Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Small Wisdoms

February 22, 2026

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Matthew 4:1-11

I don’t remember the first time either of my children did something I had specifically told them not to do. I’m sure there was a first time. It’s been lost amidst all the other times. It’s one of the things my kids did as they grew – they knew that growing older meant shifting boundaries. Sometimes they’d test to see if the boundary had changed.

I remember that I didn’t do some things when they did something I had specifically told them not to do. I didn’t kick them out of the house, the way God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Mind you, I did kick them out of the house eventually, when they’d graduated from college. But that wasn’t a consequence of misbehavior, that was just a consequence of growing up.

So what small wisdom can we take away from the story of Adam and Eve? It’s unwise to listen to talking snakes – which we don’t have to worry about on an island that doesn’t have land snakes. It’s unwise to do things you’ve specifically been told not to do by God – that’s certainly true, but you probably knew that already.

What happens after you do the thing God specifically told you not to do? You lose Paradise. You no longer live in a pristine world. The world is not a perfect place any more.

The world is not a perfect place.

It’s wise to know that the world is not a perfect place.

When Jesus confronted his temptations, he already knew that the world was not a perfect place. He’d just been baptized by John the Baptist, who washed people in the Jordan River so that their sins might be forgiven. You don’t need baptism in a perfect world.

But baptism doesn’t change the reality of temptation. That’s another small bit of wisdom. It’s astonishing how many people have lived their lives with the conviction that because of their baptism (or something else baptism-like) they, and only they, were right. I struggle with that one all the time. I like to be right, I work to be right, I have a professional obligation to be much more right than wrong. Right?

If I let myself grow accustomed to being right, I’m at risk of shortcutting the work, or relying upon prior rightness to get me through changing conditions, or mistaking “I was right given what I knew” for “I was absolutely right,” because I probably wasn’t.

God’s call. Baptism. Participation in the church. Success in work. Contributing to the harmony of a family. Leading in a community. None of that sets temptation aside. It’s always there, and it leaps out when you least expect it.

“However we think of the devil,” writes Warren Carter at Working Preacher, “the figure’s presence in the Gospel personifies the vulnerability of human life and life in relation to God. No one, not even God’s anointed agent, is free from having their identity and loyalty tested.”

Jesus didn’t escape temptation. You and I aren’t going to, either. It’s an imperfect world, and we are subject to temptation.

Temptation looks like good things. That’s another small wisdom. Temptation isn’t just shiny distraction. Temptation looks like blessing. In the case of Jesus, the temptations look like things he did later on. As Audrey West writes at Working Preacher:

Jesus refuses in the desert to turn stones into bread to assuage his own hunger, but before long he will feed thousands in the wilderness with just a few loaves and some fish (Matt 14:17-21; 15:33-38), and he will teach his disciples to pray to God for their “daily bread” (Matt 6:11).

He refuses to take advantage of his relationship to God by hurling himself down from the heights of the Temple, but at the end of his earthly ministry he endures the taunts of others (Matt 27:38-44) while trusting God’s power to the end upon the heights of a Roman cross (Matt 27:46).

He turns down the devil’s offer of political leadership over the kingdoms of the world, and instead offers the kingdom of the heavens to all those who follow him in the way of righteousness.

I’ve always found the last temptation, the realms of the earth, somewhat odd. The devil offered political power to someone he addressed as Son of God. Think about that for a minute. The Son of God already has power over the nations of the earth. The devil offered him what he already had.

Similar things happened in the other two temptations. Jesus had the power to create bread. He could have called the angels to him – and when the devil had gone away, they came without his call.

Temptation offers what we already have.

Another small wisdom. Temptation offers what we already have.

Sometimes, what’s tempting about it is a relief from labor or effort to achieve it.

Or, the temptation is to lift ourselves out of our humanity into some exalted condition.

As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “These days, I read the story differently.  The devil doesn’t come to make Jesus do something ‘bad.’  He comes to make Jesus do what seems entirely reasonable and good — but for all the wrong reasons.  The test is a test of Jesus’s motivations.  A test of his willingness to identify as fully human, even as he is fully God.”

Another small wisdom: Temptation urges us to be something other than fully human.

Temptation also invites us to raise others up to more than human. Jesus’ last response to the tempter is to quote Deuteronomy 8: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” The devil has offered himself for worship, to be raised up above humanity and above whatever kind of being he is.

In addition, the offer to rule the nations ignored the people of those nations. What did they want or need? The devil didn’t ask. Those people weren’t important.

There’s a pair of small wisdoms: It’s temptation when you’re invited to raise someone else higher than human, and it’s also temptation when you’re asked to treat other people as unhuman.

That’s why all the “isms” – racism, sexism, homophobia, cultural imperialism, and so on – are so destructive. Each of them invites us to raise ourselves above other people by denying their full humanity.

Is there any small wisdom about resisting temptation? There is, but it’s hard. I wish it was as simple as reading Scripture and holding onto its directions – and that’s not simple. Plenty of faithful people well steeped in the Bible have fallen into temptation, myself included. I think the wisdom is, as best you can, try to resist temptation in company with other faithful, supportive people. Jesus did it alone, it’s true, and at some point in the process there’s nobody who can make the your decision for you. But Jesus did rely upon the religious tradition in which he’d been raised. He relied upon their recorded words and their recorded examples. He relied upon his relationship with God. He may not have summoned angels to him, but he trusted in their presence.

Jesus managed to resist temptation with those supports. Those might be enough for you and me. But as for me, I’m going to ask for more help if I possibly can.

There’s another small wisdom here that’s really uncomfortable. It’s the wisdom to find power in weakness, security in vulnerability. In John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost, he introduced the Son of God as a terrifying figure casting lightning bolts at the rebellious angels. There’s no sign of such a force in the Gospel accounts of the Temptation. A human, hungry Jesus faces a self-confident, more-than-human granter of wishes. It’s also uncomfortable to note that these temptations foreshadow the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry: bread that would represent his broken body, the nations triumphant over the Son of God, the Temple that gazed upon his crucifixion. As Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “True power is the mysterious path that Jesus walked. It comes with no guarantees. It is self-giving surrender, the strangest of paradoxes, and it leads to the cross.”

That’s a scary small wisdom.

It brings up one more small wisdom: that there really is resilience in the vulnerability, there really is strength in the weakness, there really is victory in the defeat. To quote an old hymn, there are angels hov’ring ‘round. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Sometimes our journeys with God include dark places.  Not because God takes pleasure in our pain, but because we live in a fragile, broken world that includes deserts, and because God’s modus operandi is to take the things of death, and wring from them resurrection.”

The world is not perfect. Temptation is real and we are vulnerable to it. Temptation looks like good things, not just shiny things. Temptation often offers what we already have. We may be tempted to lift ourselves above our humanity, or to set someone else as superhuman, or to regard others as subhuman. As best you can, find help to resist temptation. Find power in weakness. Remember that from death God brings resurrection.

Small wisdoms to bring us through temptation.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, sometimes on purpose, sometimes accidentally. The text as prepared does not exactly match the sermon as delivered.

The illustration is Mountain Landscape with the Temptation of Christ by Joos de Momper the Younger (btwn 1600 and 1650) / Sebastiaen Vrancx – Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15417048.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: The Mountain

February 15, 2026

Exodus 24:12-18
Matthew 17:1-9

In his documentary on the Darkness of the Renaissance, British art critic Waldemar Januszczak said, “Mountains have a powerful effect on people. Mountains cloud your judgment. They heighten your emotions and intoxicate you.” He’s right. The vistas from mountains – and the views of mountains – go right to the feelings. You find your breath catching, and not just because of the altitude.

We live at the foot of two of the earth’s great summits. I grant you that I’ve lived here not quite ten years, and most of you have lived here much longer than that, but I put it to you: have you ever looked up at Mauna Kea on a clear day and not felt something? Can Mauna Kea ever make you feel… nothing?

They make me feel something. They catch me, heart and soul, every time.

But do they cloud our judgment? I’m less sure about that. I do know that a mountain makes me see things in a different way. That can be quite literal, when I’m at the mountain summit and seeing the world as I can’t see it from the mountain’s foot. It’s also emotional. There I am, feeling at the top of the world, and not just from lack of oxygen.

I can feel at one and the same time both the greatest of all living beings and one of the small creatures I can’t even see far down the slopes.

Mountaintops are powerful. That’s true. They bring us away from the day-to-day of human living. They show us grandeur that’s beyond us. At the same time they place this grandeur in the palms of our hands.

I suspect that Simon Peter, James, and John anticipated something like that when they climbed the mountain with Jesus. They looked to see the glory of Creation stretching out below them. They expected to gasp air in deep breaths after the exertion of the climb. They probably hoped to hear something new from Jesus, whom they’d just acclaimed as Messiah (and been scolded for misunderstanding what Jesus meant by Messiah) six days before. Top of the world.

They got more than they’d bargained for. Jesus glowed like the sun. The two greatest religious leaders of ancient Israel stood there with Jesus: Moses who’d freed the people from Egypt and delivered God’s Law, and Elijah who’d maintained the faith against hostile monarchs and been carried away to God without dying. The Messiah, people whispered, would be a prophet like Moses. The Messiah, people whispered, would be heralded by Elijah returned.

“It is interesting,” writes D. Mark Davis at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “that neither the transformation of Jesus, the appearance of Moses and Elijah, nor the bright light evoked fear in the disciples. Hearing the voice out of the clouds is what did them in.”

We don’t usually collapse at the top of a mountain – well, except to catch our breath from the climb. In fact, I usually find that the sight energizes me, lifts me up. I move about from place to place to take in the view in all directions. Mountaintops inspire. They rarely overwhelm.

Booming voices from clouds overwhelm. I’d have been overwhelmed. Without doubt. But as Rev. Davis says, all the strange and overwhelming things before that didn’t overcome them. Unusual? Yes. Unexpected? I wouldn’t have expected it. Frightful? No. I think there’s even a hint that, like the simple view from a mountaintop, the disciples found the experience inspiring as well as awe-inspiring. If I understand Peter’s offer to make shelters correctly, they were prepared to extend the inspiring experience, to learn more, to plan more, to prepare themselves for the work they’d undertake when they returned to the mountain’s foot.

Unsurprisingly, significant religious experiences in people’s lives tend to be called “mountaintop experiences.” Those experiences don’t have to happen on mountains. Plenty of them don’t. But like experiences on mountains, including most of the Transfiguration, they tend to inspire, not overwhelm.

Listen to that again. Most of the time, when God reaches out to someone, God doesn’t overwhelm them. God inspires them.

Mountaintop experiences aren’t necessarily visions of glory accompanied by angelic music and words of thunder. Mountaintop experiences are the ones that make a difference to your soul.

Mountaintop experiences are the ones that make a difference to your soul.

Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “…as long as I can remember, I’ve measured the depth and ‘success’ of my faith by the number of mountaintop experiences I can truthfully claim.  Have I ‘felt the Spirit’ in Sunday morning worship?  Has Jesus ‘spoken’ to me?  Have I seen visions?  Spoken in tongues?  Encountered God’s living presence in my dreams?

“Most of the time, the answer is ‘no.’  Which means I’ve spent most of my life feeling like a spiritual failure.”

Without commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the feeling – feelings, as I’ve noted before, happen whether they reflect external reality or not – I’ve never found Ms. Thomas a spiritual failure. Given how often I quote her in sermons, I’ve found her to be a significant spiritual guide. She’s described here a fairly widespread notion that spiritual success equates to overwhelming spiritual experiences. And… it doesn’t.

Spiritual success, I think, takes place when we pay attention to our experiences of God, whether they’re grand or subtle, and let them change our path.

As Audrey West writes at Working Preacher, “Then and now, the full meaning of a mountaintop experience may not become clear until after the return to the valley, after the passage of time. After they come down from the mountain, the disciples listen, as the voice has instructed: they hear Jesus’ parables, they hear his response to friends and foes, they hear his repeated references to the Son of Humanity.”

“Listen to him,” thundered the voice from the cloud. That overwhelmed Peter, James, and John, but it’s also the central theme of Matthew’s Gospel. Listen to Jesus. Each occasion of listening to Jesus is, to some degree, a mountaintop experience. It has the ability to transform us. It has the ability to redirect us. It has the ability to inspire us.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Are you inspired?

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” Are you inspired?

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Are you inspired?

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Are you inspired?

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Are you inspired?

I know you’ve been inspired, somewhere, somehow, by something. Why? You’re here. I have plenty of illusions about myself, but I’m pretty sure you can find things to do on Sunday morning that you’d enjoy more than dreading one of my puns coming along. But you’re here. You made the time. You made the effort. Why?

You’ve been inspired. Maybe you’re hoping for some more inspiration, but you’ve already been inspired.

It doesn’t happen every day, as you know. As Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “This makes me think that perhaps the experience wasn’t given to the disciples so that they could cling to it. Perhaps it was given to them so that they could practice letting go. On the difficult path ahead, they are going to have to let go of Jesus again and again. Here they are asked to let go of even a vision so profound that it was called ‘transfiguration.’

“Maybe living with the coming and going of clouds incapsulates this lesson daily. ‘And thus I saw him and I sought him,’ Julian of Norwich writes. ‘And I had him and I lacked him.’ This isn’t something to mourn, she counsels, but is instead ‘the common working of this life.’ We glimpse God, and then God goes behind a cloud. In this way, we learn to love rather than cling.”

I’d add that we learn to love rather than puppet. We learn to love of our own initiative rather than depending on ongoing inspiration. We’re inspired for a moment. We’re changed in a moment. We move forward from there… and continue to learn, grow, change, and love in each place we go, no matter how far from the mountain.

As Maren Tirabassi wrote this week in a comment on ordainedgeek.com, “And so life-changing experiences are not really life-changing, just moment-changing and that always must be enough.”

It must, and it is. Those moments for each of you brought you to this moment. This moment may not inspire you that much, and if it doesn’t I apologize, since that is sort of the point of this exercise, but these moments, these experiences, they lead to new moments, new experiences, and if not all of them have the power of mountaintop moments, they all have power, they all give direction, they all inspire.

In these continuing moments, we follow Jesus. In these continuing moments, we love.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric writes his sermons ahead of time, but he makes changes while preaching, so the text prepared does not match the sermon as preached.

Photo of the summit of Mauna Kea by Eric Anderson.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets

February 8, 2026

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20

In her blog, preaching Professor Alyce M. McKenzie tells a story about a skit she and some students presented one year, which featured her giving feedback to Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount as if he were a member of her preaching class. In the skit, she said, “You remember we learned earlier in the semester that every sermon needs to have one single focus and you are all over the map with this one — salt, light, not coming to abolish the prophets, breaking and keeping commandments. It seems almost like you put a bunch of short sayings together in a row. And one more thing — your final sentence: ‘Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Where is the good news in this sermon ending? It sets out an impossible goal and then tells listeners they’ll be in trouble if they can’t do the impossible.”

The punchline, she wrote, is that while she was marking things on the blackboard with her back to the class, “Jesus” beckoned the other students to follow and they left her alone in the room.

There is some truth, however, to her critique. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus wasn’t making things easy for anyone. To a people whose Scriptures told them about their ancestors repeated failures to live up to the standards of the Law and the Prophets, Jesus said, “Fulfill them.” That’s where the light came from. It’s the source of the salt. And, oh yes, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now, we’ve been taught for years that the Pharisees and the scribes were the villains of the New Testament, and certainly by the time the Gospels were written there was a lot of dissension between the emerging Christians and the senior theologians of Judaism. To Jesus’ hearers, though, the Pharisees and the scribes weren’t bad guys, they were the tip top examples of what goodness meant. These were the people who seriously contemplated God’s law, who worked through the implications of the things the prophets had said. To exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees set the bar incredibly high. Dr. McKenzie properly called it an “impossible goal.”

“’No!’ we might say, ‘Jesus didn’t really mean that,’” writes Karoline Lewis at Working Preacher. She continues, “But what if Jesus did? What if Jesus’ intention was for us as disciples to imagine and live into a righteousness that makes the kingdom of heaven possible? If this is true, no wonder Jesus tells this to his disciples from the beginning. They will need the rest of the Gospel to make sense of and embrace such a request.”

Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets. Jesus first – his followers next. Jesus first – and then you and me.

The usual complaint is that the Law and the Prophets are hard to understand. Are they? Really? “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers,” wrote Isaiah hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Is it hard to understand that self-interest is a problem? Is it hard to understand that exploiting people, whether they’re your employees or your family or your neighbor is a problem?

Quarreling and fighting. Clearly problems. And then there are the behaviors that aren’t problems, that are precisely what God was calling for in the Law and repeating through the prophets: Loose the bonds of injustice. Don’t burden people. Don’t enslave them. Share your bread. House the homeless. Clothe the naked. Care for your family. “Then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”

Or as Jesus put it, “You are the light of the world.”

A light not to be hidden.

Eric Barreto writes at Working Preacher, “Jesus gives the central insight that lights don’t magically end up underneath bushels. The only way for our light to be covered is if we put a bushel over it. We can hear the incredulous tone in Jesus’ voice, ‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel’ (verse 15). Ridiculous! Jesus is clear: we are not victims inevitably doomed to being distracted and drained by the bushels of inferiority or self-absorption or fantasy. Bushels can only block out the light when we put them there.”

There’s a lot of truth to that. You and I are more than capable of hiding our light, not by being humble, but by seeing something to do and leaving it undone. Somebody else will do it, we might think. Or there just isn’t time (which might be true). Worst of all, I’m too important to do this simple thing.

I can also think of more than one way in which others drop baskets over our light. Plenty of people have suffered being discounted by others. It is, in fact, an all-too-common experience. You sometimes hear of it being done by family members, who’ll tell one of the ‘ohana that their work is bad, that their opinions are unwelcome, that they themselves are worthless. We’re also familiar with broader prejudices within societies, which usually qualify certain groups as worth less or even worthless: children, foreigners, people with a different hue of skin, women.

In the January 31st edition of “Letters from an American,” historian Heather Cox Richardson quoted 19th century US Senator from South Carolina James Henry Hammond, who in 1858 told his colleagues that all societies need a “mudsill” class to do the work and to benefit their betters. African Americans served that purpose in the pre-Civil War South, but the North, he said, had “the man who lives by daily labor…in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

Senator Hammond’s words were literally a bushel basket meant to extinguish the light of the world. They have their echoes today. Do not mistake them. They will do what’s chemically impossible: cause salt to lose its taste. They will do what breaks hearts, families, and societies: hide the light.

When Jesus told us to let our light shine, he didn’t just mean, “Do nice things.” He meant, “See that the hungry are fed and the homeless housed. See that the oppressed are freed and the burdened relieved. Do not let the powerful say, ‘Sorry,’ and do nothing as if that took care of it. Do what John the Baptist did. Tell the powerful to repent for their sins.”

Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org:

If our fasting does not enable us to discern God’s will more clearly,
If our prayers do not stir us to address unmet needs around us,
If our blessings do not compel us to bless our neighbor,
If our sacramental rites do not move us to solidarity with the marginalized,
If our praise of the abiding of Creator does not lead to care and respect of all creation,
If our confession does not spur us beyond absolution to repair,
If our assurance of God’s grace does not lead us to extend mercy,
Then why would the Holy and Just God even participate in it?

Yet, if we remove the yoke among us…
If we seek justice, speak truth, and love abundantly,
If we embrace the immigrant among us,
If we make space and consideration for the ignored and isolated,
If we lend our voice for the persecuted, defamed, and disenfranchised,
If we stand up to corruption and bear witness to wrongdoing,
If we raise our voice and move beyond our discomfort,
Then we too may receive the promise of the covenant and the Holy One’s declaration of “Here I am.”

Remove the yoke.

Remove the yoke.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes from his prepared text as he preaches, both accidentally and on purpose.

The image is Study for the Sermon on the Mount, a preliminary study for the cycle of paintings in Loccum Monastery by Eduard von Gebhardt (before 1925) – Van Ham Kunstauktionen (SØR Rusche Collection – Eduard von Gebhardt, Auktion 25.02.2021), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=103398414.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Mountaintop Wisdom

February 1, 2026

Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

“Plead your case before the mountains,” wrote Micah some 750 years before Jesus was born, “and let the hills hear your voice.” He wrote about an imagined court in which God and God’s people each tried to make the case that they had kept the covenant, and that the other had broken it. The role of the mountains? They were summoned as judges.

It was Micah’s poetic way of inviting the people of Jerusalem, particularly the wealthiest and most powerful, to consider what God might think of the things they were doing. The prosecution’s opening statement really gets rolling in verses nine and following. “Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights?” Apparently merchants were defrauding their customers. “Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies with tongues of deceit in their mouths.”

I grant you that we’re only getting one side of the case, but it doesn’t sound that hard for the mountains to judge, does it?

The covenant had been first delivered to the people on a mountain. The Temple in Jerusalem, where the people hoped their devotions would excuse their violence and fraud, stood on a mountaintop. God had set high standards from a high place. They didn’t seem to be playing out as intended down in the valleys.

Almost eight centuries later, as Matthew told it, Jesus ascended a mountain to speak to a gathering crowd who wanted to hear him. We’ve grown to call it “The Sermon on the Mount.” Its placement in the Gospel reflects Matthew’s belief that the best way to show that Jesus was the Messiah was to pay attention to what he said. Jesus’ words tell us who he was and who he is.

The first thing he did was to tell his listeners who they were. They were blessed.

As Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “You are blessed. You have to hear that on the front end. And note that being blessed is not just for the sake of potential joy, but also for the sake of making it through that which will be difficult. Again, these are Jesus’ first words to his disciples. We need to hear in each and every one of the Beatitudes what’s at stake for Jesus and for his ministry.”

You see, this is another mountaintop moment in the Scriptures. It has a pretty close relationship to the gift of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. It has its precursory echoes in Micah’s summons of the mountains to judge the people. It’s mountaintop wisdom, and the tragedy of mountaintop wisdom is just how often it stays on the mountain and doesn’t make it down into the valleys.

As Lance Pape writes at Working Preacher, “But if the Beatitudes are a description of reality, what world do they describe? Certainly not our own. ‘Blessed are the meek’ (verse 5), says Jesus, but in our world the meek don’t get the land, they get left holding the worthless beads. ‘Blessed are the merciful’ (verse 7), says Jesus, but in our world mourning may be tolerated for a while, but soon we will ask you to pull yourself together and move on. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’ (verse 8), says Jesus, but in our world such people are dismissed as hopelessly naïve.”

I think Dr. Pape has his finger on it: “hopelessly naïve.” Isn’t that what we hear when we assert the Beatitudes as truths? They reflect a better world, but we don’t actually live that way. Some say we can’t actually live that way. For instance, Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff, who told CNN interviewer Jake Tapper “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power… These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

That’s the valley. If you can forgive a Biblical reference in a sermon, that’s the valley of the shadow of death.

Is that where we want to live?

It’s where a lot of people have lived over the course of history. The Hebrew people lived in it when they were slaves in Egypt, when their nations were overrun by the empires of Assyria and Babylon, and when they were occupied by Rome in Jesus’ day. The feudal systems of Europe, Japan, and India left a lot of people in the valley of death. As Osvaldo Vena observes at Working Preacher, “Grief comes for all of us, but mortality rates were higher in the ancient world. Parents simply could not expect their children to survive infancy, let alone make it to adulthood. It was not a given. War, food and housing insecurity, and infectious diseases could cut a life short.” In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in the aftermath of truly catastrophic world wars, nations and non-governmental actors strove to bring food, farming assistance, vaccination, and stable health care delivery to places on the earth that had lost child after child to the grinding effects of being poor. In 2010 I heard a United Nations official tell a UCC gathering that the end goal of these efforts was not far off. He could imagine an end to extreme poverty.

The mountaintop wisdom was in sight from the valley.

Mr. Miller and his ilk would drive it away, out of sight, obscured by clouds high on the mountain.

We need to bring mountaintop wisdom to the valley.

As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Jesus acts.  He doesn’t simply speak blessing.  He lives it.  He embodies it.  He incarnates it…

“This is the vocation we are called to.  The work of the kingdom — the work of sharing the blessings we enjoy — is not the work of a fuzzy, distant someday.  It is the work — and the joy — of the here and now.  The Beatitudes remind us that blessing and justice are inextricably linked.  If it’s blessing we want, then it’s justice we must pursue.”

Mountaintop wisdom.

Let’s bring it to the valley of death.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, sometimes on person. The sermon as delivered does not match the prepared text.

The image is The Sermon on the Mount by Fra Angelico (1437) – Copied from an art book, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9048898.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Whose People Are We?

January 25, 2026

Isaiah 9:1-4
Matthew 4:12-23

About 750 years or so before Herod arrested John the Baptist and Jesus returned to the region of his childhood, the Assyrian Empire attacked the Jewish nations of Israel and Judah. Judah, where Isaiah lived in the capital of Jerusalem, survived the invasion because an outbreak of infectious disease swept through the Assyrian army and forced them to abandon the siege of Jerusalem. Israel, however, the northern of the two nations, fell. It ceased to exist as an independent country. That land included the territories of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, an area we know better by its common name in Jesus’ day: Galilee.

Isaiah, catching his breath as the Assyrian armies retreated, spoke a word of hope to the survivors of Israel. He addressed a dwindling population. Unlike most empires of ancient Mesopotamia, the Assyrians actually resettled large groups of conquered people. Scholars have estimated that over 3 million were displaced over 250 years. The result is the disappearance of ten of the twelve tribes descended from Jacob. The “Ten Lost Tribes” lived on the lands conquered by the Assyrians.

Isaiah’s vision of a nation increasing in joy, freed from their burdens and restored to their homes, did not take place for those he addressed. Centuries later Matthew considered the way Jesus’ ministry had begun in the backwater region of Galilee and made the connection: in Jesus there was joy. In Jesus there was liberation. In Jesus there was light.

Matthew, and for that matter most of the Gospel writers and early Christians, might have preferred Jesus’ ministry to get a different starting point. Jerusalem. That was the spot. Right in the center of things. Luke, you may remember, told stories about the child Jesus in Jerusalem, once as a newborn and once as a twelve-year-old. The Jesus story led toward Jerusalem, but shouldn’t it have started there, too?

To some degree Jesus was “on the run” from the law. After his baptism, he seems to have spent some time – we don’t know how long – in the Jordan valley among those clustered about John the Baptist. Then John was arrested by Herod Antipas and, according to the first century historian Josephus, imprisoned at Machaerus on the east shore of the Dead Sea. Capernaum on the shores of Galilee was a fair distance from Marchaerus, but ironically it was still within the territory Herod governed. I don’t know if anybody was looking for Jesus except that somebody might have grabbed him off the streets on suspicion of being an associate of John the Baptist.

Jesus didn’t choose to hide. He began to bring healing to people. He began to speak to what were probably slowly growing crowds. He began to preach during synagogue worship. He brought them the exact same basic message that John the Baptist had: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

As Raj Nadella writes at Working Preacher, “The devil tried to coopt him. The empire tried to threaten him. But nothing seemed to deter him. Jesus withdrew into Galilee spatially but, missionally, he stepped right in the heart of the empire. He boldly stepped into a dangerous space so he can lead others to safety.”

He started with four fishermen, and he started as he went on: with an invitation. As Dr. Nadella writes, “The Roman empire relied on threat, coercion and enticements to recruit people into its military. The new kingdom, on the other hand, inspires them to participate in it.“

Jesus didn’t offer a $50,000 signing bonus. He offered a challenge.

He called it “fishing for people.” I wonder how Peter, Andrew, James, and John heard it. Fishing for fish meant long, backbreaking hours on tasks ranging from hauling nets to mending them, sailing boats and patching them. It meant a limited customer base, because the Romans controlled the fishing economy of Galilee. Through a combination of market control and heavy taxes, they kept the fishing families at a subsistence level and passed the fruits of their labor up the chain of wealthy landowners, nobles, and royalty.

Jesus clearly didn’t mean that. He doesn’t seem to have charged anyone for healing. He doesn’t seem to have asked a fee for preaching. He did accept the invitations of local religious leaders for dinner. He did accept the financial support of some who traveled with him.

As David Lose writes at Working Preacher, “…Perhaps we might re-imagine just what it is that Jesus is calling these first disciples to be and do: fishers of people. And that implies relationships. Jesus, that is, calls these first disciples into relationship — with himself, with each other, and with all the various people they will meet over the next few years and, indeed, the rest of their lives.”

Relationship. Not exploitation. Relationship. Not domination. Relationship. Not condemnation.

Relationship.

To my mind, that’s a different kind of fishing. These fishermen care for the fish. These fishermen recognize themselves as related to the fish. These fishermen realize that they, that we, that all of us are fish, each one looking for the safety of the school, each one looking for the guidance of the group.

And Jesus said, “Follow me.”

There are a lot of people who’ll encourage you to follow them, their ways, their values, and their commitments. Some of them you should probably follow. For the most part, parents are pretty reliable guides, though those of us who are parents know that we’re not perfect, and those of who’ve had parents know for sure that they weren’t perfect. Tragically, parents can fail dramatically and disastrously, and sometimes they do. It takes a lot of work by a lot of people to help the children recover and heal. It takes a lot of work by a lot of people for those grieving parents to recover and heal, too.

There are people in leadership roles and it should be good to follow them, right? Employers. Managers. Bosses. Those folks are imperfect, too. Richard W. Swanson describes a kind of boss that can’t be followed at Provoking the Gospel: “Managers who think of disruption as a management strategy want employees to be afraid that they will be fired… The only successful response is boot-licking.

“Have you ever worked for a manager like this?  I have.  They make the earth shake under everyone’s feet and they make the shaking unpredictable, chaotic.  I have worked for such managers.  It doesn’t turn out well.  Good ideas are hidden away.  Analytical critique is punished.

“…Do not confuse this disruption with the drawing-near of God’s Dominion.”

What did the drawing-near of God’s Dominion look like? In Matthew’s words: “…teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”

What it doesn’t look like is what we’re getting from national leadership, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s assault on Minneapolis. New Yok Times reporter Charles Homans, a child of that city, wrote about an encounter he witnessed on January 14th: “What was clear in person, seeing the scene outside of the frame, were the limits of this performance of power. The agents had no capacity to maintain order or much apparent interest in doing so. Their presence was a vector of chaos, and controlling it was not in their job description. All that was holding the crowd back, as far as I could tell, was the knowledge that an officer like these shot a woman a week earlier and that another shot a man up the street an hour ago. I left the scene that night certain it would happen again.”

This operation and those like it in Los Angeles, Chicago, and now Maine (Maine. Really.) reveal a couple of things about U.S. immigration law. First is that much of what is legal is wrong. A favorite tactic of ICE agents outside of these enforcement sweeps has been to apprehend people when they come to immigration court, dismiss their hearings, and deport them. Apparently that’s legal. If it sounds absolutely unfair, I agree with you. When people engage with the system, they should get a full hearing.

Recently agents detained a five-year-old to get his father to open the door for them, and both are now in custody in Texas. The pair have an active asylum petition. Is this legal? Frankly, I hope not, but I’m afraid that it is and it illustrates how cruel the law can be.

Some of ICE’s actions, however, are clearly illegal. An internal memo has been leaked asserting that officers do not require a judicial warrant to enter a home. A federal judge in Minnesota ruled on January 17 that they do after a man was removed from his home based on an administrative warrant, one not signed by a judge. And once again, the man arrested was actively engaged in seeking proper status, and guess what? The day after his release he was taken into custody again when he appeared for an immigration hearing.

Officials have made clear that the deaths of two people at the hands of ICE officers will not be investigated. That tells me that justice has been decided. Due process has become plain force. Do what we tell you or die.

“…Teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”

Our loyalty is being demanded. Our obedience is being required. Our compliance is being forced. These are not the ways of Jesus. These are not the acts of Jesus. These are not the voices of Jesus.

Whose people are we? We belong to Jesus and nobody else. When Herod threatened to arrest Jesus, do you know what he said? “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’” Let us be Jesus’ people. Let us go our way and bring healing. Let us teach and proclaim good news. Let us finish our work against the forces of chaos, violence, and tyranny.

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 illustration is The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Duccio di Buoninsegna (between 1308 and 1311), part of the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Siena – 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=150337.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: The Invitation

January 18, 2026

Isaiah 49:1-7
John 1:29-42

Last week I got very excited because the Gospel text for last week included Jesus’ very first words in the Gospel of Matthew. First impressions, you know, make a big difference. I’m sure Matthew knew that as well. Which made Jesus’ first words in the Gospel somewhat, maybe not disappointing, but puzzling. “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Those words reveal somebody who thinks it’s important to do things properly, but also left me with a lot of questions.

This week I’m excited again, because now we’ve got Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of John. I was pretty sure I knew what they were, because I knew this passage included one of my favorite Jesus quotes. Wouldn’t it be great if this favorite was also the first thing Jesus said in the book?

It would have to be. Come on, then. Bring it: “Come and see.” Something that really resonates with me.

It’s a pity that he said something else before he said that.

What did Jesus say first? “What are you looking for?”

That is kind of disappointing. It seems like such a mundane, every day, meaningless question. “What are you looking for?” I ask that all the time when I see people looking lost. “The office is that way. The Building of Faith kitchen is over there. The women’s room is, for some mysterious reason, on the other side of the building.”

Audrey West writes at Working Preacher, “English translations obscure the meaning of the Greek, which is better translated, ‘What are you seeking?’ Jesus’ ministry begins not with a mighty command to silence a demon, as in Mark; nor with a sermon to the crowds who have gathered on a mountain, as in Matthew; and not with a quotation from Isaiah to proclaim his anointing for the year of God’s favor, as in Luke, but it begins with a question: ‘What are you seeking?’ What are you looking for? What do you need?“

Jesus asked a deeper, more probing, more inviting question than most of the ones asked of me, or, I suspect, of you.

It is an important question, isn’t it? If you’re going to be of any real use to someone who needs help or support, you’ve got to have some idea of what they need, don’t you? If I assume that you’re looking for the office and direct you to the Building of Faith kitchen, I haven’t helped you very much. Personally, I tend to lead with the question, “Can I help you with something?” when I see someone and I don’t know why they’re where they are, or why they’re looking about with a puzzled look on their face, or if they’re looking down at their phone and back up again at signs. Sometimes I can’t help them with anything. Sometimes they don’t need any help at all. Sometimes I get them pointed in the direction they want to go.

The direction they want to go.

Jesus asked those first two potential disciples, in essence, where did they want to go? When I think about it, it’s an odd question for, well, the Incarnation of God. Shouldn’t the personification of Divine Wisdom instead say something like, “I know which direction you should be going”? Heaven knows plenty of people who aren’t the Messiah will happily tell you exactly what to do, where to go, and how to get there, and I suspect that I’m one of those people. Come to think of it, I’m employed to be one of those people.

But if Jesus didn’t approach things that way, maybe we shouldn’t, either. What if those two followers of John weren’t really interested in the things Jesus could teach them or show them? What if they really wanted to find a ruthless military leader who would overthrow the Romans and, as often happens with ruthless military leaders, replace a callous foreign empire with a callous domestic ruler? These days, of course, we’re seeing callous local rulers being replaced by callous foreign Presidents, but the result isn’t much different.

Alternatively, those disciples might have sought a guide for a solitary, individual spiritual life. Jesus wasn’t the rebel general. He also wasn’t the model for hermits. Those two men could have told Jesus something that might have had him shake his head, point off in another direction, and say, “You need to bring that question over there.”

They didn’t really have a great answer, did they? “Where are you staying?” If this weren’t the first conversation they had with Jesus I’d think they had learned from Jesus how to answer a question with a question. “Where are you staying?” is the kind of thing you say when somebody has popped up with a question you hadn’t thought about, aren’t prepared to answer, and aren’t quite honest enough to say, “You know, I really hadn’t thought of that.”

Jesus seemed to take it to mean, “We heard what John said, and we’re curious enough to learn more.” As far as Andrew was concerned, at least, Jesus was right.

Then, at last, Jesus spoke the words that sing in my spirit: “Come and see.” Some of my favorite words in the Gospels.

As Audrey West writes at Working Preacher, “Indeed, this answer captures a primary message of John’s Gospel: If you want to know the word made flesh, come and see Jesus. If you want to know what love is like, come and see Jesus. If you want to experience God’s glory, to be filled with bread that never perishes, to quench your thirst with living water, to be born again, to abide in love, to behold the light of the world, to experience the way, the truth, and the life, to enter into life everlasting, . . . if you want to know God, come and see Jesus.”

John made sure to repeat those words. We stopped our reading this morning at verse 42. In verse 46 Philip said to Nathaniel, “Come and see.” In chapter four the Samaritan woman Jesus spoke with at the well invited her neighbors to “Come and see.” And in chapter eleven Jesus asked where Lazarus had been buried, and they told him, “Come and see.”

John knew how powerful those words can be.

“Come and see” is what you say when you’ve already had some experience and you know the value of what’s there – maybe not fully (do we ever know the full value of anything, let alone Jesus?), but enough. “Come and see” is what you say when somebody doubts that what you’ve described can be as wonderful as you say. “Come and see” is what you say when you know that words aren’t sufficient. “Come and see” is what you say when you believe someone can benefit from something but they’ve got to take part in it for it to happen.

Come and see the flower that’s just blossomed. Come and see Tutu Pele dance. Come and see the baby that’s just joined our family. Come and see this new sport I’m enjoying (which is probably pickleball). Come and see this experience of the spirit I’ve found in the worship of God. Come and see… Jesus.

When it comes to inviting people into the community of Jesus Christ, there’s no substitute for the words, “Come and see.” I can (and do) describe the blessings of Christian faith outside these walls. But how will anyone know whether those blessings will fill the hollows in their souls unless they come and see?

They’ve got to come and see.

Jesus was right (which shouldn’t surprise me much) to lead with the question, “What are you looking for?” There’s no point in saying, “Come and see” Christian faith to someone looking for a place that sells hamburgers. What are you seeking? Ah. You’re hungry for something deeper than fast food. Now: Come and see.

As Debie Thomas points out at JourneyWithJesus.net, the question “What are you looking for?” and the invitation “Come and see” are for everyone, including those of us who’ve lived and worked in this faith for years. She writes, “Looking. Seeing. Finding. These are the things we are called to do, not once, but over and over again as Christians. This is the heart of discipleship – not to hasten the end our search, but to pursue it ever more deeply and intentionally. To cultivate a willingness to look. A willingness to see and be seen. A willingness to tell the truth about what we have found. A willingness to venture forth again, even when we don’t know where ‘home’ is.”

There’s our invitation. An invitation to ask others what they need, what they seek, what they want to find. An invitation to extend an invitation so that they can come and see for themselves. And an invitation that’s renewed not just from us but to us, to look, to seek, and to find each day.

To look, to seek, and to find our Savior, Jesus.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, so what he said does not precisely match the text he prepared.

The image is from Chronicles of the Holy Scriptures by W. G. V. D. Hulst (1960) – Koleksi Wikimedia Indonesia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133886029.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Without Pride or Privilege

January 11, 2026

Isaiah 42:1-9
Matthew 3:13-17

Let’s face it, leaders of religious movements are often peculiar. Moses liked to wander off up mountains leaving everybody unsettled. Elijah wore funny clothes and irritated the monarchs. Monarch-irritating turned out to be a characteristic of many of the “writing prophets,” including Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. Jeremiah’s reputation for telling people things they didn’t want to hear earned him the nickname, “Magor-missabib,” which translates to “Terror on every side.”

Then and now, bullies like to give their opponents insulting nicknames.

John the Baptist, I should say, wasn’t any gentler to those who questioned him and his ministry. “You brood of vipers,” he called the Pharisees and Sadducees who came for baptism. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” That was good advice, then and now, but I wonder how well it went over with those he called snakes. King Herod, whom John also criticized, found a way to express his displeasure later on.

John imitated Elijah in wearing funny clothes and irritating monarchs. He imitated the writing prophets in telling people things they didn’t want to hear. He imitated Moses by wandering off into the wilderness. People had to follow him; he didn’t go where they were.

He also looked to trespass on the territory of the priesthood, though that’s a little unclear. We don’t know if he told people that his baptism washed away their sins, or if it merely represented the repentance that washed away their sins. In the ancient Law, one sought God’s forgiveness through proper offering of sacrifices, through the agency of the priests. I’m pretty sure that John’s activities cut into, well, into their business. I’m sure some of the Sadducees who visited his riverbank were earnest seekers after learning, spiritual renewal, and forgiveness. I’m also sure that some of them were simply spies, trying to make a case that John was claiming powers he should not.

They didn’t arrest him. Herod did. John irritated the ruler faster than he irritated the priests.

So there was John, this peculiar religious leader, welcoming people into a public act affirming their repentance. There was John, proclaiming that the times were urgent and special. There was John, promising another person would come, blessed by God, who would be greater than he.

And along came a poor man from Galilee who wanted to be baptized, too.

Only Matthew told the story of this conversation between the two, John and Jesus. John asked, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” to which Jesus replied, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Only Matthew. Of the Gospel writers, Matthew paid more attention than the others to the difficult spots of Jesus’ story. Matthew was the one to tell us that Joseph planned to abandon Mary when she was pregnant – a difficulty that I’m sure Luke recognized but chose to glide over. Mark, Luke, and John all said that Jesus was baptized, but only Matthew made sure to pause for a moment to echo our question in John’s question: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

Mark Allen Powell writes at Working Preacher, “John’s objection to baptizing Jesus is related to a difference in status. John recognizes Jesus to be the ‘more powerful’ one, the one he has been talking about for some time (3:11). John himself stands in need of what Jesus has to offer: a greater baptism of Spirit and fire (3:11); this is probably what he means when he says, ‘I need to be baptized by you’ (3:14).”

Jesus, however, would have John’s baptism and wouldn’t turn it around. His words, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” are the first he speaks in Matthew’s Gospel. It’s a tantalizing reply. It sounds pregnant with meaning, as if understanding will come to us at any moment. In the end, though, I usually find myself wondering, fulfill what righteousness? How did this moment move Jesus’ ministry along?

It did, that’s for sure. The Gospels make it clear that whatever Jesus had been doing before this, he did different things after this. We’ll read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ temptation in a few weeks, which he experienced just after his baptism. Matthew and Mark both wrote that Jesus remained by the Jordan near John until John’s arrest by Herod, and then returned to Galilee to take up his own preaching ministry.

We don’t know what the baptism meant for Jesus. It did change his life. Whatever lay in his days as a young adult, it washed away in the Jordan.

But I’m still back a few minutes, to that conversation between John and Jesus. Would it have been so wrong for Jesus to baptize John? Jesus was, we believe, the very figure John had promised. Jesus was one to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus had power John did not.

Jesus also had the power to swallow his pride. He had the capacity to curb his privilege. He had the grace to be one of the people who wanted to change his life.

Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Jesus’ baptism inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.’ He identified himself with the faults and failures, the pains and problems, of all the broken people who had flocked to the Jordan River. By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us.

“Not long into his public mission, the sanctimonious religious leaders derided Jesus as a ‘friend of gluttons and sinners.’ They were more right than they knew.”

Gluttons, sinners, those struggling to do well and not getting it right as often as we’d like: a friend to us. That’s what Jesus did when he won the argument with John. He got right down in the muddy water with us. Some of that mud just comes with living. We know that. We don’t worry too much about washing it away. Some of that mud came with us. Yeah. We rolled in it. We made it soupier or thicker and, God help us, we tried to smear it on other people, didn’t we? But yes. That’s our mud. It’s time to wash it away, John. It’s time to wash it away, Jesus.

We’ll probably pick up more tomorrow, but for today, we’re better than we were yesterday.

As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one.  It is to sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.  Can we bear to embrace these mind-bending truths without flinching away in self-consciousness, cynicism, suspicion, or shame?”

I hope we can. I hope we do.

Now. I have a problem. This morning I told the children a story about humility. Jesus’ humility inspired that story. Jesus’ humility and expansive love is the way of life I want to tell the children about, model for them as best I can, and watch them adopt for themselves.

I want the children to be followers of Jesus, and preferably better followers than I am.

What I can’t tell them, or you, or myself, is that it’s going to work out well for them.

Historically, humility, generosity, and mercy haven’t won too many battles. Partially because they don’t fight battles. Battles are fundamentally contrary to humility, generosity, and mercy. It’s also really hard to do when so many leaders prefer to project their pride beyond even the expected boundaries of their power.

You’ll find in The New York Times, “President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his ‘own morality,’ brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.

“Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: ‘Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’”

(Interviewers were Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager, Katie Robers, and David E. Sanger)

Quite aside from the legitimate questions of whether there should be and are limits on presidential power: that is not somebody who would have asked John to baptize him. It is not what Jesus ever said. It is not what a follower of Jesus should ever say.

But if anybody asks me, I’ve to admit: it works. Accept no limits upon yourself or your ambition or your greed, and yes, it works. It goes very badly for everybody else around you, but for you: It works.

I’d rather stand with Jesus in the Jordan. I’ll wait my turn – he was first, after all. I might catch the echo of the voice of God, or a glimpse of the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. It’s a bird. I’d love to photograph it.

But then, I’ll bring my muddiness down to John, and let him wash it away. I’ll climb up the bank (and pick up more mud, yes, but that’s all right) and, if I’m daring, I’ll tug on Jesus’ cloak and hope he tells me, “Come and follow me.”

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

The image is The Baptism of Christ by El Greco (c. 1608-1614), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=629486.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: A Little Wisdom; A Lot of Wisdom

January 4, 2026

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

It’s still Christmas. It really is twelve days long in the Church calendar, and we’re on day eleven, so you can thank your lucky stars that you’re not likely to receive eleven pipers piping or eleven missionaries today. On this eleventh day of Christmas, if we’re thinking about the Holy Family, we’re probably thinking about the mixed joy and fear of Jesus’ parents, still trying to figure out what their newborn would need next.

The Revised Common Lectionary wants us to turn our attention elsewhere. As Cody J. Sanders writes at Working Preacher, “The prologue of John’s Gospel cracks the lens with which we are tempted to engage in any too-small reading of the Gospel by directing our attention toward a cosmic space-time reality. Unlike the Lukan narrative that often shapes our imaginations in the Christmas season, the Second Sunday of Christmas plunges us into the deep time of the primordial Genesis creation narratives with John’s opening words: ‘In the beginning…’”

You’ve probably caught the reference John made to the beginning of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” (Genesis 1:1) You may not have caught the other parallels John made with other classic texts, particularly those from Jewish Wisdom literature like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. As Jaime Clark-Soles writes at Working Preacher, “John brilliantly presents Jesus in the role of Lady Wisdom in a number of ways. As we read in numerous LXX texts, Lady Wisdom (hokhmah in Hebrew, Sophia in Greek) is God’s partner: she helps to create the world, she delights in the human race, she continually tries to help humans to get knowledge and flee from ignorance. She cries aloud incessantly. Unfortunately, the Old Testament tells us that she is often rejected because fools hate knowledge and humans would rather wallow in ignorance, for the most part.”

As I mentioned in this morning’s children’s time, wisdom and knowledge aren’t the same thing, but… acting in ignorance, deliberately choosing ignorance, is definitely not wise.

In contrast, wrote John, Jesus, God’s Messiah, embodied the ancient concept of Wisdom: knowledgeable, just, generous, righteous, thoughtful, faithful, peaceful.

These had been the virtues encouraged by Judaism: written in wisdom literature, declared by the prophets, required in the Law, and celebrated in the Psalms.

Those are the virtues exhibited by Jesus.

A little wisdom had become a lot of wisdom.

It’s a wisdom that’s not just of the intellect. “The Word became flesh and lived among us” – the word “lived” can be translated as “pitched a tent.” “Pitching tent,” writes Karyn Wiseman at Working Preacher, “means coming to be fully part of the world in which you live and minister. The Word in this text is doing just that — coming to ‘pitch tent’ with humanity. The Word made flesh comes to be in the world and to change the world.” Dr. Clark-Soles writes that John is “a very touchy-feely Gospel… John wants us to understand that the same intimacy shared by God and Jesus is shared with us and Jesus/God. Hence, the Incarnation.”

“Moreover,” writes Karoline Lewis at Working Preacher, “in the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, now God not only goes where God’s people go, but is who they are. That is, God now dwells with us by taking on our form, our humanity. This ‘different’ dwelling of God is God being where God’s people are, and now who God’s people are.”

A little bit of wisdom has become a whole lot of presence, God’s presence, with us, with everyone, with all the world.

The wisdom Jesus embodied is the wisdom Jesus lived. He brought compassion and forgiveness to people who’d been told they deserved no forgiveness and would receive no compassion. He rejected the options of servile acceptance of tyranny and of violent upheaval against tyranny. He encouraged rigorous personal ethics and a community ethic of mutual care and support. He refused to accept the casual practices that had enriched moneychangers around the Temple at the expense of faithful people. When they came to arrest him, he did not meet violence with violence.

Jesus set us the challenge of living that same wisdom, and it is a challenge. It’s a high bar. It’s a wisdom that may call us to put others’ interests over our own. It’s a wisdom that looks foolish when it leads to a cross.

It’s a wisdom that leads to resurrection.

The foolishness of the world leads to suffering, dissension, and death.

I really wish people wouldn’t hand me perfect sermon illustrations on Saturday, but some people have a talent for it. The headline of yesterday’s editorial from the New York Times Editorial Board was, “Donald Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Is Illegal and Unwise.” They concluded with these words:

“We will hold out hope that the current crisis will end less badly than we expect. We fear that the result of Mr. Trump’s adventurism is increased suffering for Venezuelans, rising regional instability and lasting damage for America’s interests around the world. We know that Mr. Trump’s warmongering violates the law.”

This is the kind of leadership that Jesus simply rejected. He wouldn’t do it himself. He wouldn’t bow to those who tried to govern him that way. Let’s be clear: it got him crucified. Nothing they did could force him to change his ways. Nothing they did could prevent his resurrection.

Fortunately there are examples of people following Jesus’ wisdom in the world.

Melissa Bane Sevier writes in her blog: “Yes, there are people who do really bad things in this world.  But there are also moments when we can point to some person or act and think:  There.  There it is.  That’s how we see eternity right here.

“Maybe it’s some random act of kindness.  Or the face of your most precious loved one.  Some deep goodness you see in a person you know or a stranger.

“We have each other.  The Word is made flesh anew each day, right here among us.

“And we glimpse grace and truth.”

Glimpse grace and truth in those around you. Let others glimpse Christ in you.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches. Sometimes they’re intentional. Sometimes they’re not.

The image is Wisdom by Titian (ca. 1560) – Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15465552.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: What Did You Go Out to See?

December 14, 2025

Luke 1:46-55
Matthew 11:2-11

“What did you go out to see?” Jesus asked the crowds, referring to the ministry of John the Baptist. “A reed shaken by the wind?”

I rather like that image, even though I suspect, along with Biblical scholars, that I don’t really understand it. It’s probably a first century phrase that has long since fell out of regular use. But would you go out to see grass blowing in the wind? (Well, I might, but I’m a photographer and I’ve been known to take pictures of grass blowing in the wind.) I just imagine a somewhat large reed growing from the riverbank and giving off a low tone as the wind blows across it. Instead of the voice of the prophet, you’d get the voice of the wind and the reeds.

Now, I suppose you might prefer that to someone who greeted his visitors with “You brood of vipers!” But would that bring you out? Probably not. You might come out to see someone wealthy and showy – that describes most big concert performers, come to think of it. You’d go out for those. Lots of people do.

Neither musical grasses nor well-dressed people brought people out to see John the Baptist. As Jesus put it, they came out to see a prophet, and more than a prophet. They came to see one who might give them some hope for a radical change in their condition. They came out because they were poor, and were going to stay poor, and they hoped that someone could change that. They came out because they were treated at best with indifference by the rulers of their day and at worst – all too frequently at worst – with casual cruelty, and they hoped that God cared about that. They came out because they knew they weren’t living by the laws of Scripture, and they knew that they needed to seek God’s forgiveness. They came out because forgiveness through the Temple was expensive: they had to bring sacrifices. They came out because John said they would find forgiveness with a simple – and inexpensive – bath in the Jordan River.

It was concerns like that which brought them out to see Jesus, too. Jesus didn’t baptize, but he and John shared their basic message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It’s also possible that it was John’s arrest that prompted Jesus to begin his preaching ministry. According to Matthew 4, Jesus returned to Galilee after John was imprisoned.

Quite aside from their shared experience of John’s baptism, they shared a message and they shared an offered hope. They may even have shared some time and some conversation. Perhaps they made plans. If they did, Herod’s decision to imprison John interrupted them.

Whatever may have been the case between the two of them, each of them brought out the crowds, and I would guess that most of those in the crowds wanted the answer to some variant of the question John’s messengers brought to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” As James Boyce writes at Working Preacher, “Along with John we say, ‘Give us more data.’”

Well, what was the data?

There’s healing, and healing that restored people to their families and to their communities. Lacking sight, difficulties with mobility, the inability to hear, different kinds of diseases: all of these are conditions in which people can live with dignity and respect, contributing to those around them and to society as a whole. That was less true in the first century, when there was no Americans with Disabilities Act. Any of those people would have had to beg, which is a degrading way for people to survive, and those with some skin diseases would have been forced out of their homes entirely. Jesus acted not just to relieve people’s pain and suffering, he also acted to restore their relationships with others.

In our days, I have to tell you, we have all the power we need to maintain and even strengthen the relationships we have with people with challenges to sight, hearing, mobility, and overall health. Relatively few of us have the power to change the conditions of the body – with acknowledgement of the medical professionals among us – but all of us can treat people with full respect and honor their worth. We can welcome their contributions to our society and make the accommodations which permit them to live fruitfully. We can make sure that there are curb cuts on the streets at pedestrian walkways. We can, oh, I don’t know, use a font that is more easily read by a screen reader. We can set aside our prejudices and take up our commitment to regard all people as created in the image of God.

Karri Aldredge has a particular insight about good news and the poor. She writes at Working Preacher, “Of particular note is Jesus’ final statement: ‘The poor have good news brought to them.’

“This phrase is often interpreted as sharing the gospel with the poor. The Greek reads, more literally, that the poor are gospelized. They don’t just receive good news. They experience it. This reflects the long list of actions Jesus has just named. Those most vulnerable in society—like John in prison—receive the gospel not only through words but through actions and community relationships.”

I like that. In Jesus, the poor don’t just listen or hear. The poor get good newsed.

“Perhaps the work of Christ,” writes D. Mark Davis at leftbehindandlovingit, “is a way of resisting any system – whether imperial, political, medical, social, or religious – that de-humanizes and de-communalizes life. For many years I have had a definition of sin as ‘anything that is destructive of life and community.’ I think that definition and this description of what the reign of God through Christ looks like are very complementary.”

If that is the work of Christ – to bring humanity back to human beings, whether they have been oppressed by law, prejudice, illness, injury, custom, church, and death itself – if the work of Christ is to restore humanity to human beings, then that’s something worth coming out to see. That’s better than a well-dressed public figure. That’s better than a row of reeds singing on the wind.

What have you come out to see?

There are better things you could do with a Sunday morning. Think of all the things you could do to make yourself happy. Starting with sleeping late, for many of us, right? A nice leisurely start to a low-anxiety day, and low-anxiety days are precious, few and far between. There might be things you’d like to read, or craft projects that keep your mind and fingers engaged. You might experiment with some new delight, or take care of those nagging chores you didn’t get to during the week. Seriously. There are much better things you could be doing than sitting around listening to me.

Except.

If we’re here, we just might get some hints to the answer to that question: “Are you the One, Jesus?” We might just make a connection with that One. We might just deepen our relationship with that One over weeks and over years. We can’t count on these things strengthening steadily, no. John showed that. He baptized Jesus and he still had to ask that question when things went sideways for him. None of us live lives of faith without going through times of doubt and living through times of shadow.

So we’re here to be our messengers to ourselves, to ask John’s question for ourselves, to make that connection with Jesus and find out who he is for us and for all those around us. We keep trying, because, as Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “…who Jesus is is not a pronouncement.  Not a sermon, a slogan, or a billboard.  Who Jesus is is far more elusive, mysterious, and impossible-to-pin-down than we have yet imagined.  The reality of who Jesus is emerges in the lives of the plain, poor, ordinary people all around us.  We glimpse his reality in shadows.  We hear it in whispers.  It comes to us by stealth, with subtlety, over long, quiet stretches of time.”

What did you come out to see?

Whatever that might be, you saw the signs of the One who humanizes humanity. You heard it in the words we read. You experienced it in the welcome greetings that came from the others gathered here. You felt it in some movement of your soul, one which you may not be able to describe but which you know is real.

Here you have sought and found the signs of the Christ.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric prepares the sermon text beforehand, but he makes changes while preaching. Sometimes they’re intentional; sometimes they’re not.

Photo of grass blowing in the wind by Eric Anderson.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: Towards Peace

December 7, 2025

Isaiah 11:1-10
Matthew 3:1-12

It’s a vision of improbable things.

Wolves living peaceably with lambs, leopards and kids, calves with lions, cows with bears. They’re all grazing, which you’d think wouldn’t work for the wolves, leopards, lions, and bears. They don’t have the right kind of teeth.

Through them wander these little children who lead – I grant you that little children lead us around all the time, but that’s only until we catch on – and they even play safely around the poisonous snakes.

It seems fantastic. As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Then, there is the testimony of the Banyan tree. It’s an extraordinary spectacle. Roots grow from the branches of the tree. The branches are long and the roots seek water from the ground. The Banyan tree can live for hundreds of years and expand to cover acres under its canopy of branches and sustaining roots. Most trees do not function this way, and the Banyan tree may seem like a creation of fantasy rather than another version of a fig tree.

“The world described in Isaiah 11 may also seem to be the fruit of impossible fantasy rather than a prophetic, imagined future crafted by the abiding love and longing of the Holy One.”

Living in Hilo, we’re familiar both with the wonders of the banyan tree and with its strange fragility. We’ve seen great trees come crashing tragically down. And we’ve seen them grow and thrive supported by those fantastic roots.

Is the banyan, or the remade natural world, really any more improbable than what launches this utopian vision: the image of a leader emerging from the house of David who demonstrated wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the LORD?

Isaiah lived through the reigns of good kings and bad kings. He had advised King Ahaz, who got very bad reviews from the authors of 2 Kings: “He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord,” is how they introduced him in chapter 16. Isaiah had much better experiences with Ahaz’ son Hezekiah, who received great praise from the authors of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. “He did what was right in the sight of the LORD just as his ancestor David had done,” reads 2 Kings in chapter 18.

Is it so strange that a ruler should govern with wisdom and understanding, with knowledge and in the reverence of God?

Corrinne L. Carvalho writes at Working Preacher, “It is difficult for Christians to hear this poem, especially during the season of Advent, and not think it celebrates the birth of Jesus. But it is important to remember that this yearning for a perfect world pre-dates and exists independently of the Christmas story. I think if people around the world were asked to draw a picture of a perfect world leader, that ruler would have many of these same attributes.”

Although… there are some who have other ideas. Michael J. Chan writes at Working Preacher, “In the royal propaganda of the ancient near East, royal figures frequently encounter predatory animals, and especially lions. And so it is no surprise to find the royal child depicted as a shepherd among lions. What is surprising, however, is the way in which the young shepherd interacts with them. In general, kings would be depicted fighting and killing lions, not leading them or living among them.”

Fighting and killing. Not leading. Not living among them.

Does this sound familiar?

Isaiah’s vision of peace relies upon leaders who make peace a priority. Peace, not power. Peace, not privilege. Peace, not pride. Isaiah’s peaceful ruler relies upon the wisdom of God, the righteousness of God, the reverence of God. Isaiah’s peaceful ruler uses that wisdom and righteousness and reverence to look more carefully at the stories they hear. They give regard to the concerns of the poor. They relieve the oppression of those who suffer from the acts of the powerful.

In his novel Jingo, Terry Pratchett described a dialogue between a ruler, Lord Vetinari, and a genius, Leonard of Quirm.

“As they say, [said Lord Vetinari] ‘If you would seek war, prepare for war.’”

“I believe, my lord, the saying is ‘If you would seek peace, prepare for war,’” Leonard ventured.

Vetinari put his head on one side and his lips moved as he repeated the phrase to himself. Finally he said, “No, no. I just don’t see that one at all.”

Terry Pratchett, Jingo (New York, HarTorch), 1997

We make peace by moving toward peace. We move toward peace in our households when we stop insisting on our way, or our authority, or our “rightness.” We move toward peace when we work on our relationships. We move toward peace in our voluntary communities when we work through the different ideas and disagreements and choose a way we can share together. We move toward peace in our churches when we accept that there are things we don’t know about God and about the nature of the world and prioritize the welfare of those affected by our decisions.

We move toward peace in the world when we select leaders who decide in the interests of all people, not just themselves or those in their circle or class. We move toward peace in the world when we send leaders packing who demonstrate that they work for themselves, not others. We move toward peace in the world when we make it clear that we will not tolerate injustice, intolerance, oppression, cruelty, and tyranny.

We move toward peace in the world when we embrace peace within ourselves. We move toward peace in the world when we choose the righteousness of God rather than the self-interest which is so common. We move toward peace in the world when we ourselves take the time and effort to learn more than what appears to be obvious, and seek diligently for truth. We move toward peace in the world when we choose wisdom over folly.

As Cory Driver writes at Working Preacher, “God has always been calling the Holy Community to justice and faithfulness, and has always promised to send leaders who will show the way. It is such a leader that we, along with Isaiah, look for during this Advent.”

Let us be such leaders in our families and communities; let us be such citizens in our nation, let us insist upon such leaders in the houses of government in the world.

Let us journey toward peace.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric writes his sermons in advance, but he makes changes while he preaches, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not.

The image is Peaceable Kingtom by Rick and Brenda Beerhorst, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55782 [retrieved December 7, 2025]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/74782490@N00/5816094892.