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: Try Again, Samuel

June 16, 2024

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Mark 4:26-34

The first government of the Israelites after the Exodus was a pretty loose one. If there was a primary organizational concept, it was the tribe: Judah, Benjamin, Reuben, Gad, Dan, and so on. The primary leadership was the elder, or a council of elders. The nation as a whole didn’t really have a government, but someone would be acknowledged as a judge. The judge settled disputes, but also organized the nation’s resources in times of crisis, whether it be due to crop failures and famine or international conflict and war.

Samuel was the last of the judges. Judges weren’t just appointed; they came to the work through the call of God. The Scriptures suggest that there were periods when God simply didn’t summon up a judge. That may have contributed to the people’s feeling that this system wasn’t working. If you couldn’t be confident of a judge when you needed one, then you needed a monarch. One thing about kings: they’re always around.

God, by the way, didn’t think it was a great idea. God thought that a king would impose a lot of burdens on the people that a judge wouldn’t. As it happens, God was right. Most of the things God predicted came true under the first king, Saul, and continued to be true all through the period of the kingdoms. But as our text began this morning, Saul had exhausted God’s patience with a series of blunders. “And the LORD was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.”

Incidentally, that’s only the second time the Scriptures record that God was sorry about anything. The first time was when God was sorry about making human beings, and that led to the flood. As for the third time… there was no third time.

God was really unhappy about Saul. God decided to make a change.

Klaus Peter-Adam writes at Working Preacher, “… Yahweh’s ‘regret’ over Saul is best juxtaposed to God’s promise that as long as the earth endures (see Genesis 8:21-22), he would never again ‘regret’ as once before, when God erased all humans because they ‘grieved him to his heart’ (see Genesis 6:6-7). God’s regret specifically over Saul’s kingdom is thus embedded into God’s overarching whole-hearted affirmation to all of humankind.”

So God determined to try again. Or somewhat more accurately: Try again, Samuel.

Samuel had to try again seven more times. One son after another passed before the judge, and one son after another passed on. God assured Samuel that there were things in the heart that God could see, and that Samuel couldn’t, and that made the difference in who would be a suitable king. Eventually, Jesse ran out of sons, or so it appeared. “Are all your sons here?” Samuel asked.

Well, there was one left. You know who it was. It was David. “Rise and anoint him,” said God, “for this is the one.”

If this were a folktale, this would be a great ending. The youngest and least regarded had attained his realm and his true love (OK, that’s not in the story) and so he should live happily ever after. Those youngest sons – occasionally youngest daughters – so often become the heroes in folktales that, when I read one, I tend to predict who’s going to fail and who’s going to succeed, and I’m usually right. When the youngest one gets into the story, that’s the one.

But this wasn’t a folktale, though the writing may have been influenced by similar stories. Anointing David king wasn’t the end of the story, it was the beginning. David did not immediately wear the crown. Initially, he joined the household of King Saul and showed no signs of trying to replace him. The two ended up leading opposing armies in an armed rebellion where neither quite dared to enter a pitched battle. If they had, hostile neighboring nations might have taken advantage, and indeed they tried. This went on for years.

Even after Saul’s death in battle with a Philistine army, it took more years for David’s authority to be acknowledged by all the tribes of Israel. A lot of questions, a lot of decisions, a lot of choices had to be made before David reigned. They go back to: Try again, Samuel.

“If at first you don’t succeed: Try, try again.” You know that one, I’m sure. It’s somewhat countered by a more recent formula: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” written by Rita Mae Brown.

It’s not just barrel-rolling ‘apapane who do things like that. Businesses flounder when they continue to make the same products and fail to adapt to changing needs or tastes. Pullman made railroad cars for decades, nearly monopolizing the business, but didn’t move into new products as passenger traffic moved to aircraft. How many children have learned, to their shock, that the cute thing they did as a preschooler isn’t cute any longer in elementary school? How many governments have faced growing unrest for maintaining oppressive systems when the time to break them is long past?

If at first you don’t succeed, try something different.

There are parts of our lives that seem to contradict that piece of wisdom. Our experience is full of skills that take repetition to develop. Wood and metalworking. Knitting and crocheting. Quilting and embroidery. Singing and playing instruments. Athletics and driving. We repeat those things, we practice those things, we do those things over and over and we get better, so try, try again, right, Pastor?

Yes… and no.

When building skills like that, we’re not just learning what works. We’re learning what doesn’t work. What’s the proper position of fingers on the needles? That one? No. That one? No. That one? Well, that’s better.

If I’m preparing a vault as a gymnast, I’m going to get better as my muscles get more toned, but more than that, I’m going to get better because I adjust for things that slow me down or put me in the wrong place at the right time. As a musician, I know that the point of practice is, in part, changing the poor finger placement and finding a better one.

Practice, musicians say, makes permanent, not perfect. Good practice is when you change things until you find the techniques that will make permanent good.

Try again, Samuel. Try something different.

Indeed, that’s what he did. He stepped outside the expectations of the day that said a king would be succeeded by his son. He went to find someone else. Folktales might favor the youngest, but most cultures, including that of ancient Israel, favored the oldest son. Samuel tried something different when he anointed David. Anointing a new monarch or acclaiming a new leader (in contemporary terms) frequently kicks off an armed rebellion. Samuel tried something different there, too, so different that David served the king he was anointed to replace quite faithfully for several years.

Try again, Samuel. Try something different.

The last few years of pandemic have forced Church of the Holy Cross to a number of somethings different. Though most of our meetings take place face to face once again, and I’m profoundly glad that health conditions allow it, there are a few meetings that remain on Zoom because, it turns out, it’s pretty darned convenient to do that and they don’t demand the ongoing focused attention of an in-person meeting. We revised our communications so that we could remind people regularly that we are their church, that we care about you.

The most obvious, of course, is that we have cameras in our sanctuary each Sunday with a live stream and a recording on the Internet. We could stop. But we’ve found that we have more worshipers when we combine both here and home than if we did only one or the other. We’ve found that someone home with a brief illness can still worship, if not the way they’d prefer. We’ve found that someone with Sunday morning commitments can worship later in the week. We’ve found that someone with serious mobility limitations can still worship on Sunday or when works for them.

What adaptations are next? We made these quickly in response to the challenges of the day, and we’ve found that some of them continue to serve us. So to be honest, I’m taking a few deep breaths before looking at new things. It’s a gift to have time to consider things.

What I’m sure of is that God continues to guide us toward better options, better choices, better relationships. I’m sure that some things we try won’t work – if you check out the videos of our first few Sundays, you’ll find that we didn’t figure out how to make that work immediately. That’s OK. We learned, and we will learn.

Try again, Samuel.

Let’s make things better.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes to the sermon as he preaches. Every time.

The image is Samuel Anointed by David on a silver plate made in Constantinople ca. 629-630. Photo by Fordmadoxfraud – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4872820.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Trying Anew

If it first you don’t succeed, God directed Samuel, try something different.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth chapters of First Samuel (1 Samuel 15:34-16:13), the anointing of David to become King of Israel.

God was not pleased with the first King of Israel, Saul. Saul had not done things God wanted him to do; Saul had done things God didn’t want him to do. God directed Samuel to the House of Jesse in Bethlehem because one of Jesse’s sons would be the next King of Israel.

Jesse paraded his sons in front of Samuel from the oldest to the… well, not quite the youngest, as it turned out. Each time Samuel looked at the young man before him and thought he looked like a likely king, but God said, “The Lord does not look at the outward appearance; the Lord looks into the heart,” and so they moved on.

Eventually they had to summon David in from the fields where he was tending the sheep. He wasn’t considered a likely enough candidate to be brought into the parade. This was the one that got approved. This was the one that Samuel anointed to become king.

There’s a lot to think about, with this notion of searching of the human heart rather than being deceived by outward appearance. There’s a lot of outward appearance in our day that is intended to deceive us, and all too frequently does.

Nevertheless, what strikes me this week is the way that God and then Samuel tried something different to make a change from what was an unacceptable situation. The new king wasn’t working, so therefore a change has to be made: “and God was sorry to have made Saul king.” God set out to make the required adjustment.

And then, once these young men started to meet Samuel, each time there was something not quite right, or something, something that could be better, and each time God said we’re going to look for the better. We’re going to find the best alternative to Saul that’s available to us here and now.

We don’t know what that was. God’s selection of David didn’t come with any explanation, just simply: This is the one.

It’s frequently said in English that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But it’s also said that if you do the same thing repeatedly and expect a new outcome, that way lies madness. In this story God said, “I’m going to do things differently; I’m not going to continue with the same thing.” And that gets true in the selection process. Each candidate came before Samuel and God looked into the heart and said, “We’re going to keep looking. I need something different.”

What are the differences in your life that could make things better? What are the differences in your life that could make things better for your family? What are the differences in your life that could change things for our community, for our church, for our world, for our faith? What are the differences that would make a change for the better?

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: New Beginnings

February 18, 2024

Genesis 9:8-17
Mark 1:9-15

In the Kilauea Iki crater, there is an ohi’a tree. Actually, there are several ohi’a trees, which is quite remarkable when you think about it. Sixty-five years ago Kilauea Iki was full of liquid lava. That’s not good soil to grow a tree.

Even today, the crater’s surface is mostly flat where the liquid rock cooled. There are plenty of cracks, since lava doesn’t cool evenly, and it’s in those cracks where the seeds found enough soil to make a start, and enough soil over the years to make a tree.

At least one of the trees has grown so that it’s taller than I am, even though it’s almost certainly younger than I am. I doubt it started growing within five years of the Kilauea Iki eruption. Sometime during the years afterward, it found its new beginning.

In 1807, and then again in 1809, Henry ‘Opukaha’ia found a new beginning. He set out from his homeland for new experiences of the world. Two years later he settled in to learn as much as he could about the language and the culture and the religion of the place he’d found himself. He made good friends – everything I read about ‘Opukaha’ia says that people treasured his friendship – and he set himself to yet another new beginning by committing not just to the Christian faith but to bring the good news to his native island.

He could not, but his good friends: they made it happen in part to honor his memory.

In Genesis 9, God declared a new beginning not just for the people but for all the living creatures of the Earth. “The waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh,” said God.

And in the first chapter of Mark, we hear of Jesus’ new beginning: Baptism, temptation, vocation. He washed in the Jordan. He was tempted in the wilderness. He began to teach in Galilee.

Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “After going public, Jesus goes private and is confronted with the challenge of being fully human. If one questions whether Jesus needed to be baptized, the follow-up to that is pondering why Jesus needed to be tempted. The answer is likely the same. Temptation is part of the human condition, and Jesus participates fully in humanity. Baptism and temptation form the basis of his preparation for launching his public ministry.”

Baptism and temptation formed the situation in which Jesus committed to his new beginning.

Unlike the later Gospel writers Matthew and Luke, who had a detailed account of Jesus’ temptation, Mark did not. All he knew was that it happened, that it involved forty days in the wilderness, that Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations, and that the angels waited upon Jesus in the same way that servants bring dishes to a table. He wrote one – one! – sentence to describe it.

But there’s a lot going on in that sentence. The wilderness and the forty days recall the Hebrew people’s forty years in the wilderness. The wild beasts evoke the Peaceable Kingdom imagery of the prophet Isaiah. The serving angels recall Elijah’s meals during his journey to Mount Horeb. Mark expected his readers to know a lot about Scripture, wouldn’t you say?

You and I are, I suspect, familiar with the internal process of making new beginnings. Like Jesus, we’ve sought out experiences that can, or may, or perhaps should, but at any rate did set us on a different route of our journey. That might have been the selection of a school or an educational concentration, or of an apprenticeship or an employer: something that would equip us to do something we hadn’t been able to do before, something that would mark the place where we said, “I shall do this.”

With Valentine’s Day still close in the rear-view mirror, our committed relationships also function in this way. How many new relationships are also new beginnings? It’s impossible to say, because it takes time to realize that care for a person will redirect one’s life. But they do, don’t they, and not just marriages. Deep friendships. Children, including those we choose as hanai. The people whom we mentor. The people who mentor us. People enter our lives, and we’re on a new way.

Dare I say it? Our baptisms set us on a new beginning. Those who, like me, were baptized young don’t remember it, but a lot of people made promises to guide us on a path, or at least not to guide us on a lot of other potential paths. Even with all the bumpiness of adolescence, I have to say that my parents’ commitment to the promises they made at my baptism guided my life far more than I was willing to admit at the age of fourteen.

Sorry, fourteen-year-olds. You’re likely to find that out later, too, and I hope that, like me, you conclude that that’s a good thing.

Our baptisms make for more than one new beginning, because the promises aren’t just made by people. God promises to be an ever-present guide and protector. The Holy Spirit does not rest in the lives of Christians, but is active, loving, and encouraging.

If not always… wealth-accumulating.

Wealth accumulating… that sounds more like a temptation.

Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “If those forty days in the wilderness was a time of self-creation, a time for Jesus to decide who he was and how he would live out his calling, then here is what the Son of God chose: deprivation over power. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.”

Odd as it may seem, a lot of new beginnings rise from temptation – both temptation rejected and temptation accepted, I’d say. Temptations usually offer us a chance to take a new turn in the road. Turn one way, and receive… well, what tempts you? Is it comfortable clothes, or fashionable ones? Is it an attractive smile or a flirtatious manner? Is it a big house or a big bank account?

Turn one way and you might – might – receive what tempts you. Turn another way and you will be on the path of someone who made choices for reasons other than temptation. Reasons of integrity – I choose to be who I choose to be. Reasons of economy – who needs a fancy car? Reasons of faith – God asked me to be attentive to things other than romance and sex.

Jesus emerged from that wilderness tempted by, but unpersuaded by the temptations. He emerged having chosen the challenging way of integrity, vulnerability, and faith.

There’s one other thing that happened before Jesus embarked on his new way of life, though. He didn’t begin his preaching ministry until John the Baptist had been arrested. I guess that left a gap, a puka, in the faith life of the people. If John couldn’t be there to fill it, Jesus would.

Sometimes outside events set us on new roads, or confirm us on the new paths. People train for new jobs, for example. When an employer hires them for that job, it’s an important confirmation of a career. In the United Church of Christ, ordination requires three things: a person convinced that God has called them into ministry; an Association who, in working with them, is also convinced of God’s call to them; and somebody willing to employ them as their minister. It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened that somebody has gone through the steps and nobody called them.

I would guess that’s happened to teachers, lawyers, counselors, cooks, and electricians, too. Not to mention lots of other people who’ve had to learn skills.

That will set you on a new path. Unhappily, for certain, but a new path.

Baptism, temptation, and entry into vocation were a major shift for Jesus. The Gospel writers used very little ink to describe Jesus’ life before his baptism. He doesn’t seem to have done things that made him stand out. Afterward, he quickly gained a reputation that grew in the telling, one that would trouble the highest religious and civil leadership of the land.

Our new beginnings may not all be that dramatic. We make new beginnings every morning, don’t we? We make new beginnings every time we decide something that’s just somewhat different from the last time. Small new beginnings in diet or exercise can have profound positive impacts on our health, for example. Small new beginnings in giving can make a huge difference for someone in need. Small new beginnings in compassion and forgiveness can set a rocky relationship in a new direction. Small new beginnings can shed the burdens of guilt or shame. Small new beginnings can release us from the unjust influence of dominating people.

New beginnings. For Jesus. For us.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric improvises while preaching, and also he misreads what he’s written. Both have taken place in this sermon!

Photo of an ohi’a tree in the Kilauea Iki crater by Eric Anderson.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: When You’ve Got to Go

February 11, 2024

2 Kings 2:1-12
Mark 9:2-9

Stories of prophetic transition – when responsibility for the task of speaking God’s messages passes from one prophet to another – are rare in the Bible. The closest parallel in the Old Testament is the transition from Moses to Joshua as the Hebrew people prepared to leave the desert and enter the Promised Land. Indeed, we find that story echoed here, as Elijah and Elisha – the mentor prophet and the successor prophet – made Joshua’s journey in reverse, crossing the River Jordan to exit the Promised Land before Elijah’s mantle fell on his successor’s shoulders.

One problem we face in this story is that the names of the two main characters sound almost identical. Elijah was the elder of the two men. He was well known in the northern kingdom of Israel as a thorn in the side of Israel’s monarchs. He had had great moments of triumph, and he had had sad occasions of failure. After a great success in persuading Israel’s King Ahab of God’s power through the ending of a drought, he had fled from the wrath of Queen Jezebel, resulting in his visit to the mountain of Horeb and God’s unhappy question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

There at Horeb God had additional tasks for Elijah, and one of them was to appoint Elisha as prophet in his – Elijah’s – place. Elisha has an “sh” in it, which sounds a lot like a “j,” and I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about that except to say one is younger and one is older. A lot.

The authors of First and Second Kings weren’t clear how long Elijah and Elisha worked together. From the way they described Elisha’s, the younger’s, reactions in this story, it sounds like it was long enough for the younger prophet to develop a deep relationship with the older. His cry of “My father” as his mentor was swept away sounds like a deep cry of grief.

The account really focuses on Elisha, the younger one, doesn’t it? He gets the best lines: “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” The various other prophets they meet come to him, not to his teacher, to tell him about his impending loss. “Yes, I know; keep silent.” All the emotionality of this story as it’s told concentrates on Elisha, the younger one, right up to the point where he tore his clothes in grief. As Steed Davidson writes at Working Preacher, “Clearly Elisha would prefer to have his master remain. His clinging onto Elijah as they travel may look pathetic but reveals the intimacy of their relationship, one that transcends the conventional father-son relationship of a prophet with his students (verse 12).”

But. That’s not how it struck me this month. I’m feeling just a little bit more like Elijah, the senior, the mentor, the one whose time is drawing to its close. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

That’s not because I’ve had any bad medical diagnoses, by the way, and although somebody asked me not too long ago about a rumor that I’m soon to be called away from Hilo, that’s not happening either. I’ve developed a sabbatical plan that will have me absent from pastoral responsibilities for three months in 2025. The sabbatical commits me to remain with Church of the Holy Cross for three years after that. So. I’m not anticipating Elijah’s whirlwind.

I confess that feeling ill for so many days, however, has me considering my own mortality. Ash Wednesday comes up this week, and I hear its refrain, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” “You turn us back to dust and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals,’” wrote the poet in Psalm 90. “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”

For any of us, the boundary between this life and the next lies in a place we do not and cannot know. It might be years away, and it might be tomorrow.

It’s not just mortality, though. I’m serving as advisor to a Member in Discernment of the Hawai’i Island Association. If you’re not familiar with phrase, that’s someone who is in the process that leads toward ordination in the United Church of Christ. It’s not the first time. Ironically, one of my previous advisees has already retired. Another serves a church in Connecticut. A young man I worked with in a youth group many years ago asked me to bring the charge to him at his ordination. There have been others.

I’m deeply aware that this advisee will mostly likely continue his career in the Church when mine has reached its end. Part of my responsibility as his advisor is to help him bring out his best so that the Church he serves – the congregations and the wider Body of Christ – receive the full blessing of his gifts. I’m not just supporting him and the congregation he currently serves – he’s a licensed pastor at this time – I’m supporting the Church that I may never see.

I can’t make that happen alone. It’s up to those who follow me as well. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Elisha’s salvation comes in the long silence after the glory.  It comes when he still has no idea whether Elijah’s ‘double portion’ of God’s spirit will rest on him, or not.  It comes when he chooses to stand up, shoulder his grief, take up his teacher’s mantle, and cross the threshold into a new and unfamiliar life.”

Spoiler alert: Elisha – the successor – did take up the mantle, and he did find himself with a “double portion” of his mentor’s spirit. Jason Byassee observes at Working Preacher, “The rabbis count Elijah doing eight miracles in scripture and Elisha 16. Double. The transition from a beloved elder to a new and untested younger doesn’t have to be a loss. It can be a gain, a doubling, a greater portion.”

The transition can be a gain, even when it’s from me, or from you.

Thirty-six years ago in seminary, I had a complaint. I felt then – and continue to feel now – that I received training for a church and social environment that was already shifting, which if it still existed at all would cease to exist pretty soon. Seminaries have struggled to address that massive change with a little success and a lot of failure. My own alma mater merged with another Divinity School in 2017. Seminaries I considered attending have ceased to offer the Master of Divinity degree. It’s been rather depressing.

My first call was to two congregations in neighboring towns in Maine. One of those churches closed its doors years ago. The other churches I’ve served continue to worship and minister, but I spent seventeen years on the staff of a conference – which merged with two other conferences a few years ago. The simple truth is that membership in UCC congregations has been declining throughout my career, and we are not alone. The percentage of United States residents who are found on the membership lists of communities of faith is just under half.

So I wonder how I, as Elijah the elder prophet, can support those who will almost certainly have to build new ways to encourage and nurture disciples, to equip them with what they need in order to do God’s work, and to assist them as long as possible along the rugged roads of the journey? How can I, and how can we as a congregation, both recognize that the future will be different from the present, but that it must be in order for the Gospel’s power to be better revealed? How can we experiment, and learn from success and failure, and pass on the word that these are the things we haven’t tried? How can we approach the banks of the Jordan River with our successors at our side and endorse their prayers for a double helping of our spirit?

Those of you wearing Elisha’s, the younger one’s, shoes – you’ll have to help us with this. You may have noticed that people tend to think that what once worked always will work, even when it hasn’t worked for some time. Mind you, your ideas might not work either, but bring them. If things are going to fail, let’s fail in new ways.

And if you, like me, are wearing Elijah’s, the older one’s, shoes, well: can we bring Elijah’s grace to these times of transition? Can we let our successors follow along even though we’re not sure it will be good for them? Can we let ourselves step away from what we’ve always done and always had responsibility for because it’s their kuleana now? Can we face the sorrow and loss of the whirlwind with hope and confidence in those we leave behind?

Because when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric does make changes to his prepared text while preaching. Sometimes he makes those changes deliberately, and sometimes not.

The image is The Prophet Elijah − the 17th century icon, provenance − Weremień. Now in the Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Photo by Janmad – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9385535.