Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Refreshment

March 8, 2026

Exodus 17:1-7
John 4:5-42

The best drink of water I’ve ever had in my life came from Thoreau Spring, a little pool of fresh water about 4600 feet up the slopes of Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine. I was fifteen, taking part in a week long hiking trip in Baxter State Park with our church youth group. We’d had a rough day. We’d taken the wrong trail early in the day, and although we would end up where we intended to go, we were taking the long way across one of the shoulders of the mountain, which we hadn’t meant to do. We’d also misplaced one of our adult advisors, who we caught up with at our destination.

So there I was with a few other young people at the front of the pack as the afternoon was waning. We spotted the sign for the spring and turned off to it, even though we all had plenty of water in our water bottles. We fetched out our cups, dipped them into the water, and sipped.

It was heavenly.

We couldn’t stay long, because our other adult advisor called to us to keep going so we wouldn’t be hiking in the dark. It was a near thing. The sun had just set when the last of us arrived at camp. I’ve never regretted that stop or that sip, though. I’ve been thirstier. I’ve been hungrier. I can’t remember ever being more refreshed.

Jesus asked for a drink of water.

He asked it of a Samaritan woman, who was quite surprised to be asked. That might have been in part because of her gender, but it was in great part because he was Jewish and she was Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews shared a common heritage. Jews were descended from the citizens of the nation of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, ruled over by the descendants of King David until the Babylonian invasion about 580 years before Jesus’ birth. Samaritans were descended from the citizens of the nation of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, north of Jerusalem. Israel broke away from Judah after the death of Solomon and endured until the Assyrian invasion about 740 years before Jesus’ birth. Though the nation vanished, the people remained. Jews and Samaritans shared a belief in God; reliance on the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; and even a belief in a coming Messiah.

As Sherri Brown writes at Working Preacher, “Although sharing the same founding history, they currently shared nothing else, including food, drink, or utensils..” I’d add one thing. They shared a deep resentment of the other.

Jesus asked for a drink. He asked to be refreshed by a person who, by usual expectation, couldn’t be expected to refresh him.

Jesus and this woman – John didn’t record her name, but she’s listed as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox church with the name “Photini,” which means “Enlightened One” – then had the longest conversation recorded between Jesus and any person in the four Gospels. It’s longer than the one Jesus had with Nicodemus in the previous chapter, one which, you might recall, leaves you wondering whether Nicodemus managed to catch up with Jesus or not. Personally, I think he did, but I think John left it vague on purpose.

In this conversation, however, Jesus got as clear as he ever got. This chapter includes the first of Jesus’ “I am” statements in John. You probably remember the others: “I am the bread of life.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the resurrection and the life.”

The “I am” statement here came in reply to Photini’s statement, “I know that Messiah is coming.” Jesus said, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

In the rest of the Gospel of John people argued about whether Jesus was the Messiah. Here in chapter four, Jesus told a Samaritan woman that he was. It’s a stunning moment, and so easy to miss.

Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “As theologian Barbara Brown Taylor points out, Jesus’s dialogue with the woman at the well is his longest recorded conversation in the New Testament.  He talks to the Samaritan woman longer than he talks to his twelve disciples, or to his accusers, or even to his own family members.  Moreover, she is the first person (and the first ethnic/religious outsider) to whom Jesus reveals his identity in John’s Gospel.  And — this might be the most compelling fact of all  — she is the first believer in any of the Gospels to straightaway become an evangelist, and bring her entire city to a saving knowledge of Jesus.”

Jesus asked for refreshment of the body.

The woman – I’ll keep calling her Photini, why not? – asked for something else pretty early in their conversation. She immediately brought up the religious significance of the well, which was attributed to Jacob, grandson of Abraham. When Jesus’ knowledge of her background revealed his power as a prophet, she immediately began to question him about theology. Yes, theology. She was less concerned with literal flowing water to ease her daily burden than she was about the appropriate worship of God.

Photini asked for refreshment of the spirit.

Oddly enough, it’s not clear whether Jesus got his requested refreshment of the body. It’s abundantly clear that Photini got her refreshment of the spirit.

“God is spirit,” Jesus told her, “and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

She left her water jar and went to fetch her neighbors.

As several commentators have noted, Jesus made no judgements about her. He simply spoke with her. He answered her questions, rapidly steering the conversation from day-to-day matters to spiritual topics. She followed him there, and I’d have to say she did it eagerly. The Orthodox have it right. She earned the name Photini, Enlightened One.

Jesus refreshed her spirit.

At the same time, Photini refreshed Jesus’ spirit. That eagerness, that engagement, that enlightenment nourished Jesus even more than the water. He told his disciples so when they urged him to eat something: “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

She refreshed Jesus’ spirit.

That drink of water from Thoreau Spring high on a mountain decades ago refreshed me body and soul. That’s why I’ve never forgotten it. Photini refreshed Jesus in body and soul as well – I think I’ve got to assume she gave him a drink of water. That’s why we’ve never forgotten her. She went on to refresh her friends and family and neighbors. She invited them to seek even more refreshment in Jesus – and they found it.

As they did, they refreshed Jesus as well.

Refreshment sounds… trivial, doesn’t it? What do we get at refreshment stands? Ice cream. Candy. Snacks. The nourishment that some would tell us we don’t need.

The word “refreshment” is bigger than that, however, and the reality of refreshment is more necessary than that. Our bodies and our souls cry out for refreshment when they need something. Our stomachs rumble with hunger. Our mouths gasp for air with exertion. Our tongues dry up with thirst. Our spirits falter when there’s confusion, or deception, or abuse. When we meet our needs, we feel refreshed.

I think that makes refreshment a basic activity of the Christian life. It starts by making sure that I am refreshed in my body and in my soul. It starts by satisfying my actual needs for food and drink and shelter. It continues by meeting my actual spiritual needs through prayer and study and reflection and companionship in the journey. The first task of any Christian is to seek refreshment themselves.

Further, though, and it’s not much further because it’s the next thing, Christians refresh others. We refresh those who are near and dear, and we refresh those who are far and feared. A Samaritan woman refreshed Jesus, and he refreshed her and lots of other Samaritans. “Love your enemies,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. What is love for another but the willingness and the commitment to keep them refreshed?

The notion that Jesus, of all people, would ever summon his followers to holy war has always been the vilest of heresies. It’s false. It slanders Christ. Those who proclaim it may believe it, but they lie.

Refreshment is the way of Jesus. Refreshment for those around, and refreshment for those who seem like the other or the enemy. Refreshment for a world thirsting for compassion and renewal. Refreshment for our bodies and souls, for yours and for mine.

Refreshment with Jesus himself.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

The image is Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, from JESUS MAFA, Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48282 [retrieved March 8, 2026]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Refreshment

When Jesus met a woman at a well in Samaria, it turned out that they both had something to offer to one another: Refreshment.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel (John 4:5-42): the conversation between Jesus and a woman he met at a well in Samaria.

The conversation started with Jesus’ simple request that she share some of the water she was drawing so that he could have a drink. It went from there to matters much deeper — deeper even than the well, if you like. It went to spiritual matters. It went even to the identity of the Messiah, the Deliverer, the one who was coming.

Unlike lots of other conversations, Jesus actually acknowledged to the woman that he was the Messiah.

The conversation was persuasive enough that she went back to the town and invited her neighbors to meet him. She said, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. He couldn’t be the Messiah — or could he? Come and see.”

It occurs to me that this story is about refreshment. It started with Jesus asking to be refreshed with the literal water to be drawn from the well. It continued with the refreshment that Jesus offered to this woman and to her neighbors: refreshment of the spirit.

He offered and delivered not just an acceptance, but also real valuing for her and for those around her, despite the fact that she was a Samaritan, despite the fact that she was a woman, despite the fact that there were a number of things that should have kept them distant from one another.

Yet they refreshed one another.

I think refreshment is a central activity, a central calling, a central obligation, if you like, of the life of faith. We are not simply here to be ourselves. We are here to support one another, to be a community, to be a family, if you like. In that family we refresh one another. We provide refreshment such as water, food, shelter. We provide refreshment emotionally and relationally. And when and how we can, we offer refreshment for the spirit: that living water of which Jesus spoke that flows through our very souls and renews our lives.

Refreshment.

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 Events

Lenten Study Series: Wisdom

The Biblical writers were very interested in the nature of wisdom and the ways in which people lived it. This study series for Lent will survey the different ways Biblical authors wrote about wisdom and the ways in which they expected it to influence daily life.

This series will be held on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm in the Pastor’s Study beginning February 25.

It follows the regular weekly Bible study which considers the readings for the upcoming Sunday. Those sessions begin at 5:00 pm.

Both sessions may be attended in person or joined via Zoom. See the Weekly Chime for connection information.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Small Wisdoms

February 22, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

The world is not a perfect place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Temptation offers what we already have.

Another small wisdom. Temptation offers what we already have.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s a scary small wisdom.

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

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

Small wisdoms to bring us through temptation.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets

February 8, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A light not to be hidden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org:

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

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

Remove the yoke.

Remove the yoke.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Promise and Fulfillment

Transcript 1/27/2026

In the Beatitudes, Jesus said that people who were suffering were also blessed. It takes time to appreciate God’s presence.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about one of the best known passages in one of the best remembered sections of all the Scriptures. I’m thinking about the Beatitudes, which open the Sermon on the Mount in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 5:1-12).

I’m sure you’ll recognize probably most of these words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Familiar, I’m sure. Familiar and comforting. Jesus, I’m sure, intended them to be comforting, but they are comforting in a way that looks forward. They are less comforting in the now. Although Jesus described all of the people having these experiences as “blessed” and blessed in the here and now, the blessings that he associated with these conditions…

So, for example, the blessings for the poor in spirit: Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus said. Well, we may own the Kingdom of heaven if we are poor in spirit, but those who are poor in spirit — at least any time that I’ve felt poor in spirit I’ve not been able to perceive even my presence in the Kingdom of heaven, let alone that the Kingdom of heaven was mine. When I was mourning, it took some time before I could appreciate and settle into the comfort. And that’s true for pretty much all of these.

When we are in those conditions of suffering, of sorrow, of loss, of oppression, we are still awaiting the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises. Even that very famous one — blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy — well, all too frequently the merciful are paid with oppression, and suffering, even death. Mercy, it seems comes later.

I don’t think Jesus meant for his followers to always be looking ahead for the fulfillment of his promises. I think he meant for us to understand that we are always accompanied by God. We are always held by God. We are always relieved in our trials by God.

But there is a step between the experience and the realization of God’s presence and strength and mercy. That gap, to some degree, is just natural humanity. When we are in the midst of struggle or trial, I’m not sure it’s possible to fully appreciate God’s presence. Our attention is focused on what we feel, and what we feel is bad. I think what Jesus encourages us to do in the Beatitudes is to expand our awareness from that which is most evident in the moment, to expand our awareness to the presence of God that always was, always is, and always will be there.

Then we can appreciate the comfort. Then we can experience the Kingdom of heaven. Then we can know we are held in the arms of mercy.

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 Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Whose People Are We?

January 25, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relationship.

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

And Jesus said, “Follow me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

The illustration is The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Duccio di Buoninsegna (between 1308 and 1311), part of the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Siena – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150337.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: The Core of Christianity

As Matthew described it, Jesus began his ministry by teaching the good news of God’s realm, summoning people together into it, and bringing people healing. This is the core of Christianity.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the fourth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 4:12-23), his account of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

That ministry began when John was arrested. Jesus returned to the region of the Galilee. He then went and recruited the first of his disciples — Peter and Andrew, James and John — from where they had been fishing in the sea of Galilee. He taught in the synagogues. He proclaimed the good news of the Realm of God, and he cured the sick, any who came to him with some kind of a disease.

I think you can argue that this is the essence, not just of Jesus, but of Christianity. It is founded in the teaching (and the teaching of what?): the teaching of Good News, the teaching of God’s nearness, the teaching of God’s forgiveness, the teaching of God’s love.

And how do we express that love? We express it through healing, through comfort, through gathering people together, through building a better society, a better world.

There are so many ways to understand “Messiah,” “Anointed One.” The most obvious ones are to connect anointing with the creation of the monarch, or the appointment of a general, the selection of a leader of war. But Jesus, though he was the Messiah, simply didn’t go in any of those directions. He accepted baptism rather than an anointing with oil. He brought healing rather than war. He preached good news rather than condemnation. He spoke of repentance in order that people would find their way to full participation in the Realm of God.

“Come with me and I’ll make you fish for people,” he said to those first four followers. Fish for people not so that they might be consumed, but so that they might thrive.

This is the essence of Christianity: Teaching. Teaching good news. Summoning people together. And seeing that as many as we can find their healing.

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: The Invitation

January 18, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The direction they want to go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John knew how powerful those words can be.

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

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

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

They’ve got to come and see.

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

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Without Pride or Privilege

January 11, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope we can. I hope we do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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