Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: No Fire

June 29, 2025

Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62

Jesus’ disciples had been… uneven… through chapter nine. They’d begun well, returning from their own expeditions of healing with stories of great success. Then they’d sort of fumbled when Jesus asked them feed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, which I grant you I’d have fumbled as well. When Jesus asked them who he was, only Simon Peter dared to say that he was the Messiah – then Peter earned a rebuke from Jesus when he protested the idea of a suffering, crucified Messiah.

From there Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain where they witnessed him transfigured into a glowing figure and speaking with Moses and Elijah, two of the faith’s great heroes. Simon Peter earned another rebuke – this time from God’s own voice – on that occasion. And at the bottom of the mountain, the rest of the disciples couldn’t heal a child, and Jesus had to do it.

If all that weren’t enough, they’d argued about who was the greatest and Jesus caught them at it. They’d tried to stop someone from casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and Jesus told them, “Whoever is not against you is for you.”

Jesus’ disciples had done some pretty impressive things, but in some other ways they’d really messed up.

Enter James and John at this moment, with Jesus resolved to go to Jerusalem. A Samaritan village wouldn’t receive him. “Shall we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they wanted to know.

If this seems drastic, there was Biblical precedent, and it came from that same Elijah James and John had seen talking with Jesus on the mountain of the transfiguration. In the first chapter of Second Kings, Elijah encountered a series of captains and their soldiers sent by King Ahaziah to arrest him. The first two ordered him to come with them, and Elijah said, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” And, well, it did.

I have to give James and John credit for their Bible knowledge. They were probably in the neighborhood of ancient Samaria, the capital of Ahaziah’s kingdom of Israel. The Samaritans were the descendants of the people who lived there. If the Samaritans were going to treat Jesus the way their ancestors had treated Elijah, then shouldn’t they suffer the same punishment? Fire from heaven! Let’s go!

Jesus said no. No fire.

Amy G. Oden writes at Working Preacher, “We’ve all felt it. The rise in our gut when someone rejects our most cherished beliefs.

“We recognize the need to justify our views, prove we are right, defend our faith. But we don’t stop there. We also have the impulse to attack — to show how that person is wrong, misguided, even unfaithful. If we have structural or institutional power, we may move to shut them down and ‘command fire to come down from heaven and consumer them’ figuratively if not literally. If we have military or political power, we may use it to harm and punish.”

We may? Oh, I suppose we may.

I suppose we do.

Like a lot of adolescents, I broke my parents’ hearts – at least a little, for a little while. This may come as a surprise to those who are participating in our Confirmation Class, but I didn’t take part in the Confirmation Class of my home church. I was wrestling with questions of faith, and to be honest, I was also wrestling with how far I could push my independence. So yes. On the nights our Confirmation Class met, I stayed home in a somewhat chilly atmosphere.

I probably would have been better off going.

For those of you wondering how I ever got ordained without becoming a church member, I did become a church member three years later. Just not through a Confirmation Class.

More to the point, my relationship with my parents survived my refusal to join the Confirmation Class. Those relationships don’t always survive adolescents’ rebellious exercises. My parents stayed in it despite their hurt and anger. I stayed in it, too, and if I pushed in other ways at other times, I won some and they won some. There were tears, but there was no fire.

No fire.

It turns out that some ancient manuscripts add some text at verse 56. Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “I think of this extra verse as the most important verse not in the Bible. At Luke 9:56 some manuscripts add a conclusion to the story: ‘And Jesus said to them, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”’ Clearly, for a later copyist, the simple rebuke of Jesus was not enough; he wanted to categorically repudiate the hatred of James and John.”

Why did that copyist find it necessary? Because, let’s face it, we are awfully good at going from being right to being self-righteous to being other-condemning. I’m there with you. I like to be right (insert joke about how unusual that is here). I like the sensation of knowing that I know, and that I do, the will of God. It’s a Good Feeling.

The next stage could be to say, “Here’s how you can share that Good Feeling.” But is that what I do? Um. Sometimes? Maybe? More often, though, I move to something more like, “Hey! I’m right! You’re wrong! Straighten up and fly right!”

Hello, Self-Righteous Station. All aboard for Triumphalism Terminal!

Amy G. Oden writes, “Triumphalism is a powerful and dangerous drug, closely tied to self-righteousness. It feels so good to be right! To win! To know that God is on our side! Yay us! Boo everyone else! Endorphins pump through our bodies, creating a high we want to sustain.

“Our Christian history demonstrates that triumphalism is our besetting sin. It is a subtle and short step from rejoicing in the good news of Jesus Christ to attacking those who will not share in it. Our history shows that when we have the power to harm others we consider outside our circle of triumph, we are likely to use it. And Jesus will have none of it.”

Jesus will have none of it. No fire.

Barbara Messner writes at BarbPoetPriest.blog:

“Jesus’ way is respect and compassion.
It’s ironic and tragic at present
that some leaders who claim to be Christian
think that missiles will force a surrender.
They are bullies demanding submission:
those who crucified Christ made such choices.”

For those of you wondering about the recent aerial bombings of other countries, I think Rev. Messner points us to the heart of Jesus: No fire.

Those who crucified Christ made such choices. Choices to bring fire. Death. Destruction.

Jesus said: No fire.

No fire.

No fire from heaven to rend the earth.

No fire from self-righteousness to rend the heart.

No fire from God’s own sanctity to burn the spirit.

No fire.

No fire.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes when he preaches. Sometimes he intends to. Sometimes he just does.

The image is an illustration of the Transfiguration from Read’n Grow Picture Bible Illustrations (Biblical illustrations by Jim Padgett, courtesy of Sweet Publishing, Ft. Worth, TX, and Gospel Light, Ventura, CA. Copyright 1984.). Image provided by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18885603.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Trinity of Wisdom

June 15, 2025

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
John 16:12-15

Lucy Lind Hogan’s commentary on this passage from John, posted at Working Preacher, made me laugh this week. She wrote, “I suspect that most in your congregation would not appreciate a sermon that began like this: ‘There are things that are essential to our faith, but I can’t speak about them because you would not be able to understand. They are far too complicated and way over your head.’”

So, let me check. Raise your hand or give me a nod if you’d object to a sermon that started with, “You’re not going to understand this.”

Well, that’s a pity.

Because I’m not sure you’re going to understand this.

In my defense, the reason I’m not sure you’re going to understand this is because I’m not sure I understand this. It’s Trinity Sunday, so we’re wrestling with understanding the Trinity, not one of Christianity’s simpler ideas. Further, “this” is Jesus’ promise given in John 16:30 that the Spirit of truth will come, and will guide the disciples into all the truth.

Have you noticed how difficult truth is?

Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “What is truth? The dictionary relates truth to fact and reality. Yet, disputes over facts and attempts to hide or dismiss reality may challenge our understanding of truth. Individuals speak of their truth as if it were a choice or varied based on perspective, experience, and acceptance. Is there such a thing as a shared reality when so much of human life is highly segmented and fractured?”

Lord, I hope so. While I grant the possibility of alternate realities – I’m a fan of science fiction, after all – it’s awfully difficult to live in more than one reality at a time. I also grant the existence of unknown reality, when we simply don’t know what reality is, and so different ideas of what it might be all have at least some validity. I certainly grant the existence of different notions of reality, some of which might be correct, or partially correct, or just plain incorrect.

At ground, though, I tend to assume that there is a reality, a truth, to the universe around us. While a vast amount of it might be unknown – it’s a big universe, after all – there’s a lot of truth that we do know and that we can know.

A couple hundred years of experience, for example, teaches us that vaccination significantly reduces the spread and the intensity of infectious disease. According to the National Library of Medicine, the 1853 smallpox outbreak in Hawai’i was the third worst epidemic in Hawaiian history. It killed 5,000 people. There hasn’t been a case of smallpox since 1977 anywhere in the world, and that’s because of vaccination. Those who claim vaccines cause rather than prevent disease are wrong.

They are not telling the truth.

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all the truth. I might wish that the Holy Spirit would just give us all the truth, but that’s not what Jesus said and it certainly isn’t our experience, is it? We have to work at truth. We have to ask questions. We have to evaluate competing answers. We have to compare the assertions of different sources, take a look at how it matches with our experience, and consider whether our experience might be deceptive. People had considered and even practiced inoculation for smallpox for some time in Asia, Africa, India, and Europe, but most people considered making somebody a little bit sick to prevent getting very sick to be dangerous. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the practice gained wider acceptance and not until the 20th century that it knocked smallpox out entirely.

With anti-vaccination people in positions of power and exercising that power to restrict and discourage vaccination, we’re going to see more illness. We’re going to see more death. That’s truth.

Truth is not wholly revealed by observation and experimentation. For one thing, our observation has limits, and our experiments can’t always account for all the potential circumstances. Science always looks for predictable phenomena: I do this, and this happens. But if there’s more than what I do that changes in an experiment and I don’t know it, my predictions don’t work.

That makes the truth of people – or of one person – really difficult to understand.

It makes the truth of God, with whom we are in relationship and within whom there is a relationship that we call “the Trinity,” really difficult to understand.

But maybe, just maybe, there are dimensions of the Trinity that we can understand, or accept, or even rejoice in.

Meda Stamper writes at Working Preacher, “The Trinity presented to us in John is a manifestation of God’s love for us, a way of opening a door to the mystery of God that allows us to see ourselves embraced by it.” When Jesus spoke to his disciples it was in perilous times. They may not have seen it as clearly as he did – they asked “What did he mean by this?” pretty often during his farewell address – but nobody who had been with Jesus in Jerusalem had any illusions about the danger. Jesus’ arrest didn’t come as a surprise.

Jesus offered reassurance, the reassurance of the Spirit’s presence, and the reassurance of the Spirit’s truth, as a sign of his own love and God’s own love for them.

The Trinity is love.

As well as love, Jesus’ words extended hope. As Timothy L. Adkins-Jones writes at Working Preacher, “Maybe through tears of his own, and possibly to weeping disciples, Jesus offers hope to those that he loves. In a world where loss, anxiety, and fear are legion, there will be no shortage of disciples in our midst who are in need of reassurance. Our mission seems to be to offer ways that the relationship Jesus describes in this passage, between Himself, the Father, and the Spirit, brings hope to an anxious people instead of wrestling with the particulars of the Trinity.”

I’ve said more than once that hope as a Christian concept or virtue is not a feeling. It’s a choice. When I hope, I look at what is before me and decide that it does not need to be this way. It can be better. It might be pretty much okay, but it can be better. Or it might be really bad, and I choose to believe it can be better. I choose hope. I choose to work toward my hope.

Choose hope, my friends, Jesus told them.

The Trinity is hope.

Jesus’ words to his disciples continued past where our reading ends at verse 15. “You have pain now,” he told them, “but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

In the midst of that solemn night with its confusion and its sense of threat, Jesus promised joy. At JourneyWithJesus.net, Amy Frykholm writes about establishing a food pantry during the COVID pandemic in Leadville, Colorado: “To cross a mountain stream, you must seek those few rocks that will remain firmly in place, that are flat enough to afford a foothold. We likened our development of the food pantry to looking for these ‘joy’ rocks. What can we do with enough joy, enough letting go, enough delight that we can stay steady while we cross this stream? If we saw ourselves falling into obligation, we’d ask, ‘Is this a joy rock?’ If the answer was no, then we looked for another route.”

Joy. That’s important. It’s a vital part of the journey; it’s a vital part of the work. It’s a vital element of truth itself. If someone’s truth claim perverts justice, threatens harm, or promises suffering, if it lacks joy or subverts joy, it is not true. Read the witness of Proverbs’ figure of Wisdom who, during Creation, “was beside God, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight, playing before him always, playing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

Wisdom – Truth – the Holy Spirit – the Trinity – is joy.

Joy. Hope. Love. That’s a Trinity of Truth. It’s worth confessing. It’s worth proclaiming. It’s worth living.

It’s a Trinity of Wisdom.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric prepares the entire sermon ahead of time, and frequently makes changes while preaching.

The image is Three-Faced Christ (The Trinity) by Anonymous Flemish master (ca. 1500) – https://www.artfairmag.com/colnaghi, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=162397197.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Visions and Dreams

June 8, 2025

Romans 8:14-17
Acts 2:1-21

Do you remember how old you were when somebody first told you that you couldn’t do something?

I don’t, actually. I certainly remember it happening, usually after I’d tried it. I had this notion, for example, that I could climb into this piece of furniture that had an intriguing big cupboard in it. I’m pretty sure it was intended for towels, but it sure looked like it had space for a curious three- or four-year-old boy.

Said three- or four-year-old boy had not thought that the cabinet was built to sit pretty flat, with all the weight within its sides, so adding the weight of a three- or four-year-old boy to one side might just cause it to lose its balance. Actually, did cause it to fall over, trapping said three- or four-year-old boy inside the intriguing big cupboard in the middle after creating a terrible crash.

I survived.

My parents also told me that I couldn’t do that. Or that I shouldn’t. Ever. Again.

Some of the things we’re told not to do are for our safety. We’re told not to drive 80 miles an hour through those big turns in the gulches along the Hamakua Coast. Good, say I. We’re told not to cross the barriers along the cliffs of Kaluapele, the summit caldera of Kilauea. I’m happy with that. We’re told not to go swimming for a full hour after a meal to avoid cramps. Well, that’s a bit of a legend, but I’m willing to relax for a bit before taking on the waves again.

People tell us, “No,” to keep us safe.

Except for the times they tell us, “No,” to keep us limited.

About one hundred and twenty of Jesus’ disciples had stayed in Jerusalem after his resurrection, according to Luke’s Gospel and his sequel, Acts of the Apostles. I like to call “Acts” a sequel. It makes me feel that Luke should have ended the Gospel with something like: “Coming soon from this author: the exciting tale of how Jesus’ frightened followers faced the faith and found their fearlessness. Look for it in a bookstore near you!”

We don’t have names for all of the one hundred and twenty. Luke identified the eleven of Jesus’ inner circle of followers, and described the selection of Matthias to replace the betrayer Judas Iscariot and bring the number to twelve again. Luke wrote that there were “certain women” among them, one of whom was Mary, Jesus’ mother. His brothers had joined the group, too.

Then came Pentecost.

Jeremy L. Williams writes at Working Preacher, “Shavuot or ‘The Festival of Weeks’ occurs seven weeks after Passover and begins on the fiftieth day after, hence its Greek name Pentecost. This is one of the three festivals for which some Jewish people would make pilgrimage to Jerusalem (the other two are Passover and the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles). Pentecost is a harvest festival where families bring the first fruits of their harvest in anticipation of God blessing the remainder of the harvest (Exodus 23:16; Deuteronomy 26:5-11). This made Pentecost already symbolically rich for imagining the beginning of a bountiful ingathering, but in Acts’ case what was reaped was not produce, but people.”

Let’s face it, Jesus’ followers had heard a lot of “You can’t do this,” recently. Jesus’ debates in the Temple during the last week of his life had included a lot of “Don’t you dare”s from the people in power. The fact that they scattered to the four winds the night Jesus was arrested reveals that they recognized the danger they were in – kind of the ultimate, “You can’t do this.” The resurrection had certainly changed things, but how much? What were the risks? What kind of power might be with them? Jesus had told them the Holy Spirit would be given to them, but what did that mean? They didn’t know.

They got together in a house that Shavuot, that Pentecost, but they wouldn’t stay there. As Margaret Aymer writes at Working Preacher, “The Holy Spirit proves not to be a quiet, heavenly dove but, rather, a violent force that blows the church into being (Acts 2:41–47). That church consists mainly of immigrants, people of different languages and cultures with different mother tongues (Acts 2:5, 9–12, 14). To these, the message goes forth: a message of the coming of the day of the Lord, full of heavenly portents and prophetic women, slaves, and men.”

They’d been told not to get people excited. They’d been told not to make a noise. They’d been told not to make waves.

If the Holy Spirit had been told that, the Holy Spirit ignored it.

Who told you that you couldn’t do something? Why? Did they say, “You can’t do this because: You’re too young. You’re too old. You’re too female. You’re too Micronesian. You’re too Japanese. You’re too Hawaiian. You’re too gay. You’re too not-what-we-expect-when-we-think-of-someone-in-this-position.”

You can’t. Go away. Hole up with a hundred and twenty others in a house and keep quiet. That’s nice.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t care about any of that.

On that Pentecost Day, the Holy Spirit drove them out of the house. The Holy Spirit filled them with so many words that they had to speak them. The Holy Spirit decided that one or two languages wasn’t enough. Hebrew or Aramaic? Great. Greek? A nice addition. Enough? Not even close. Brush up your Parthian, there. How about Persian? Egyptian? Go for it. Arabic? Good call.

“In our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

If you didn’t want to speak to those foreigners, if you didn’t want them in your city, if you didn’t think they were interested, well, too bad. The Holy Spirit doesn’t care about any of that. Put up all the travel bans you want. Be as cruel to fearful people fleeing violence as you want. The Holy Spirit doesn’t care.

The Holy Spirit will speak God’s deeds of power.

What kind of people will speak them? Sons and daughters – good grief, we’ll be listening to women now? Young men haven’t gained any wisdom; but we’ve got to listen to them? Old men ramble, we all know that. But now they’re going to prophesy? And slaves – slaves? Really? The lowest of the low? The Holy Spirit will speak through them?

All flesh, declared the Spirit through the prophet Joel. All flesh, and the Holy Spirit means it.

You can decide that a Navy ship shouldn’t honor a gay Navy veteran assassinated for being gay. You can decide that a Navy ship can’t honor a woman who led slaves to freedom with the code name, “Moses.” You can decide that women shouldn’t have senior positions in law enforcement.

You can decide that women shouldn’t pastor churches. You can decide that gay people aren’t welcome in a church. You can decide all sorts of things.

The Holy Spirit will ignore all that.

The Holy Spirit will speak God’s deeds of power.

The Holy Spirit will bring dreams and visions, and these will be dreams and visions of a world saved, not a world damned by greed, division, prejudice, and selfish pride. The Holy Spirit will come to those at the margins of society, and it will come regardless of gender or age. The Holy Spirit doesn’t care about the barriers human beings so carefully create to lift some up and keep many down.

The Holy Spirit will come to you.

That might be the most astonishing thing of all, because I imagine that a few people, possibly more than a few people, have told you it can’t. You’re not holy enough, right? Or possibly too young, or possibly too old, yes? Did somebody tell you that only a select few receive the Holy Spirit, and that you’re not special enough to be one of those? Did somebody tell you that being female, or gay, or male, or from wherever your ancestors were from made you ineligible?

Guess what? Whoever told you that, and however many people told you that, they were wrong. The Holy Spirit comes to all flesh, and none of those things bother the Spirit in the least.

Or was it you? Did you tell yourself that you weren’t worthy somehow? I’m a sinner. I’m a failure. I’m not smart enough. I’m not vocal enough. Did you come up with some reasons for the Holy Spirit to pass you by?

Guess what? None of those things bother the Spirit in the least.

For heaven’s sake, the Holy Spirit came to the guys who ran away the night Jesus was arrested. The Holy Spirit came to the one who denied knowing Jesus three times. Those things didn’t bother the Spirit in the least. Those things didn’t stop the Spirit for a moment.

Dreams and visions, friends. Dreams and visions of a better world, a richer world, a loving world.

The Holy Spirit is coming to you so that these dreams and visions might be.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric prepares his sermons in advance, but he does make changes while preaching, sometimes intentionally.

The image is Pentecost by Jean Restout (1732) – Web Gallery of Art:   Image  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15885407.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: They Were Noticed

June 1, 2025

Acts 16:16-34
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Two weeks ago the Sunday School made some presentations to the teachers who’ve worked with them during this school year. I was one of those honored. They were kind enough to say they were nuts about me, which really touched my heart. They gave me nuts, too.

They also gave me this insulated travel mug bearing these words: “Difference Maker: A dedicated individual who can make a big impact even with just a small action or few words. Someone who makes a difference in the lives of others.”

Difference maker.

That’s what I’ve wanted to be since I was a small child. I went through a number of ways to make a difference: I wanted to be a firefighter, a doctor, a scientist, a teacher, an actor, and some others before I followed a call to ministry. Which, you’ll notice, is a profession that seeks to make a difference.

Whether I have or not, whether I do or not, is something we can debate. I’ve got to tell you, there are days it feels like the world is going on without paying any attention to me at all. Sometimes that’s just fine. Other times, I desperately wish I could change the course of events.

The Apostle Paul along with Silas and some other companions had been in Philippi for a few days. We read of their work and welcome from the Jewish community in the city last week. Lydia, a leader among them, hosted them in her own home.

The woman described in this story came from much further down the social spectrum. She was a slave – Luke didn’t know or didn’t record her name – and she was a person afflicted by demonic possession. It doesn’t really matter whether the first century diagnosis or a twenty-first century diagnosis of severe mental illness was actually correct. She was doubly bound as an enslaved person and as someone who could not control her own speech and actions.

As Jaclyn P. Williams writes at Working Preacher, “One who needed freedom could clearly call out the source of salvation but could not so clearly embrace that salvation. The same spirit that oppressed her could see the presence of the way of redemption—the way that is Jesus Christ. It is also meaningful that she refers to Paul and Silas as ‘slaves of the most high God’ (verse 17) while she was enslaved by the spirit of divination and those who were taking advantage of her torment.”

She may have been doubly bound, but she made a difference. She made a difference to her owners, who sold her words as predictions of the future. She made a difference to those who purchased her words, or so we assume, because people kept paying for them. She made a difference to Paul, because when she followed and shouted at him over a few days he got annoyed.

You know, I really wish Paul had exorcised the demon for better reasons than pique, but that’s how Luke told the story, so what can I do?

Paul and Silas, up to this point, hadn’t made much of a ripple in Philippi. They’d made friends among the Jewish community, but that was a small group in a big city. The rest of the population didn’t notice them. Until…

Paul got annoyed, and healed a young woman, and cut off her owners’ source of income. That made a difference.

Suddenly they were noticed.

Eric Barreto writes at Working Preacher, “Gripped with avarice, the formerly profitable girl’s owners accuse Paul and Silas of profound treachery before the city’s ruling authorities. Notice, however, that their indictments fail to mention one key piece of evidence: the loss of the unnamed slave girl’s services in a lucrative endeavor! Instead, these rapacious merchants resort to the tried and true method of base ethnocentrism. They accuse Paul and Silas of drawing Philippi’s denizens away from the approved Roman way of life to Jewish customs incommensurate with the city’s ethnic values. Of course, the charges are false.”

The charges may have been false, but the magistrates found them guilty. They imposed the punishments given to people who were not citizens of Rome, which would have been most people at this time in the first century.

Jerusha Matsen Neal writes at Working Preacher, “Acts 16 narrates a leveraging of cultural superiority and social fear for the preservation of an economic system that grounds the status quo. The torture, beatings, and social isolation of prison are powerful technologies in that mechanism. Paul and Silas are not imprisoned because they break a law. They are imprisoned because they are imprisonable people—vulnerable people—who threaten the bottom line of the powerful.”

If you want to be noticed, if you want to make a difference, if you want to change the future: threaten the bottom line of the powerful.

You may not enjoy the attention. Paul and Silas didn’t. Is there a way of making a difference that does not incur the baleful attention of the wealthy, the powerful, the ones with intrenched interests? I’m not sure there is.

Greed is never satisfied. The author known simply as “The Preacher” wrote in Ecclesiastes 5: “The lover of money will not be satisfied with money, nor the lover of wealth with gain. This also is vanity.” Last week I shared some figures compiled by Robert Reich about the budget bill currently before the Senate. The richest .1%, said Dr. Reich, would receive a $390,000 tax cut on average. What I hadn’t checked was how much they earn in the first place.

According to James Royal of Bankrate, in 2022 average earnings for the top .1% were $2.8 million. So they’d be adding 1.3% to their income with the tax cut. Not shabby, I suppose, but hardly dramatic.

At the same time, those earning less than $17,000 will lose about $1,000, 5.8% of their income. They’ve got a lot less to lose.

I’m probably as annoyed as the Apostle Paul was two thousand years ago. I wish I had the power to heal these people double chained by poverty, illness, circumstance, or oppression. I wish I had the power to free people who are chained to their greed, because that’s a harsh bond as well.

Most of all, though, I hope I make a difference. I hope I make things difficult for the ones who exploit others. I hope I make things difficult for those who deprive people of their liberties. I hope I make things difficult for those who use lies and distortions to get their way.

Paul and Silas were noticed. May we be noticed, too.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric prepares his sermon beforehand, but he tends to make changes while preaching. Sometimes he does it intentionally.

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Leaving Peace

May 25, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace. Peace.

What did Jesus mean by peace?

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

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

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

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

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

Pax Romana.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well. It doesn’t sound like Jesus.

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

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric changes things while preaching. Sometimes intentionally.

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Welcome

May 18, 2025

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

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

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

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

Sixty-four sentences.

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

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

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

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

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

Non-Jews? No. Not possible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boundaries have a function.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Peter Like Jesus

May 11, 2025

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

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

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

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

Had they asked for what they received?

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

Simon Peter imitated Jesus.

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

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

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

Simon Peter, though. He imitated Jesus.

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

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

Then Simon Peter imitated Jesus.

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

Simon Peter imitated Jesus.

Peter. Like Jesus.

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

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

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

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

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

So how about you and me?

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

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

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

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

The list goes on.

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

Like Tabitha. Like Peter. Like Jesus.

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Instrument

May 4, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

Saul knew he was right.

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

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

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

How wrong can you be?

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

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

He knew he was right.

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

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

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

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

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

You knew that already, I’m sure.

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

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Fulfilled

January 26, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May they be fulfilled in your hearing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She asked for mercy.

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

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

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

This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

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

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

May this scripture be fulfilled in your hearing.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Can You Turn Water into Wine?

January 19, 2025

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

Can you turn water into wine?

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

The secret is to add grapes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But hardly anyone recognized it at the time.

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

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

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

It was also a glory of profound compassion.

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

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

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

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

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

So can you turn water into wine?

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

We can turn water into wine.

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

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

We can turn water into wine.

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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