Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Beyond Achievement

October 4, 2026
Isaiah 5:1-7
Philippians 3:4b-14

On a shelf in my home is a plastic box containing a medal. You know, a medal, on a ribbon, so it’s suspended from a pin. On it is the single word, “English.”

I don’t actually remember how I earned it, but I did earn it. It was a school prize for… something. In junior high. Or perhaps high school. I don’t remember.

But I have it. Decades later, I have it. Because I am a firm believer in my own achievement.

I believe in passing tests, and hopefully getting higher grades on them than what I scored the last time. I believe in certificates of completion and installation and ordination. I believe in achievement, accomplishment, confidence, success.

It’s kind of a pity that Paul came to think differently.

“If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.”

Lois Malcolm takes up Paul’s use of the word “flesh” at Working Preacher: “…We need to clarify what Paul means when he speaks of the ‘flesh’ (sarx). He is not negating the human body in and of itself. Indeed, he speaks positively about bodies, whether they be personal or corporate. Rather, Paul uses ‘flesh’ to refer to what is mortal—what will eventually decay or die and thus can be corrupted in its attempts to secure its survival at all costs.”

Paul then listed the mortal, temporal, Earthly things that gave him confidence: his birth among the people of God, his circumcision in fulfillment of the Law, his membership in the tribe of Benjamin. These first three weren’t achievements in our sense of the word, but birth meant an awful lot in the first century, establishing one’s basic place in society. If we’re honest, we have to acknowledge that where and to whom one is born in the twenty-first century makes a huge difference. If I hadn’t been born in New England to educated parents, I never would have had the opportunity to earn my medal in English.

Paul went on to name things he’d taken initiative with: he’d adopted the theologies of the Pharisees, which meant he’d engaged in significant study and education. He’d been so committed to the truth of his faith that he’d sought to suppress a growing movement of heretics within Judaism known as the Church of Jesus Christ. He also claimed, possibly with some exaggeration, that he faithfully kept the Law.

Like me and my English medal, he’d worked to learn. Like me and my criticism of Christian nationalism, he’d demonstrated his commitment to his faith. Now, I don’t claim to be perfect in keeping the Law, but I’m careful about sharing my own failings, so that others don’t get the idea that I’m careless about following Jesus.

If not blameless before God, well, I try to make it look close. Perhaps a little closer than it actually is.

That’s a good resume for a Jewish leader in the first century. Paul had taken advantage of his birth. He’d gained respect and authority.

“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.”

Paul wasn’t a good American.

The United States is a nation that values achievement. I still have the voice of actor John Houseman echoing in my memory, assuring me that at the investment firm Smith Barney, “They make money the old fashioned way. They earn it.” Just ignore the fact that investment income is “unearned income.” Unearned income happens when other people work and I make money from it.

What’s the phrase we keep trotting out? “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.” Despite, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., pointed out, “…it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”

Nevertheless, we like achievement. We like the self-made individual. We like to say, “That person earned what they got.”

I’ve got a medal for English.

“I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…”

I’ve got more than a medal for English. I’ve got degrees and authorizations and titles. What do you have? A distinguished career? One that comes with licenses and certificates? Do you have property? A home? Do you have the respect of your friends and colleagues? Do you have a family that you love and that loves you?

Can you imagine regarding all of that as loss rather than success? All of that as a burden rather than a delight? As a stumbling block rather than a highway?

It’s hard. It’s hard for me. After all, I’ve got a medal for English.

It’s hard. You and I were raised to believe that we should do things and accomplish things and achieve things. We were not raised to believe that they stand between us and our faith.

But they do. At least, mine do. My achievements tell me that I have gathered what I need by my own effort. They tell me that I am independent, self-sufficient. They delude me, because in all my accomplishments I rely upon those who had gone before me, like my parents, like those who guided nations and churches, people like the Apostle Paul. What would my achievements be without them?

What would my achievements be without God?

What would your achievements be without God?

Go ahead and achieve. Just recognize that you contributed less than you think. You stand on the shoulders of giants. You stand in the hand of God.

I’ll hold on to my medal for English. It’s not much of a distraction. I can’t remember what I did so that someone else gave it to me. So I’ll remember this instead: It was God who made me. It was God who loved me. It was God who put loving people around me. It was God who gave me the talents that teachers helped mold into skills.

First and last, it was God. Beyond achievement, God.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, intentionally and otherwise. The sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.

The image is St Paul Preaching at Athens by Raphael (1515) – Royal Collection of the United Kingdom, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1718078.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Better Than Achievement

September 29, 2026

The Apostle Paul was proud of many things – and he came to value the love of Jesus more than any of them.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the third chapter of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians (Philippians 3:4b-14).

Paul began this section by listening some of the reasons he had for confidence. Confidence of his worth as a human being. Confidence of his place in society. Confidence of his value to God.

Paul’s first attributes were those that he was born with, that he was born amongst the people of God, the Jews. He was even born into the tribe that had provided the House of David. Some of the other attributes were things that Paul had worked for. He had studied in order to gain position amongst the Pharisees. He had exercised his zeal on behalf of the Jewish faith in trying to suppress this dangerous Christian movement. And, he wrote, as to keeping of the law he was “blameless.”

Now we might consider that Paul exaggerated a little bit. We might consider that Paul’s zeal in the light of his later conversion might not have been such a great thing. Paul’s point was that he had left all of these behind his place in the world, even his value to God because he had been embraced, and had embraced in return, Christ Jesus.

The faith of Christ Jesus said to Paul that these other things, these expected things, these ordinary things, these accomplished things of life no longer had any value relative to being accepted into the community of Jesus’ faith. To be known by Christ, to be embraced by Christ, to be called by Christ was worth far more than any of the rest.

That kind of valuing of the things of life versus the things of faith continues to be a struggle for Christians to this very day. We are told that a lot of things are important in the world, and some of it is status, and some of it is accomplishment, and some of it is wealth, and some of it is… and it goes on and on and on. It is outrageously difficult for us to look at all those things and say to ourselves, “But you know what? I’m loved by Jesus, and so the rest of this I can set aside.”

Now, the Apostle didn’t leave everything aside. His learning to become a senior person amongst the Pharisees is obvious throughout his letters. So also is the faith, the core of the faith that was taught to him as a child and as a young adult that continued to inform him all through his ministry as a Christian evangelist.

What is also abundantly clear through all his letters, not just here but everywhere, is that even as he used what he had been given, he embraced more and more fully this invitation from God that came through Jesus. He valued that far more than anything else in life.

So I suggest, may we.

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: Unanswered Question

September 27, 2026

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Matthew 21:23-32

It was Monday. Just the second day of the week. Already, however, Jesus had created an uproar in the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple.

It had started the day before, on Sunday. Jesus had ridden a donkey into the city, and a crowd had gathered to welcome him with cries of “Hosanna!” “Save us!” Although most in the crowd wouldn’t have recognized it – very few people would have Zechariah’s prophecy about a king riding a donkey because very few people could read – they had given him a royal title. “Son of David,” they shouted. That was a very dangerous thing to say when the Roman Governor was in town.

Jesus hadn’t stopped there. He’d gone all the way to the top of the city, the summit of the mountain, where the Temple stood. He’d entered it, and he’d driven the moneychangers and dove-sellers out of it. He’d accused the Temple leadership of allowing it to become a place where people were robbed.

Then a crowd of people seeking healing had flooded in, many of them crying “Save us!” “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

The priests had urged Jesus to stop them. Why? Matthew didn’t say, but – right next door to the Temple was the Antonia Fortress, home to Jerusalem’s resident Roman legion.

So the next day, when Jesus returned to the Temple, the angry and furious priests wanted to know: By what right do you do these things, which threaten the peace of the city, which disrupt the established workings of the Temple, which disregard our authority which comes from the Law of Moses itself?

By what right, Jesus?

As Amy Frykolm notes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “There is a sneer in these questions: Who do you think you are, day laborer, nobody, know-it-all, rabbi of the rabble?”

(I rather like rabbi of the rabble.)

As Ira Brent Driggers writes at Working Preacher, “The chief priests and elders are apparently expecting the name of a teacher; a human association that will help them better understand Jesus’ actions. If you can identify someone’s teacher, then you can better grasp what they’re all about. More to the point, they are prepared to counter any and all claims to human authority with their own authority. At least as far as the local Jewish status quo is concerned, there is no claim to human authority that they cannot trump. They are the temple leaders.”

Jesus decided not to answer the question directly. He offered them a challenge. Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours. Ready? Here it is.

I’m surprised they fell for it. Their question was proper, legitimate, and immensely important. They had the authority to ask it. They had the duty to ask it. They had no need to answer any questions from a rabbi of the rabble.

So. First mistake.

Jesus’ question was: “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” John, you remember, offered baptism that, combined with the repentance of the person being washed, granted them forgiveness of their sins.

Washing had been for some time an important ritual practice for Jews, but around issues of purification from uncleanness. That wasn’t the same thing as sin. People became “unclean” in lots of ways, and rarely through any fault. Handling the wrong kind of food could make one unclean. In Jesus’ day, entering the house of a Gentile made one unclean. The response to these was ritual, not sacrificial. Sometimes they waited a prescribed length of time. Sometimes they washed.

When they wanted to be forgiven for a sin, for having done something that was actually wrong, they went to the priest, and they brought an animal for sacrifice – what animal was determined by the infraction and by their level of wealth. The animals were present on the Temple grounds so that people could purchase one there for sacrifice and avoid the problems of keeping one sound while traveling to Jerusalem. Those sacrifices supplied at least some of the diet of the priests.

A baptism for the forgiveness of sins was a problem for the priests.

Nobody had to bring an animal – or money for an animal – to John. John’s baptism was free (at least in money; let’s not forget that repentance can be costly). That meant that the merchants in the Temple didn’t get business, and they probably paid rent to the priests. Further, the priests didn’t get the meat from the sacrifices.

Do you see why a baptism for the forgiveness of sins might have been a problem for the priests? Do you see why, a good couple years after John’s execution, Jesus’ question was still a sensitive one for them?

On the one hand, few of them would have supported John’s baptism ministry in the first place. They couldn’t with honesty say that they believed God had authorized John to forgive sins. Remember – that was the job they believed God had given them. Matthew speculated that they also feared Jesus’ follow-up question, which they may have. Some among them may well have appreciated John’s ministry. In Matthew 3, we hear that Sadducees came for John’s baptism. Some of those Sadducees might have been in the group that challenged Jesus. Most of them didn’t. Most of them hadn’t believed in John.

So they really couldn’t say they’d believed God authorized John’s baptism.

But if they said what they believed, there were others listening beside Jesus. Those were the ones still coming for healing. Those were the ones who’d been shouting “Son of David” the day before. Those were the ones who had been the poor and the desperate and the outcast and the displaced. Those were the ones who’d gone to John the Baptist. Now they stood, rank on rank, behind Jesus. Lots of ones. Too many ones for the priests to say what they thought.

No, Jesus, we won’t answer your question.

No, priests, I won’t answer yours, either.

Even though it is the essential question of Christianity: where did Jesus’ authority come from?

Ira Brent Driggers continues: “For the church, then and now, everything depends upon the source of Jesus’ authority. If it is ultimately ‘from humans’ (Greek: ex anthrôpôn), then Jesus is really no different than the next charismatic leader (except for maybe his more pathetic death), and the church will be forced to define itself only as a human institution among other human institutions. In other words the church will be forced, like Jesus’ opponents, to compete against perceived rivals, reducing its mission to the quest for power, even if it purports to use that power for doing ‘good’ in the world.”

Christians have maintained, as you well know, that God was, is, and will be the source of Jesus’ authority. But where do we see that? What tells us that it’s true?

It’s what Jesus did.

In the story he told, Jesus savagely criticized the religious leaders of Jerusalem, priests and elders, for their failure to do what they said they would do. They were supposed to act not just as intermediaries between people and God, they were supposed to ease the process. They were supposed to guide and support the people as they sought to approach God. They were supposed to help.

Jesus didn’t think they were helping very well. He thought they were raising new obstacles rather than clearing old ones away. He thought they were enriching themselves at the expense of people coming to sacrifice. He thought they were maintaining their power and position, satisfying the Roman overlords, rather than advocating for the people in their care.

They were the one who said, “I’ll do it,” and didn’t.

In contrast, Jesus went and did it. He didn’t just give people hope, he fulfilled that hope. He healed the people that flooded into the Temple. He challenged the power-hunger of the priesthood. And when they came to arrest him, he stopped his followers from committing violence in his defense. He faced his accusers. He faced his judges. He carried his cross. He was crucified, died, and was buried.

That’s one who said, “I’ll do it,” and did it.

That’s what tells us that Jesus drew his authority from God – that he did what God directed.

Mind you, we have some additional confirmation in Jesus’ resurrection. Without that, I grant you, we might simply think of Jesus as a faithful martyr, which is quite a high title, but not Messiah. Anointed One. Blessed and Blessing of God.

Jesus didn’t answer their question with words. He answered it with action. He answered it with faithfulness. He answered it with his life, with his death, and with his resurrection.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches, so the sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.

The image is Jésus se promène dans le portique de Salomon (Jesus Walks in the Portico of Solomon) by James Tissot (between 1886 and 1894) – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.177_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957468.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Authority or Deeds

Confronted to account for his authority, Jesus refused – but he also told a story that made clear that it is what people do, not what people say they can do, that makes the difference.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the twenty-first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 21:23-32).

The setting for this passage is one of conflict. Jesus had just entered the city of Jerusalem to the shouts of a cheering crowd acclaiming him as the Son of David. When he arrived at the temple, the priest there wanted to know by what authority he did such things.

It was a pointed and vital question. Did Jesus, indeed, claim the role and title and authority of Messiah, Anointed One, royal figure, son of David? Or was there some other authority that Jesus claimed that might not have been the same but would have explained how he could do such things and expect not to be held accountable for them?

Jesus turned the question on its head. He asked about the baptism of John, was that of divine or human origin? The priests refused to answer because either answer they would give would put them in difficulties with someone: either the people or the Roman authorities. Jesus then said, “Well then, I will not tell you by what authority I do these things.”

He followed up with a story about a father and two sons, and the father asked the sons to go out and work in the field. One said, “Yes,” and didn’t go. One said, “No,” but did. Which one did what he was asked? The answer, of course, was the one who said, “No,” but did the work.

Jesus’ point was as obvious as any of Jesus’ stories ever are: Talk is cheap. Words are cheap. Obvious authority is cheap. What counts is what you do.

And that was true for Jesus just as it was for the priests who no doubt recognized themselves in the one who said, “Yes,” and didn’t go. At least they know Jesus was accusing them of that. Jesus himself, by the end of that week, would be placed in a situation where he not only said, “Yes,” he went and followed the path that led to the cross. Jesus said, “Yes,” and went.

So for us, if we are to be followers of Jesus, what we say is important, but not nearly as important as what we do. Will we follow the example, will we follow the call, will we follow the one who said, “Yes,” and did the hardest thing for our sake and for the sake of the world?

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: Love Isn’t Fair

September 20, 2026

Jonah 3:10-4:11
Matthew 20:1-16

Some years ago, my children’s godfather said something that I just didn’t get. My children and his were playing together and one of them came up to us and asked for something that they just couldn’t have. As they departed, disappointed but not surprised, their godfather reminded them of the children’s theme song. “The children’s theme song” went right over my head, so I had to ask.

He quoted the 1969 Rolling Stones classic by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards:

“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find
You get what you need.”

John was more of a Rolling Stones fan than I’ve ever been, but I had to admit: he was right. Those lyrics are the theme song of children everywhere: you can’t always get what you want.

In Jesus’ story, there seemed to be a lot of people who couldn’t get what they wanted. These were the people who spent various amounts of the day in the marketplace looking for work – some were hired early, some later in the morning, some at the end of the day. These people were doing what could be done to earn a living. They didn’t own land. They didn’t have a specialized skill. They worked the fields and vineyards. It wasn’t steady work. They relied on a farmers sending their managers to the marketplace to find them, hire them, and at the end of the day, pay them.

Pablo Jimenez writes at his blog, “Most Jewish people in the first century were peasants. A good portion of the agricultural land was owned by absentee landlords. Such farmland was cultivated by laborers just as the ones depicted in the parable. Their economic reality was characterized by poverty, subemployment, heavy taxation, and dispossession.”

They hoped to be hired at the beginning of the day. When that didn’t happen, they hoped against hope that somebody would need more labor later in the day. If that didn’t happen, they stayed in the marketplace hoping against desperation that somebody would pay them a pittance for as much work as was left before sundown.

The first workers in Jesus’ story would have thought themselves relatively fortunate. The later workers would have thought themselves pretty lucky, too. The last ones would have been somewhat relieved, but also wondering: on the little they’d be paid for the day, how would they make rent, buy bread, or get fuel for the fire? They’d be behind, and probably not for the first time.

The surprise of the story, of course, is that at the end of the day none of them were behind. All of them got the daily wage. Everyone went home, not with what would enrich them, but with what would keep them going for at least another day.

This situation of a few haves and many have-nots is specifically prohibited by the Hebrew Scriptures. As D. Mark Davis writes at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “It is a result of debts not being forgiven every seven years or forfeited family lands not being returned every fifty years or the prohibition of “joining land to land” not being observed, and so on. (See Ched Myers for an explanation of the term “Sabbath Economics” at www.chedmyers.org/catalog/sabbath-economics). The mere presence of a place where the landless gather in search of day labor is itself a testimony that the imperial economic structure is contrary to the Sabbath Economics of the OT.”

That alone would be a reason for Jesus to tell that story. It would be a reason for us to hear this story with distress, because we have also maintained an economic system that permits employers to pay less than a living wage. I know we keep hearing all these complaints about “nobody wants to work.” But why would anyone want to work for people who will pay you less than what you need to keep the lights on and the car repaired and the refrigerator stocked? And people do work. They work multiple jobs. They work long hours. They work for uncertain pay. They get labeled as unambitious, unskilled, unsuccessful, unworthy, unimportant.

A few years ago they were the ones required to break quarantine and go to work. It turned out they were essential.

Our economy could learn something from Jesus.

I don’t actually think Jesus spoke entirely about the immoral economics of his day. I’m not sure he spoke primarily about it. “The kingdom of heaven is like,” he said, not “the kingdom of earth is supposed to be like.”

I do think the kingdom of heaven is pretty good model for what the kingdom of earth might be. It’s worth working for.

Jeannine K. Brown writes at Working Preacher, “Are God’s ways really like this? Is this kind of maddening equality, regardless of what one has contributed to God’s kingdom, really a part of the new reality God is inaugurating in Jesus? For Matthew’s Jesus, the answer is ‘yes.’ God’s generosity is an affront to those who think about God’s benevolent rule in categories of status, privilege, and what one has earned.”

What, after all, does God give us?

To start with the most obvious, life. Life itself. God gave us a world, indeed a universe, so full of marvels that we actually get bored by them – what a strange thing that is. Ten years ago, I first drove down Waianuenue Avenue from the hospital and saw Hilo Bay gleaming beneath me in the sun. I promised myself that I would never come down that way and fail to appreciate the beauty of that sight. I’ve done my level best to keep that promise.

Life and beauty, which is not limited to vision but includes sounds and scents and sensations. Company. Challenge. Learning. Growth. Small people. Middle-sized people. Big people. People who are dark complected, light complected, with hair that runs long or short, bright or dark. People who are new, people who we’ve known for decades, people to whom we matter. People. God gave us people.

Most of all, God gave us love. God loved us in the creation of the species, in the guiding of our ancestors. God loved us to set slaves free and bring exiles home. God so loved the world that we received God’s only begotten son so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but have everlasting life.

At the end of the story, at the end of the day, I don’t see coins in the hand of the manager. I see love presented by the landowner. I see full inclusion of all who came into the vineyard. I see no hierarchy of welcome. I see a love given fully and freely to everyone, every last one.

How can anyone receive more than the love of God? How can there be grades and differences and pay rates to the love of God? What else is there than the love of God?

Elisabeth Johnson writes at Working Preacher, “God, it turns out, is not fair. God does not play by our rules. God does not give us what we deserve. And thank God for that! For if each of us got exactly what we deserved, where would we be? In fact, God lavishes grace and mercy on all of us, no matter how late we have come to the vineyard.”

God loves us. God loves you. God loves me. God loves them. God loves the them that you find it difficult to love. God loves the them who don’t care much for you. God loves us, whether we deserve it or not.

Isn’t that the kind of love we hope for? Isn’t that the kind of love we credit to Jesus? Isn’t that the kind of love that is our faith and our hope? Isn’t that the kind of love that we can say, with Paul, “the greatest of these is love”?

Yes. It is.

Love isn’t fair. Any small child knows that. Love means the polite child and the rude child eat the same dinner. Love isn’t fair. Love means the family celebrates the doctor’s degree and the GED. Love isn’t fair. Love means that the one who staggers home after wasting his inheritance receives a feast because we’re so relieved he survived. Love isn’t fair.

Thank God for that. Because given a choice between God being fair to me for the things I’ve done or not done, or God being generous and loving to me, I’ll take love.

Any day. Every day. To the end of time.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes to his sermon while preaching – sometimes intentionally, and sometimes accidentally. The sermon as you read it does not precisely match the way he delivered it.

The image is “The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard” by an unknown artist in an 11th cent. Byzantine gospel. Paris, National Library. Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους, Εκδοτική Αθηνών. Αθήνα 1980. Τόμος Η’, σελ. 202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9472307

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Unfair Love

Jesus’ story about every worker getting the same wage makes no sense in the business world – but it does make sense in the love world.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the twentieth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 20:1-16) Jesus’ story that we usually give the title, “The Laborers in the Vineyard.”

On its surface, an easy, if somewhat puzzling, story. Jesus described a vineyard owner who went out to find workers for the day. He went to the marketplace early, found some folks who were available. They went to work in the vineyard and were promised a denarius, which was the usual daily wage for a laborer.

But this landowner went out several times. He even went as late as about five o’clock in the afternoon, not long before the work had to end because of darkness. And each time he found people and sent them off to work.

When the sun had gone down, he gathered everybody up and had those who had arrived the latest receive their wages first. They received a denarius. Those at the end of the line who had worked the whole day, they also received a denarius, and were angry. Because they had worked much longer, why should they receive exactly the same wage?

The landowner replied, “My money is mine to do with it as I like. Are you upset because I am generous?”

As a story of business and economics, I suspect that anybody who taught in a business school would say this is not the way to do it. Among other things, it means that you’re paying expenses that you probably shouldn’t. It also means that some of your workers are angry with you about the way you treat other workers. It isn’t fair.

As is common in Jesus’ stories, it’s the place that somebody departs from the ordinary and the expected that we typically find the point that Jesus was trying to make. And in this case, it is that unexpected and extravagant generosity: that each person who worked in the vineyard, no matter how long, received the same amount. They received what they needed to live on.

Is it a model for business? Probably not. Is it a model for salvation? I think so. In the end, what can God give us that is more than salvation? If we arrive in the vineyard — that is, if we make the effort to participate in the community of God — what more can God give us than membership in that community? There isn’t anything more.

I think also, however, this is a model for relationships. It’s also something that we know.

We labor to try and treat our children fairly, but we do not treat them equally. Because one has skills and talents the other does not. That same one has needs that the other does not. And so we spend our time focusing on the things that they need or spend our time focusing on the things that they accomplish and that time will be different from one child to the next. We are perhaps not fair, not absolutely even-handed in our love for our own children, because it would be wrong to treat all human beings as if they were exactly the same.

Love can’t be absolutely fair. Love has to respond to what is. Love has to reveal what might be.

Jesus, I’m sure, in part spoke of the love of God here. The love of God is what it is and it is shared equally. And that may not seem fair, but that is what it is. And our love, we’re also called upon to respond to the needs and to rejoice in the successes of those we love, as they occur, but also in such a way that all know that they are loved.

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: Why Can’t I Judge?

September 13, 2026

Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

Paul didn’t want people to judge one another. In particular, he didn’t want Christians to judge one another. He accurately foresaw that people who judge one another don’t live together very well. In a new community of a new faith, that could be catastrophic, resulting in resentments, conflicts, and fractures.

It turns out another famous early leader had much the same notion, a once obscure laborer from a small Galilean village named, as you’ve no doubt deduced, Jesus of Nazareth. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he said in the Sermon on Mount, found in the seventh chapter of Matthew. Paul’s teachings echoed Jesus’ teachings: The Church was supposed to be a non-judgmental community.

There’s only one problem. It is basically impossible for human beings to live life without making judgments. Most of them don’t have moral content – it doesn’t really matter much what I choose for breakfast – but others do. People ask me to do things and I make a judgment about whether I will or not. People ask me to tell them things I make a judgment about whether I can or not. People give me directions or even requirements and, yes, I make a judgment about whether I will do those or not – and face the consequences.

I’ve made countless judgments about the content of Christian faith. I judged the basic assertions of Christianity about the existence and priorities of God, about the nature and work of Jesus Christ, about the strength and presence of the Holy Spirit – and, oh, yes, the triune nature of God. I judged them to be true. I believed them. It’s a curious thing about Christianity that we’re asked to make a judgment – to believe in and trust the beneficence of God – and the very next thing we’re told is: “Do not judge.”

It gets more ridiculous when I consider how judgment is indispensable to learning. Teachers choose what to teach (yes, I know, curriculum gets set by administrators and legislators, but bear with me here). People decide what children should know and when, in their development, they should come to know it. It’s judgment that says children should learn to read. Plenty of places in the world choose not to teach some children to read. Famously, Malala Yousafzai was targeted for assassination for advocating education for girls and women in Pakistan when she was barely a teenager. She survived and her work survived. She remains the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – which is also a judgment.

We learned things that others judged we should learn. We didn’t learn things that others judged we should not learn. We learned things because others tested us to see what we knew and insisted we learn the things we hadn’t because they judged we should.

Without judgment, there simply isn’t learning.

So why can’t I judge?

Audrey West writes at Working Preacher, “It is tough to praise God if you are busy passing judgment on other people. At least that is what the apostle Paul seems to be saying in this passage from Romans, in which he exhorts the community of house-churches in Rome to avoid fighting over non-essential matters.”

Paul named two issues here. It’s not entirely clear whether he knew that these were subjects of debate in the Roman church – remember, he’d never been there – or whether these were handy examples that came from his experience with churches he knew more about. The issue of eating meat or eating vegetables: In First Corinthians, Paul gave a full and detailed consideration of whether to eat things that had been offered to idols. This was apparently a common practice around the Mediterranean cultures within the Roman Empire. Animals sacrificed before idols became meat sold in the marketplaces – that says something about how scale of it all, doesn’t it? If it was a concern in Corinth, it was probably a concern to other churches Paul worked with in Galatia, Ephesus, Thessalonica. It was probably a question in many churches, including Rome.

The other concern he mentioned was whether to observe “special days,” which probably means religious festivals. Which ones? Well, in Galatians 4, Paul wrote, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental principles? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.” (Galatians 4:8-11)

It sounds very much as if the Galatians Paul criticized – rather harshly and judgmentally, I have to say – were participating in pagan seasons and festivals.

There would have been a lot of pressure to do so, both internally – this is what they knew to do – and externally – “I know you’re devoted to this Christ god now, but you can honor Demeter, too, because we really need a good harvest.” In the first century Roman world, very few people limited their devotion to a single deity, and they didn’t limit it to a single pantheon. The Egyptian goddess Isis had a temple in Rome next to the complex to which Roman citizens went to vote.

Some of the Galatians had succumbed to the pressure. So, too, I’m sure, did church members in Corinth and Phillipi and, of course, Rome.

So why can’t I judge?

Paul asserted two things here: First, these practices involving food and festivals were not essential. It was an astonishing statement, given that devotional practice has been considered essential in nearly every religion in nearly every place. Paul was the person, however, who had concluded that if a law so old it preceded the Law of Moses – namely the requirement of circumcision for all males in the community of God – could be set aside if it became a barrier, a wall, a stumbling block for those who sought to enter that community.

Paul judged circumcision, food practices, and religious calendars to be non-essential. It was an astonishing thing to say, but he said it. You could eat, or not eat; you could celebrate, or not celebrate; you could circumcise or not circumcise; and either way you could do so out of devotion to God.

The second thing he said was, “It’s not your judgment to make, anyway. It’s up to God. That’s who judges. Not you.”

As Alyce McKenzie writes at her blog, “When we judge others we place our authority above God’s. We are all only servants of God in God’s household. We are to focus on God, not our supposed superiority to others. All conduct must take its reference from our service to Jesus whose claim to lordship over all comes from his death and resurrection. (Best, 156) We will not have to justify to God the conduct of others, but only our own.”

Israel Kamudzandu writes at Working Preacher, “The question to be addressed in today’s church is as follows: tolerance or love? Romans 14:1-12 is a call to introspection of individuals, groups, clergy, and faith pillars who have settled into a culture of tolerance instead of love, hospitality, and appreciation of others. The entire New Testament is about love, but many people operate with a mindset of tolerating others, rather than loving them.”

When we judge people, we tolerate them. At best. At worst, well, let’s not go there. When we love them, we may be disappointed by some of the things they do. I don’t think we’ll avoid that. Love’s foundation is trust. I trust that you do this thing out of love. I trust you do this thing out of your best wishes. I trust that you do this thing because you believe it will make things better for all of us. I trust you.

You might be wrong – you may not know what you need to know to make the decision you made – but I will trust you did the best you could with what you knew at the time.

Love is founded on trust.

So why can’t I judge? Because I can’t judge you and love you. I just can’t. I can love you and trust you. I can love you and ask, “Can we do this differently? Did you know this would happen? Had you heard what this other person had to say?” You can love me and ask, “What did you think would happen when you did this? Is there a better way to approach such things in the future?”

You can love me and insist that I learn the multiplication table.

What you can’t do is love me and decide that you’re a better Christian than I am. I can’t love you and act as if I’m the be-all and end-all of Christianity. That’s not me. That’s Jesus.

That’s why I can’t judge.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

The image is Saint Paul, attributed to György Falkoner (c. 1646–1741), 17th or 18th cent. – http://www.bassenge.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12170368.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Judgment and Spirit

In a community made up of people from different religious backgrounds, the temptation to judge was hard to resist. Paul urged them to resist.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the fourteenth chapter of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 14:1-12).

The Roman church was made up of people from quite startlingly different backgrounds. Some had been raised as Jews, others had been raised in the traditions and religions of Rome, Greece, Egypt, and for that matter, many other cultures around the Mediterranean world. They brought very different assumptions about what a faith life was supposed to be like.

Christianity, originating as it did as a reform movement within Judaism (and indeed continuing to attempt to be a reform movement within Judaism in Paul’s lifetime), nevertheless welcomed folks from these other traditions and expectations. And Christianity did not fully endorse or fully reject religions and religious ideas of Judaism or Greece or of Rome. There was a lot to learn and to adapt to and to reframe for both those coming from Judaism and those coming from other faiths.

As a result, they were feeling at their way through the expectations of this new religion that they were calling the Way of Jesus.

Also as a result, they were criticizing one another, and sometimes fairly harshly.

Paul’s advice was, “Do not judge one another.” Those who observe in one way, well, they observe these things in faithfulness to God. And those who do other things to observe, they do those things also in faithfulness to God. It is God who is going to judge in the end. It is not up to us to judge one another.

Well, it is certainly true that a society without any kind of judgment or discernment rapidly draws into chaos as people do this, that, and the other thing. It is also true that the apostle Paul deeply disliked chaos and, as we noted from last Sunday’s reading, had some pretty firm notions on things that were to be done and things that were not to be done. But in matters of faithful observance, Paul was far more willing to let God be the judge of the heart, to let God be judge of the intent, to let God be judge of the devotion, than to permit Christians to run around willy-nilly judging one another.

Leave that to God, said Paul, and in such a way we can build a religious community together that is supportive rather than a religious community that drags one another down.

“Do not judge your brother or your sister,” wrote Paul. We will all be accountable to God, and that is more than enough.

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: Love Fulfills the Law

September 6, 2026

Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20

In his commentary on Galatians, the fourth century theologian Saint Jerome told this story: “The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, ‘Little children, love one another.’** The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, ‘Teacher, why do you always say this?’ He replied with a line worthy of John: ‘Because it is the Lord’s commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.’**° He said this because of the Apostle’s present mandate: ‘Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the household of faith.’”

Jerome wrote nearly three hundred years after John wrote the Gospel, so it’s hard to tell whether he’d preserved an authentic memory, or whether he’d preserved a story that reflected the way people thought of John. It certainly honored teachings of Jesus. We honored the “new commandment” Jesus gave at the Last Supper by calling the Thursday of Holy Week “Commandment Thursday” – “Maundy” is an English shortening of the Latin “Mandatum,” which means “commandment.” Jesus also spoke of love as the basis of the “greatest commandments.” As recorded in Mark’s Gospel: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

This wasn’t a new idea. The Babylonian Talmud records this story about Hillel the Elder, who lived in the century before Jesus was born:

“It happened again that a certain stranger came before Shammai and said to him:
–‘I will become a proselyte providing you teach me the whole Torah while I’m standing on one foot.’
(Shammai) knocked him down with the builder’s rule in his hand.
(The stranger) came before Hillel, who made him a proselyte.
He told him:
–‘What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor.
That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go, learn (it)!’”

I note that when Paul spoke of love as the fulfillment of the law, he used the negative form that Hillel had, avoiding doing harm. In contrast, Jesus used the positive form, love your neighbor as yourself.

So what is the good of law?

The Apostle Paul had, in fact, spent a good deal of the Letter to the Romans arguing that the Law of Israel had become a problem. When there’s a standard, he said, there’s not just the risk, there’s the likelihood that people won’t meet it. And when they don’t meet the standard, they’ve fallen into sin. Without the standard, there would be no transgression.

Paul argued persuasively that the Law had failed to prevent people from sinning – it’s an impossible argument to counter. No legal system has ever entirely prevented people from breaking the law. People make unintentional mistakes, such as not noticing that stop sign at the corner. People make uninformed mistakes, such as believing that those entering a traffic circle have the right of way rather than those in it. And people make deliberate decisions to break the law, passing in no-passing zones because they think it will save them time.

Mind you, most people follow traffic laws fully informed and faithfully. Law brings a basic order that’s really useful. Law also gets into the specifics of things. Like most of us on this island, I try to “drive with aloha,” and I’m glad for all the others who do. If we had no speed limit signs, however, I’d have more difficulty doing it. I wouldn’t know, necessarily, whether the road ahead was straight enough for high speeds, or whether around this next curve there is a series of small curves which I may or may not be able to navigate safely.

Not to mention the challenges of a traffic circle. It’s one thing to drive one with aloha, but if you’re driving with aloha, who goes first?

Despite dismissing the Law as a saving force, Paul definitely believed in offering specific guidance. Nancy Lammers Gross writes at Working Preacher, “In the event we are not clear about what the law of love looks like, even after the gifts for ministry and the disposition of love as described by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and alluded to in Romans 12, Paul spells out for us what is singularly inappropriate with regard to the law of love as we prepare for the return of Christ: Avoid reveling, which is excessive partying and wild behavior; avoid drunkenness, debauchery, and licentiousness, which may be taken as reckless indulgence in immoral behavior; avoid quarreling and jealousy.”

Indeed, Paul’s letters are full of lists of things to do and things not to do. If you’re looking for guidance in what to do, read Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, and so on. Paul happily told people what to do two thousand years ago, and people like me have been happily telling people what to do using his words ever since.

In the end, yes. Paul was right. Love does fulfill the law, at least as long as the law is dedicated to avoiding harm to the neighbor, as long as the law is dedicated to lifting up the neighbor. As we also know, that’s not always the case. Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “When Paul reflects on the second commandment in Romans 13, he writes, “’Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Romans 13:10). But I can imagine [Maria] Skobtsova having a fiery argument with him about this. She would say, ‘How can you sell love that short?’ She thought of love of neighbor as a ‘dangerous thing’ that immersed a person in the world and in its suffering, stopping short of nothing. Her life itself was a parable about this commandment and her deeply uncomfortable answer to the question: How do you love your neighbor as yourself?”

Maria Skobtsova was an Orthodox nun who hid Jews from the Nazis in occupied Paris, and died in a gas chamber in 1945.

Love does not just fulfill the law, it goes beyond the law.

Poet Wendell Berry died this week. For decades his work has inspired people of faith, so I’ll close with his words:

“I know that I have life
only insofar as I have love.

           I have no love
except it come from Thee.

           Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.”

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching. Sometimes he makes them without intending to. Sometimes He hope they’re improvements. The sermon as written does not precisely match the sermon as preached.

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: Take a Closer Look

August 30, 2026

Exodus 3:1-15
Matthew 16:21-28

When I served the historic Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, I shared an office with my colleague Drew, who also worked in communications and publications. We managed to keep one another entertained when a joke needed to be told, and comforted one another when we were sad, and supported one another when there was simply a lot to be done and less time than we really needed to do it.

From time to time Drew and I would find ourselves really easily distracted. A random glance at some word and we’d be thinking about what a strange way that was to spell it. A name would float by and we’d be thinking about all the people we’d known with that name. The phone would ring and it would take ten minutes afterward to remember what we’d been doing.

We had a name for these days. Based on the dogs in the 2009 movie Up, who could always be distracted by the mere mention of the word, “squirrel,” we called them Squirrel Days.

“Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to mount Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.’”

From a work productivity point of view, Moses had little business turning aside to see this burning-but-not-consumed bush. I’m no shepherd, but here’s what I imagine I, as a competent shepherd, should do if I see a fire in the wilderness.

Move away from it.

Get downhill from it, if I can. Get upwind from it, if it’s possible. Do both, and take the sheep with me. Fire in the wilderness, as we know from our wildfire experiences here on this island and from the terrible disasters in Canada, California, and Maui, is dangerous. Getting out of its path – getting my father-in-law’s sheep out of its path – is the first, most urgent priority.

Turn aside to look at this great sight? I don’t think so.

Nevertheless, that turn to the side, that step in an unanticipated direction, that movement toward risk and not away, was as crucial to the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery as any step thereafter. Without this step, there would have been no steps toward Egypt. Without this step, there would have been no steps into Pharoah’s palace. Without this step, there would have been no steps across the exposed bottom of the Red Sea. Without this step, there would have been no steps up Mount Sinai to receive the Law of God.

As Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “God notices that Moses has ‘turned aside’ and then calls to him. Imagine if Moses had ignored that little impulse, that desire to know more.”

Imagine.

Fortunately, Moses did get curious. Fortunately, Moses sought to learn more. Fortunately, Moses took a closer look.

Moses himself was probably not so grateful. Like the later prophets who left us their stories of call – people like Isaiah and Jeremiah – Moses had reservations about his selection as God’s ambassador. Given the message he’d been given, I’m a little surprised that he didn’t run away faster than Jonah. As Amy Merrill Willis writes at Working Preacher, “The typical commissioning scene involves the prophet’s objection to God’s commission. The objection highlights the prophet’s dependence upon God in undertaking sacred work and reveals an appropriate sense of humility. But Moses is not typical in any sense. Instead of one objection, Moses raises four (3:11,13; 4:1,10) before saying flat out, ‘O my Lord, please send someone else’ (4:13)!”

So, not so grateful. Gratitude aside, however, and request to be set aside set aside, he accepted the commission and he assumed the mantle of prophet, leader, and lawgiver.

Because he’d taken a closer look.

It’s time I asked the question: Have you taken a closer look? What do you need to take a closer look at?

Taking a closer look isn’t always popular. Some people these days eagerly ignore expertise. There is a movement of people frequently referred to as “sovereign citizens,” who have adopted a legal theory that essentially means nobody has to obey a vast number of criminal laws. They refuse or ignore the advice of lawyers if they’re brought to court.

It’s hard to tell, but it doesn’t seem likely that that will go well. It’s one thing to look at some documents you found on the Internet. It’s another thing to take a closer look at actual lawbooks, professional rules, and court precedents. I grant you that it’s a shame that law is so complicated, but it is complicated. So is medicine. So is automobile mechanics. So is software development. So are ecological systems. So is plumbing. So is theology.

I’ve heard this statement from before I started my professional education: “I heard of people who went to seminary and they lost their faith, so I didn’t go.”

Because yes, seminary was taking a closer look, and yes, I learned things in seminary that were different from what I learned in Sunday School. That’s OK. There’s a limit to what you can teach in Sunday School.

The British authors Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen described this as a “lie-to-children” in The Science of Discworld: “A lie-to-children is a statement that is false, but which nevertheless leads the child’s mind towards a more accurate explanation, one that the child will only be able to appreciate if it has been primed with the lie. The early stages of education have to include a lot of lies-to-children, because early explanations have to be simple. However, we live in a complex world, and lies-to-children must eventually be replaced by more complex stories if they are not to become delayed-action genuine lies. Unfortunately, what most of us know about science consists of vaguely remembered lies-to-children.”

[Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen, The Science of Discworld (New York, Anchor Books), 1999.]

The same might be said of auto mechanics, literature, carpentry, law, accounting, and, of course, theology.

You’ve got to take a closer look.

Just like Moses. As role models go, that’s a pretty good one. As with all Biblical figures, there are things you’d like to avoid – my God, that man could whine – but he took that crucial first step. He turned aside to learn more and it opened up the world.

As Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “The poet William Stafford called this kind of curiosity and the following that it leads to ‘the golden string.’ And unlike Egeria or Moses, he saw the ‘end of a golden string’ in everything, in every detail of human life that we notice enough to write down. For Stafford, the whole of the sensual world was alive with the possibility of the sacred practice of noticing. Which makes me wonder: what did I walk by today that I could have turned aside to see with curiosity? What ends of the golden string did I pass by?”

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m a photographer and, increasingly, a bird photographer, so for me some of the golden strings are the movement of feathers in greenery, the hops of clawed feet across the grass, the gentle glide of a floating body over the water. Those aren’t the only ones. I’m fascinated by people’s stories, so another golden string is the things people share about what they’ve experienced, what they’ve valued, what they’ve learned. The Scriptures themselves are a golden string – or a big set of strings – for me. So yes, I keep coming back to this story and looking for new things, because each new discovery in Exodus 3, or Luke 2, or John 20, or Romans 8, or Micah 6, or a raft of other texts invite a closer look each time.

What are your golden strings? What do you need to take a closer look at? What would fill your mind to learn more about? What will fill your soul to experience more deeply? What experience can you embrace and, by God’s grace, it will change the world?

At her blog, GiftsInOpenHands, Maren Tirabassi writes:

I’m talking to you –
not because of your impressive brain,
compassionate heart,
not the beautiful singing voice,
rippling muscles, spiritual depth,
perfect complexion, long hair.

You with the toes,
are you listening?

This is the holy moment.

Take a closer look.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes to his sermon while he preaches, so the prepared text above does not necessarily match the recording of how he preached it.

The image is Moses Before the Burning Bush by Gebhard Fugel – Photo permission – Own work (fotografiert in der Ausstellung “Gebhard Fugel 1863-1939. Von Ravensburg nach Jerusalem”. Galerie Fähre, Altes Kloster, Bad Saulgau, 2014), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32072413.