attention dear friends, pay attention to the people around you and where they are and what they’re thinking and what they need and what they can share.

Pay attention to the community around you. What do the people there need? What can the people there do in order to come together as one?

Be aware of the world around you: its needs, its hopes, its resources, its promise.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: The Perils of Crying Peace

November 1, 2026

Micah 3:5-12
Matthew 23:1-12

What’s wrong with crying, “Peace”?

It’s something I’m inclined to do. Over thirty-odd years of ministry, when the specter of war (or worse, war itself) have arisen, I have called for peace. I’ve also called for justice. I’ve called for negotiated resolution of conflicts. I’ve called for peace.

What’s wrong with that?

It’s probably clear that I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I don’t think Micah was criticizing what I do – which might be hubris on my part. I think Micah was criticizing other prophets who were supporting the wealthy and powerful when they acted against the poor and powerless. Micah was a fan of peace – “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks…” comes from chapter 4 – but he was not a fan of deceit or of official corruption. In this chapter Micah relentlessly accused the prophets, the priesthood, and the civil rulers of bribery and corruption, and he accused them of claiming that everything was all right as they did it.

If everything was all right for them, it seems, they said everything was all right for everybody. The problem is that everything wasn’t all right for everybody. There were people who had nothing to put in their mouths while their leaders were ruling by bribes.

That was a problem. It was aggravated by the fact that the prophets, those whose job it was to remind people of God’s guiding call and will, were avoiding the truth.

Engineers know what happens when people ignore truths, especially when they ignore more expensive truths. Engineers warned in advance about the failure that doomed the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. Other engineers warned about the safety of the deep-sea submarine Titan, which was crushed by deep ocean pressures three years ago.

What’s true in engineering is also true in human relationships. The saying “truth hurts” has some validity, but lies hurt a lot more. The most well-intentioned falsehood – which is the ever-popular “Oh, no, it doesn’t bother me” – can build into resentment and anger. It might not be simpler to have an earnest, honest conversation with a friend or family member about something that rankles, but it might address a problem. Unaddressed problems don’t get resolved in engineering or in human relationships or in larger communities or with God.

We are not going to deal with the impact of climate change by refusing to measure it. We are not going to reduce poverty by misreporting it. We are not going to stop fighting wars by declaring non-existent agreements.

Last weekend I went to the Hawai’i Island Festival of Birds here in Hilo. I hadn’t been before and didn’t know what to expect. I got to listen to a lot of very smart and very committed people from universities, government agencies, and private nonprofits. The main area of focus this year was the status of Hawai’i’s forest birds: the ones I tend to tell stories about week after week.

Their condition is not good. In the ten years since I moved to Hawai’i, populations of some species, including the palila have decreased by ninety percent in the wild. The forest managers and academics have learned a lot about what hasn’t worked, or what hasn’t worked well enough, and have ideas about new approaches that might work better, such as the release of ‘alala on Maui where they are not vulnerable to ‘io.

Old ideas. New ideas. What they have in common is the refusal to ignore the problem as if human impact on the environment were negligible. What they have in common is the commitment to preserve a home for these birds in the wild and increase their populations.

It’s inspiring and chilling at the same time. But you can’t address a problem without acknowledging it; you can’t address it effectively without understanding it.

My own relationship with God is founded on realizing I had a problem. On the grand scale of things, it wasn’t much of a problem. I’d got arrogant and told off some friends. They got mad, as you’d expect. As you might not expect, I realized that I needed some help with the situation, and I prayed. In that prayer I realized that I’d created the problem. That was the first step. The second was also mine to take, and though it stung, I did it. I apologized. My friends were good enough to accept it, and we remained friends.

Ignoring what keeps you from God – God’s forgiveness, grace, and comfort – doesn’t help either. Sometimes you’ve got to acknowledge your arrogance. Sometimes you’ve got to deal with your hurt. Sometimes you’ve got to work through your other idols, the things we depend on that aren’t God. Unacknowledged, they’ll just be barriers. Confronted, they can fall.

Carolyn Sharp writes at Working Preacher, “Are Micah’s words uncomfortable for us? Certainly – just as it is uncomfortable when loved ones carry out an intervention with an alcoholic, or when a therapist declines to play along with a client’s dysfunctional script. But without truth there can be no repentance and no transformation. Thus, Micah is an invaluable companion for individual believers and for every community that seeks to please God. It is good news indeed that Micah continues to walk with us.”

Climate change. The attempts to gain power over information through AI systems (and no, I won’t call it “superintelligence”). The horrors of wars. Poverty and homelessness. Public officials who are not held accountable for their misdeeds.

Failing to remember the welfare of my friends and family. Letting anger or arrogance or jealousy or self-interest rule my decisions.

Mistaking the things that keep me comfortable for God.

If I ignore these I cannot do well. If I overlook them I cannot change them. If I call it “peace” when there’s still a war of deliberate ignorance going on, the war and the ignorance will continue.

There are perils to crying peace.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the sermon as prepared is not identical to the sermon as delivered.

The image is the Prophet Micah in the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck (between 1426 and 1432) – Web Gallery of Art, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15883782.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Discomforting Words of the Prophet

During stressful times, the prophet Micah spoke words of challenge to those in power, warning them that their injustice risked the fate of the nation.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the third chapter of the prophet Micah (Micah 3:5-12).

Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah. Both of them lived in the city of Jerusalem during a period when the Assyrian Empire was extending its power to the west and to the south toward Egypt. That meant that the Jewish nations, Israel and Judah, were right in the way.

The people there trusted that God would preserve them. Micah said their trust was at least somewhat misplaced. Oh yes, God had promised to be with them through thick and thin, but they had made promises as well. And according to Micah, they had not kept them.

In particular, they had a rash of prophets that were declaring God’s faithful protection for them, while ignoring the way in which the nations had not kept their covenant with God. They were prophesying for money and for a bribe, said Micah. The political leadership was also taking bribes and perverting justice. They had established the city, he wrote, on blood.

Now, a nation whose leaders do such things, who enrich or empower themselves at the expense of their people, who pervert justice: itt does not take divine intervention for those countries to crumble. It takes time (and it may take quite a lot of time), but in the end nations which act against their own people will fall. It took, in fact, divine intervention not to crush the nation of Israel (Assyria did that) — it took divine intervention to preserve the nation of Judah and Assyrian army camped around them and then withdrew the siege because of an outbreak of illness. They read that as the intervention of God, an intervention prompted by a reform effort of a pious king named Hezekiah.

Later on in his book, Micah noted that God does not hold grudges or maintain anger forever. God yearns to show forgiveness and steadfast love. It still remains our responsibility to build and maintain communities of justice and compassion. It remains our responsibility because if we do not do so, our communities will dissolve of themselves.

But it is also our privilege and our joy to rely upon our God to forgive our errors and to restore us when we stumble. Just remember Micah’s most famous words, “What does the Lord require of you? To do justice and steadfast love and to walk humbly with your God.”

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you are thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: The Second Greatest Commandment

October 25, 2026

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18
Matthew 22:34-46

Debie Thomas, writing at JourneyWithJesus.net, observes that Jesus answered this question in tense circumstances. He’d been debating the faith’s most powerful leaders for some days. A fair number of their questions, or so it seems, had been designed to trap him into blasphemy, which they could punish, or politically risk, to run him afoul of the Roman authorities, or to put him at odds with the people who were following him and surrounding him and protecting him. It was a high anxiety situation when they asked, “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest?”

Debie Thomas writes, “But when he is asked what matters most in a life of faith, Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Believe the right things.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Maintain personal and doctrinal purity.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Worship like this or attend a church like that.’ He doesn’t even say, ‘Read your Bible,’ or ‘Pray every day,’ or ‘Preach the Gospel to every living creature.’ He says, ‘Love.’ That’s it. All of Christianity distilled down to its essence so that maybe we’ll pause long enough to hear it. Love. Love God and love your neighbor.”

Despite the tension of the setting, neither the question nor the answer was particularly unusual in first century Judaism. Especially among the Pharisees, this kind of theological discussion was common. I have great difficulty, in fact, in seeing this question as a trap for Jesus. A test, perhaps. But unlike some of the other things people had asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” isn’t a trap. It’s a foundation for understanding what else a teacher would say. And the commandments themselves were quotes from the Scriptures: Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Zina Jacque writes at Working Preacher, “Jesus’s answer—love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself—would have found immediate recognition from everyone within earshot. Rabbi Akiva, whose teaching is preserved in the Sifra (Kedoshim 2:4.12), called the Levitical command to love your neighbor the great principle of Torah. Hillel, a generation before Jesus, had said the same thing to a gentile who asked for the whole Torah summarized: That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow—this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).

“So Jesus is not introducing a new idea. He is stating what everyone already knows. And that is precisely the problem.

“The Pharisees know the answer. Jesus knows they know. The crowd knows. There is no debate about the content of the commandment. The failure has never been informational. The failure is always somewhere between the knowing and the doing, in the space where we understand perfectly what love requires and find ourselves, quietly and repeatedly, unable to deliver it.”

Love God. Love your neighbor. The greatest and the second greatest commandment.

I know that both are challenging. So for today I’m focusing on the second commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.

The nineteenth chapter of Leviticus has some interesting features. It doesn’t have one of the primary attributes of law, or statute, that would make these directions enforceable: it doesn’t set consequences for breaking them. The laws in chapter twenty do. The directives of the nineteenth chapter, appear oriented toward fostering a healthy community without burdening it with judicial proceedings. It’s also well aware that “love your neighbor as yourself” needs some expansion. It forbids lying. It forbids stealing, which includes withholding the wages of a laborer until the next morning. It directs farmers to leave a line of unharvested grain at the edges of their fields for the poor and the visitor to eat.

It forbids favor in judgement either for the rich or for the poor. It directs us even to reprove our neighbor when they seem to be breaking these laws – before it gets to court.

This kind of love for neighbor isn’t emotional. I don’t have to like my neighbor in order to love them. The thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Since to love a thing is to will it good, in a twofold way anything may be loved more, or less. In one way on the part of the act of the will itself, which is more or less intense.” The essential element is to will good to the neighbor. Yes, it might be a stronger or weaker feeling – I admit I find loving some people rather difficult – but it’s the will for their good that matters.

Will is choice. Will is action. Will is commitment. Will becomes a series of decisions to act in the best interest of your neighbor.

What is your will?

Some people make it easy to love them. The most obvious way to do that is to act loving, isn’t it? It feels good to do loving things for someone who is also acting in a loving way.

It’s also easier to love someone who is clear about how to love them, who tells you what they need and what they don’t. It’s one thing to will someone good – it’s another thing to know what that good is and to put the resources together to bring it. Some people struggle to be clear about their needs. That might be because of pride – personally, I don’t like it when I’m needy. I don’t like to feel vulnerable. I don’t want to tell you how you can help. When I keep silent, I make it harder to love me.

Others simply may not know what they need. This might be because they’re young – youth and inexperience mean that someone may not be familiar with the options. It might be because they’re ill. My ability to treat my own sicknesses has its limits. It might be because of harder things: trauma, mental illness, addiction.

More often, though, people do know, and that’s particularly true of people with disabilities. Earlier this month the US Department of Justice reversed itself and ceased defending the rules that require states offering federally funded services to disabled persons to provide them in the most integrated setting. So instead of living independently in their own homes, disabled people may find themselves forced into other living situations against their will, settings that they do not, in fact, need.

Shades of Kalaupapa, yes?

I suspect that many of you have already voted – I have, in fact – so it’s probably too late for me to suggest that “love your neighbor” should guide your vote. It should have. Or it should. Hawai’i’s motto gives us that guidance: “Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono” (“the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness”). Pono is a fruit of aloha. Righteousness is a manifestation of love.

Candidates who encourage or demonstrate cruelty, who clearly favor their own interests or the interests of their preferred community, don’t deserve your vote. I hope that in most cases you find that’s a difficult choice to make because the candidates have displayed care and compassion for everyone, that they have revealed their aloha and pono.

I really hope and pray that we rarely find ourselves choosing the best of the worst.

I’m glad we have this text for our observance of All Saints. Today we remember, honor, and celebrate our ‘ohana, friends, colleagues, and fellow human beings who loved us, whom we loved, and who went from our care to God’s in the last twelve months. We hold them in our hearts today because we miss them. We hold them in our prayers today because we are grateful for their presence in our lives. We hold them in our memories today because their wisdom and example still guide us.

They showed us what it means to love our neighbor.

Were they perfect? No. They made mistakes. They misread our needs, or they didn’t tell us their needs. Sometimes they chose their own interests over the good of all, and sometimes they didn’t realize it, and sometimes they knew it and did it anyway. Sometimes they apologized. Sometimes they didn’t.

Over the years, however, mostly they did their best to love and care for us. Some of them were our parents, some were our siblings, some were our friends. We knew some of them for years and years; we met some of them relatively recently. We remember their smiles. We remember their words of comfort and wisdom. We remember their laughter. We remember the times they held us as we wept.

They loved us. They willed good for us. They did good with us.

As Debie Thomas writes, “…this is the call. Which means that we have a God who first and foremost wants our love — not our fear, penitence, or piety. And we have a God who wants every one of God’s children to also feel loved. By us. Not shamed. Not punished. Not chastised. Not judged. But loved.”

Love God. Love your neighbor.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

The image is an early catacomb painting depicting Jesus as a teacher surrounded by his disciples as students, by an unknown artist – http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth212/early_christian_art.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=510313.

Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes accidentally. The sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Greatest Commandments

According to Jesus, the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. Neither is easy. Both are necessary.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the end of the twenty-second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 22:34-46), which describes events during Holy Week, that last week before Jesus’ crucifixion.

Jesus had been teaching in the Temple. Somewhat more accurately, he had been responding to challenges from the established religious leadership gathered in the Temple. As this passage begins, Jesus had just silenced the Sadducees, most closely associated with the Temple leadership, when they had asked a question that they thought he could not answer.

At this point, the Pharisees stepped up and they asked him a question: Which is the greatest commandment?

Jesus actually answered this question — sometimes he answered questions with questions, but he answered this one. “The greatest is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.”

These are challenging commandments.

They also are found in more or less those words in the Law of the Old Testament. Jesus did not make these up.

Is it difficult to love God? It is difficult to love God with the thoroughness, with the commitment, with the loyalty of which Jesus spoke. And what about loving our neighbors as ourselves? In the passage in Leviticus from which Jesus quoted (Leviticus 19:15-18), there is more specificity to this commandment. To be protective of your neighbor, and also to correct your neighbor when they are in danger of infringing on the law.

How many of us are really willing to protect our neighbor against the dangers of the world? And how many of us will really dare risk that kind word to a neighbor to let them know that they are running afoul of trouble? Some of us do, and it’s a wonderful thing, and some of us hesitate, and it’s not such a wonderful thing.

Love God, love neighbor: the two greatest of the commandments. May we fully love one another and our maker.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Imitate Who?

October 18, 2026

Isaiah 45:1-7
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

We learn things in a lot of different ways. We learn things by reading about them as well as by going to new places and experiencing new things there. I learned to tie knots by watching someone tie them, by watching them tie them again and again, and then by repeatedly tying that knot again and again until not just my brain but my fingers knew how to tie it.

Over and over again, though, I’ve learned how to do things by imitation.

I’m sure that any of you who have visited my office have noticed the lack of something: an unoccupied horizontal surface. I firmly believe that horizontal surfaces exist to have things placed on them. Books. Memorabilia. Photo frames. File folders. Paper.

I believe in employing horizontal surfaces for their purpose.

I learned this behavior from my own parents in my own home. Both of them treated flat surfaces in exactly the same way. The kitchen counters were usable toward the edges, because the back was taken up by ingredient canisters, appliances, and other kitchen articles. Somehow my mother managed to keep the kitchen table empty for us to eat meals.

I like to think that that’s where I got the example to keep the table in my office mostly empty for Bible Study.

Early Christians had a limited set of examples to imitate. Those raised as Jews had more examples: there were lots of people in the Hebrew Scriptures, people of faith, people of principle, people of righteousness. As I think I’ve also mentioned, they all had flaws. I would be thrilled to imitate Moses, but I would like to do so without whining. I would love to imitate Solomon, but I would also like to conclude my career without people complaining that I’d put unfair burdens on them. I would love to imitate Jeremiah, but hopefully without sounding like, and possibly being, somebody who was clinically depressed.

That’s a complicated set of examples to emulate. The Christians who came into the Church from the religions of Greece, Rome, Egypt and northern Europe didn’t have those examples handy. They had very different ideas of what it meant to live a faithful life, ideas that sometimes went smoothly with the Jewish foundation of the Church, and sometimes really clashed. In First Thessalonians, Paul sounded concerned about that. From what Paul wrote in verse 9 – “how you turned to God from idols” – it sounds like most if not all of the people in the Thessalonian congregation came from other religions. They had had to learn a lot about the God of the Hebrews, in addition to welcoming the good news of Jesus. It’s no wonder Paul was so proud of them, so pleased with their faith, so concerned that the stresses they were under (which might have been official persecution or might have been the more casual but still painful pressures of prejudiced neighbors), so thrilled that despite these pressures, they were a growing and learning and thriving Christian community in Macedonia.

What examples had they had to follow?

The one Paul would have mentioned first, of course, was Jesus. That’s kind of a basic for any teaching about Christianity. Whatever else you say about Jesus, his acts of wisdom, compassion, faithfulness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and resurrection became a primary model for the Jesus-people to follow. The first name for Christians was, it appears, the “People of the Way,” those who imitated Jesus.  Before his crucifixion, Jesus had directed his followers to care for the people around them as he did. Feed them. Heal them. Teach them. Baptize them. Encourage them.

What did he teach his disciples to do after his resurrection? The same. Make more disciples, too. Set everyone to feeding, healing, teaching, baptizing, encouraging.

It’s a good example. Paul would have been all too aware, though, that Jesus’ example was (and is) a hard one to follow. Jesus knew that the authorities were suspicious of his activities. He was warned. He went right on with them. He walked right into the lion’s den (or rode a donkey, if you prefer). Even with resurrection beyond, who wants to emulate a man whose courage led him to execution?

Paul did. I think that makes it fair enough to include him among the examples for imitation – and for the Thessalonians, Paul and those with him on his initial stay were the whole of what they knew Christians to be and to look like. “What’s a Christian?” “Well, there’s Paul. And Silvanus. And Timothy.”

Who else would they imitate?

Michael Joseph Brown writes at Working Preacher, “Persecution and death are not the only way we, as believers, imitate Paul, the other churches, and the Lord. Consequent to these crucifixion-like experiences are resurrection-like experiences. Paul indicates this when he notes that the Thessalonians ‘received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit’ (emphasis mine). The inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer is an indication that she has transcended persecution, just like Jesus’ resurrection transcended death (i.e., ‘whom [God] raised from the dead;’ 1:10).”

Paul named, I think, the first point in which the Thessalonians imitated him: “for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit.” It’s a crucial point, isn’t it? Christianity has earned itself a somewhat bleak reputation, not just in this century, but in many, of being judgmental to the point of cruelty. I’m grateful that we’re not currently experiencing anything like the waves of legalized violence against “heretics” that took so many lives so horribly in Europe. Lest we think too much of the modern era, we might remember “the Troubles” in Ireland in which Protestant vs. Catholic hatred was repeatedly fanned into violence. I guess I could be relieved that it’s not just Christianity that does this kind of thing – but I’m not.

In contrast, the Thessalonians responded with joy. With joy. Christianity was not a burden to be imposed. It was a gift to be embraced. As they embraced it, they received the power and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as well, the sign Paul always looked for as those new to following Jesus grew in faith.

Joy. Not angst. Joy. Not regret. Joy. Not self-punishment. Joy. Not other-punishment. Joy.

Paul summoned them to a work of faith and a labor of love, and they responded with joy. “Why? what labor is it to love? Merely to love is no labor at all,” wrote John Chrysostom in the fourth century. “But to love genuinely is great labor. For tell me, when a thousand things are stirred up that would draw us from love, and we hold out against them all, is it not labor?”

Yes, there are things that would draw us from love, aren’t there? So many things.

Greed. Rage. Lust – both for sex and for power. Self-criticism – that notion that I’m not worthy of a relationship with God. That would draw us from love, too.

The first step, I think, and I think Paul thought, was to accept the gifts of God with joy.

That was imitating Paul.

The next step, I think, and I think Paul thought, was to translate faith into loving action. As Richard Ascough writes at Working Preacher, “The presentation of the Gospel is found in words and action. Paul notes that he and his colleagues did not simply talk about the Gospel, they lived it. They lived it to the degree that when the new believers wanted to know how to live, they imitated the messengers. In like manner, the Thessalonians themselves became exemplars of action for others.”

Should you imitate Paul in all things? No. He could be remarkably abrasive with people he loved and respected. As much as I honor the truths of Second Corinthians, I’m aware that if I tried speaking to people the way he wrote to them, I’d be a spectacular failure. I don’t think I’d persuade anyone to my way of thinking.

We don’t actually know whether Paul did.

So no, don’t imitate everything in Paul. Paul wouldn’t want that. Think about the person who comes closest in your life to living fully as a Christian. Don’t emulate everything in them. Don’t emulate everything in me. I don’t want that. I try to be a good example of a Christian, but I know I fall short. Take the best from me, and leave the rest. But know that neither you nor I will know, just as Paul couldn’t know, the fullness of truth, the depths of righteousness. We’re still people, after all.

No, if you want to imitate someone and have pretty fine assurance that goodness and truth are what you’re emulating, choose Jesus. Choose one who fed people, healed people, taught people, encouraged people.

Choose one who loved people. Imitate that one.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the sermon as preached does not precisely match the sermon as prepared.

The image is Paul and Silas in Philippi, by an unknown artist (between 1591 and 1600). Photo by Rijksmuseum – http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.223502, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84114572.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Receive the Word with Joy

Paul complimented the Thessalonians for doing something so basic and so important: for receiving the word with joy. So may we.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10). I’m actually thinking about the entire first chapter. Those ten verses are what is laid out as the passage for this coming Sunday in Revised Common Lectionary.

Paul’s custom when opening a letter was to compliment his readers, and First Thessalonians is no exception. The rest of the letter actually continued to be fairly light and loving. In some of his other letters, Paul had more difficult things to say to his correspondents. In First Thessalonians, the occasion for writing seems to have been that Paul was delayed. He had wanted and expected to come to visit. He had been prevented. And he wanted to let them know he was still on his way.

There is an interesting compliment that Paul paid them, which you might look at in a couple of different ways. He commended them for becoming imitators of us (Paul and his companions), and of the Lord (Jesus). For in spite of persecution, they had received the word with joy.

Becoming imitators of figures in the Bible can be a problem. There are plenty of attributes of Biblical heroes and heroines that I would love to imitate. And pretty much all of them have attributes that I would not care to imitate. That, in fact, includes Paul. The hubris, the pride, with which he commends them for imitating him, is probably not something that I should do, not something I should imitate.

There is, however, something that was a characteristic of Paul, and that he noticed in the Thessalonians, that I do want to imitate, and which I commend to you to imitate as well: to receive the word with joy.

It is too easy in religion, any religion, to follow the trails into all sorts of self-condemnation. Any religion has lots and lots of options for self-improvement, and in many cases, those are well-commended to you. But that’s not where we start.

We start with joy.

Paul was abundantly clear throughout his writing career and in all of his work with the churches, that God took the first step through Jesus to bring a new and deeper relationship with people —  relationship which was extended to people that nobody had thought could have that kind of relationship with God — to receive the word with joy.

So that is my advice for you today: to imitate Paul at least to that extent (try and skip the hubris). To imitate Jesus to that extent, because oh my goodness, what joy he could display in his relationship with God. Receive the word with joy and be grateful and exultant in the fact that God loves you.

Receive the word with joy and let the rest of your goodness follow from that.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: How to Argue with God

October 11, 2026

Exodus 32:1-14
Matthew 22:1-14

You could argue that things had gone very well. Very well indeed. Better than anyone could have expected.

A large group of people – how many people is one of the things that Exodus scholars argue about – had escaped slavery in Egypt. Mass escapes from bondage are pretty rare in history, and successful escapes even rarer. Enslaved people from Africa called the Maroons successfully established and maintained regions in Jamaica in the 18th century. According to the National Geographic Society, some historians estimate that the American Underground Railroad freed around 100,000 people between 1810 and 1850, but that wouldn’t have been all at once. But most attempted escapes or rebellions by enslaved people have ended badly for the people seeking freedom.

These people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had done very well. They were out of Egypt. They had survived a vengeful army. In the dry wilderness of the Sinai peninsula they had water. They had bread. They even had meat – poultry.

They had these things because of the clear intervention of God, the same one who had guided their ancestors of the past. God had first recruited a leader – Moses. God had performed a series of signs for the Egyptians to persuade them to let the Hebrews leave, a series of signs that, I’m sorry to say, got steadily more drastic as Pharoah “hardened his heart.” God had parted the sea for them to escape from the Egyptian army. God had given them drinkable water not once but twice. God had provided the bread. God had provided the quail.

And then God had provided something else. God had given commandments, the foundations of law, the structure not for a band of escapees, but for a nation. Not just a nation, but a holy nation, a priestly kingdom. This disorganized band, homeless in the wilderness, would be one established to strengthen people’s relationships with one another, and with God.

It was going very well.

Then it was going sideways. Moses, the leader who had dealt with Pharoah and led them through the sea and brought forth the water and the food when they complained, Moses was missing. He had gone up a mountain they were forbidden to climb – and given how much thunder they’d heard from it, they had no interest in climbing – and he’d been missing for a long time. The text says he was there forty days and forty nights (Exodus 24:18), but don’t take that too seriously. For centuries, Jewish writers used “forty” as a figure of speech, basically meaning, “a long time.” Which, if you’re a group of traumatized people scraping together their food and water each day, might have been forty hours.

“Make us gods,” they said to Aaron, Moses’ brother – they were still relying upon the same leadership family. Or they might have meant, “Make us God.” You see, the Hebrew word for some generic deity, a god, was “El.” But when they wrote about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they used the plural form: “Elohim.” Which is the word used in verse one. “Make us gods,” or “Make us God.”

Mind you, they’d already heard the ten commandments. They knew not to have any other gods before God. They also knew not to create any idols. The question is somewhat meaningless. Breaking one commandment really isn’t much better than breaking two. When God saw it, God was not happy.

“The LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it…” (Exodus 32:7-8a)

God was ready to abandon the whole project of a holy nation, or rather to start over again with a single person: Moses. “Of you,” God said, “I will make a great nation.”

Callie Plunket-Brewton writes at Working Preacher, “In vv. 11-13, he [Moses] speaks to God of the divine promises to the ancestors of the people, thus implicitly urging God to be faithful to those promises. He also speaks of the terrible waste represented in bringing the people out of Egypt just to destroy them. Granted, he puts it in terms of being bad public relations, but I think it is clear that Moses is reminding God of the tremendous investment God has made in saving the people. Thus, Moses serves to remind YHWH of God’s own character, a character spelled out in 34:6-7: ‘slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness … ‘”

Moses argued with God. And… in this argument, Moses won. The nation would be formed from these people, not just one person.

Moses had argued with God more than once. He’d argued with God about the summons to free the Hebrew people. He lost that one, but he’d successfully negotiated a fair amount of support. I’m not sure that I would call some of Moses’ conversations with God about water and food arguments, because they usually sound to me like complaints, but Moses did get God’s help each time. Nor was Moses the only one to argue with God. Adam and Eve had – badly. Abraham had – rather better. Jacob argued with everybody, including God, and after a memorable wrestling match had received a new name: “Israel,” “One who struggles with God.”

The tradition of arguing with God continued after Moses. Gideon did. King David did. The prophet Jeremiah called God, “a deceitful brook.” And, of course, the most famous arguer with God of all was: Jesus. “Let this cup pass from me.” I grant you, it’s not an angry argument, but Jesus certainly did ask God to reconsider the course before him.

So should you argue with God?

Christianity has, for the most part, discouraged it. Judaism, I must say, hardly encourages arguing with God, but can’t help noting that most of those closest to God and God’s will have done so. But should you?

Sara Koenig writes at Working Preacher, “…the Old Testament gives us examples of humans who understand prayer to be a conversation, and God to be a relational God who actually listens to humans. To settle here does not deny that God is God, but clarifies that God is a God for us and with us.”

Prayer can be a conversation. I’d venture to say that from time to time, prayer should be a conversation. It’s a funny thing. So many people have been taught that prayer is a one-way thing. I’m talking to God. God is listening. Okay.

But prayer can be more than that. Prayer can be a relationship. Prayer can be responsive. Prayer can be an argument. Prayer can make change. The first step toward this kind of prayer is to do something that we’ve been trying to persuade people to do for millennia with uneven success: Listen.

People aren’t all that good at listening to people. But oh, how wonderful it might be if people listened to God. And as I’ve been told in active listening workshops for decades, the first step to effective listening is: stop talking.

I know that doesn’t sound consistent with effective argument with God. But how will you explain yourself to God if you don’t listen to what God has to say to you? Moses listened. God responded. Moses argued. God took another direction. So when you pray, make pauses in your prayer, and listen. Listen.

Note as well why Moses’ arguments were persuasive. Yes, he sounded like a public relations manager, but what did he remind God of? God’s promises. Moses went directly to the remarkable characteristic of Israel’s God: faithfulness. Dependability. Steadfast love.

Moses asked God to be God.

“’In God there can be no wrath,’ 14th century visionary Julian of Norwich wrote in her A Revelation of Love, the first book that we know of written by a woman in the English language.” Amy Frykolm writes of Julian at JourneyWithJesus.net, “During Julian’s day, the wrath of God was everywhere… And yet she was insistent that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not see wrath in God because there was no wrath in God. The reason is simple: God is all love. ‘Wrathfulness and friendship are two contraries,’ she writes. Where one exists, the other cannot exist.’

“If that is the case, then where does all of this talk about God’s wrath come from? Julian’s answer again is simple: it comes from us. We are the wrathful ones. We project that wrath onto God, who is all love.”

If you believe that God is all love, then you can approach God with anything, any feeling, any need. I don’t know how God will respond. I do know that God will listen, and God will respond.

The way to argue with God is to start.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so the text as prepared does not match the sermon as delivered.

The image is L’Adoration du Veau d’Or (The Adoration of the Golden Calf) (ca. 1633-1637) by Nicolas Poussin – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157563.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: A God Who Promises

When they built the golden calf, God got very angry, but remained true to the promises that had been made to them. We worship a God who keeps promises.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the thirty-second chapter of Exodus (Exodus 32:1-14), in which Moses learned about the golden calf.

Moses had already received and delivered the Ten Commandments to the people, not the tablets of stone,. God had informed Moses of what the Ten Commandments were down in the camp. Moses in turn had communicated those commandments to the people. These were the broad outlines, the foundations of their relationship with one another and of their relationship with God. Moses had ascended the mountain to learn more, to get more detail, to get more instruction.

At the bottom of the mountain, the people got frightened with Moses gone so long. And they wanted to make their God tangible, they wanted to make their God more real. So they did what people of that age did, they made an idol. People of our age are more likely to invest or build a house or have something that they can touch.

Moses’ brother Aaron — well, he did what they asked, he made them an idol, a golden calf.

Up on the mountain, God saw it and God was angry. They have already broken all the laws that I commanded them, God said to Moses. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to leave these people to die in the wilderness and I will make a nation from you.

I imagine it might have been a tempting offer, but Moses would not go there. Moses said to God, You promised. These people know what you promised. I know what you promised. The world knows what you promised. Can you be seen as a God who does not keep divine promises? “And God changed his mind about the evil that had been prepared.”

God is a God of promises. The promises of Exodus, the promises of First and Second Samuel, the promises of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the promises of Jesus. Despite what we do that hinders our covenant with God, that damages our relationship with God, despite the sins that we commit before God, God’s promises remain and God remains faithful to those promises.

It is a startling thing. What greater love could anyone have than to love through all the misdeeds and the mistakes? All the errors and omissions.

All the things that we do day-to-day to place something else between us and God might not be a golden calf, but if you think about it, you know what it is. And God loves us still.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comments section below. I’d love to hear from you.