Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: We Are Not Farmers (Mostly)

July 12, 2026

Isaiah 55:10-13
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

I have only briefly been a farmer or a gardener. My parents decided one year to plant a small vegetable garden behind our house. It wasn’t a great location. Between hedges, a small garage, and fruit trees, it didn’t get much sun. The soil wasn’t terribly rich. And then there was the family of garden-loving rabbits that lived nearby. Nevertheless, we planted a garden, and my brother and I were allowed to choose one vegetable to plant. Me: I chose carrots.

I like carrots.

We were careful if not terribly skilled about it. We cleared away grasses, dug holes, carefully planted seeds, watered them, and did whatever else we were supposed to do to make things grow. It took time, of course, but gradually shoots appeared above the places we’d placed those seeds. Shoots also appeared in places we hadn’t planted seeds, because we weren’t very good at weeding. Shoots didn’t appear above all the places we’d planted seeds, for whatever reasons that seeds don’t grow, which may have included shade, poor soil, and rabbits.

As far as I can remember, I only ate one carrot from that garden. I wasn’t patient enough at that age to let them sit in the ground and grow. I don’t remember being all that impressed with that tiny carrot, but I did eat it. I certainly didn’t get the results of a hundredfold increase over what I’d planted.

Of course, you don’t get that with root vegetables.

I am not a farmer.

Most of us aren’t – with at least one of our families here at Church of the Holy Cross a notable exception. Our daily work doesn’t include planting, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting, and starting all over again. I would guess that at least some of you are gardeners, however, and hopefully more successful gardeners than I’ve been, and would recognize that there’s something peculiar about the sower in Jesus’ story.

He’s a very careless sower.

I carefully planted each carrot seed, leaving space between it and its neighbor so there was space to grow. I grant you that carrots and grains grow differently, but this sower seems careless at best. As Amy Frykolm writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Instead of carefully calculating how each and every seed is going to be planted and cultivated, the sower just scatters the seed on all kinds of different terrain. I can almost imagine the people around Jesus, many farmers themselves, all dependent on whatever the earth produces, puzzled and even laughing at Jesus’ depiction of the sower. What is this crazy person doing, scattering seed on ground that he knows won’t yield a harvest? Why bother?”

Even ignorant children like I was know that you keep the seeds away from paths and rocks and thorns. Why didn’t Jesus know that?

Well, of course he did.

When Jesus created his parables, he had a technique of starting with something ordinary, something straightforward, something with an ending you could anticipate. Then he introduced something unexpected, out of joint. It’s that moment in the story, that moment when the audience says, “Wait. What did you just say?” that Jesus used to make his point.

That’s why the sower is so careless.

Because we – meaning the followers of Jesus – are not farmers.

Farmers and gardeners have to focus on results. The resources of horticulture are sometimes scarce and often not under the farmer’s control. So they do the best they can to choose proper soil, to nourish the soil as best they can, to protect the growing plants from disease and low water and things that eat leaves. Farmers and gardeners have to concentrate on the sites and the soils that give them the best chance for a good harvest. They may seek to expand their available good soil by breaking up paths and moving rocks and cutting back thorns, but that’s a long-term investment, isn’t it? They don’t plant seed on that land until the hindrances have been removed.

That’s not how the followers of Jesus work. Because we’re not farmers.

The seed, which Jesus described as the Word, gets cast everywhere and anywhere. It shares with actual seed the characteristic that it grows – seeds grow into plants, the Word grows within the human soul to produce more loving, more compassionate people. The Word, which I think we have to understand as being more than simply speaking of God; the Word, which I think we have to understand as emulating God; the Word, which I think we have to understand as displaying the love of God, gets spread to everyone and anyone.

It doesn’t always take. As Elisabeth Johnson writes at Working Preacher, “One can find examples of each kind of response to the word in Matthew’s Gospel. There are many in Matthew’s story who ‘hear the word of the kingdom and do not understand’ (3:19), including the religious leaders who are antagonistic to Jesus’ ministry from the beginning. The crowds respond positively to Jesus, especially to his miracles of healing (9:8; 15:31; 21:8-9), yet turn against Jesus at the end and demand his crucifixion (27:15-23), leaving us to wonder whether they ever truly understood.

“The disciples themselves might be included among those who fall away ‘when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word’ (3:21; cf. 26:56b, 69-75). And the rich young man unable to part with his possessions (19:16-22) provides a stunning example of ‘one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing’ (3:22).”

What I have to emphasize here is that Jesus shared the Word, the invitation, the compassion, the love of God to all of them. More than once. Over and over. Yes, he ate with the sinners and the tax collectors. He also ate with the nice people, the good people, and some of them, I think, grew in the Word themselves. Others did not.

We are not farmers. Not when we’re sharing the Word and the love of God.

For one thing, how do we know what kind of person we’re sharing God’s love with? The ohi’a, I observe, grows in places that I would never imagine. So does the Word of God. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “Who am I to tell God, the Creator of the earth and all that is in it, what ‘good soil’ looks like?  Who am I to decide who is worthy and who is not of the sower’s generosity?  Who am I to hoard what I have been so freely and lavishly given?  Who am I to look at God’s profligate blessing and call it waste?”

We are not farmers. We are disciples.

And the people with whom we share the love of God are not soil, they are people. You can change soil. Famers and gardeners create fertile soil from paths and rocks and thorns with time and effort. Ohi’a trees transform lava rock into fertile soil over decades.

You can’t directly change people – but people can and do change, and you can support them as they do. You can help them nurture the seeds of God’s Word, of God’s love, of God’s grace within them.

You do it by believing it will grow. What is packed hard may soften. What is stony may break apart. What is thorny may be draw aside. Who knows what impact our love and care added to God’s love and grace may have?

We are not farmers. We are disciples.

Debie Thomas continues: “How I wish that the Church — the Church across the ages, the Church across all cultures, denominations, and circumstances — were known for its absurd generosity.  How I wish we were famous for being like the Sower, going out in joy, scattering seed before and behind us in the widest arcs our arms can make.  How I wish the world could laugh at our lavishness instead of weeping in the wake of our stinginess.  How I wish the people in our lives could see a quiet, gentle confidence in us when we tend to the hard, rocky, thorny places in our communities, instead of finding us abrasive, judgmental, exacting, and insular.  How I wish seeds of love, mercy, justice, humility, honor, and truthfulness would fall through our fingers in such appalling quantities that even the birds, the rocks, the thorns, and the shallow, sun-scorched corners of the world would burst into colorful, riotous, joyous life.”

Absurd generosity. Like God’s. Like Jesus’.

Let’s do that.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches – intentionally and otherwise – so the sermon as prepared does not precisely match the sermon as presented.

The image is a Romanian icon of the Parable of the Sower, date unknown. Photo by Sulfababy of en.wiki – Wikipedia en inglés, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8662451.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Unusual Gardeners

If we planted fields and gardens the way Jesus’ sower scattered seed, it wouldn’t work well. But if we scatter God’s love that way, it might work very well indeed.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking that you might be wondering about the bandage. I did just have to have some skin surgery. It was minor and everything that needs to be removed is removed. You can expect that there will be a bandage (somewhat smaller as the weeks go on) on my brow for the next few weeks.

I am also thinking about the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23). This contains one of Jesus’ best known parables, the Parable of the Sower. It also contains something that is a little less usual for one of Jesus’ parables, that is, an explanation.

Most of the time, Jesus let his stories stand by themselves. In this case, Jesus’ disciples wanted to know what he meant by describing someone who went out and scattered seed in the most unlikely of places. And in some of those places, the seeds simply could not grow or could not thrive. In other places, the seeds sprouted and produced astonishing yields.

Jesus compared the seeds to the Word of God. In some places, the Word of God is simply rejected or choked out. In other places, the Word of God finds fertile ground and bears much fruit.

I think that one of our roles as Jesus’ disciples is to take on that of the Sower. That is, to scatter the Word around. Now, if we were gardeners, and I am not one, but if we were gardeners or farmers, we would be careful about where we placed the seeds. We want each seed to have the best opportunity to produce a plant, to grow, to flower, and to bear fruit. But for the Word, for the grace of God, for the blessings of God, for the description of our loving God, well, for that, the guidance is different, isn’t it? The guidance is: describe the love of God to everyone, whether it seems like they might be thorny soil or rocky soil or good soil, whatever they are.

We will find out who they are by what happens when the Word tries to take root.

We scatter the words. We scatter the love of God. We proclaim the love of God. We display the love of God anywhere and everywhere, so that the love of God may grow around us and bear fruit.

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 What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Assignment Mercy

Jesus set his closest associates on the challenging assignment of bringing compassion to those who needed it so. We have the same assignment.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth chapters of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 9:35-10:8).

This section begins with Jesus’ observation that the people of the villages that he had met were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. There was more work to be done than he could do himself. He summoned twelve from amongst his followers, and he gave them power and authority.

He appointed them to be ambassadors of the movement, to go out and visit these other villages. There, he directed them, proclaim the good news that the realm of God is drawing near. Cast out the demons, heal the sick, and by the way, make no preparation as you go. Don’t save any money, don’t bring even any extra clothing.

It was, and it is, a tough assignment. I would argue that we as disciples today: we are the heirs of those twelve. We are still asked to do something about bringing the reign of God closer to being in the world. To do what we can for the sick, to comfort those who are pressed by evil spirits, and to assist those who are pressed by evil people. We continue in this long tradition of seeing what is wrong in the world, and bringing good news and good action to those who suffer to those in need.

Proclaim the good news that the realm of God is near. Bring healing and comfort and assurance, and you will be doing the work of Jesus.

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 What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Named and Loved

Jesus compared himself to a shepherd, one whose sheep recognized, and one who knew all the names of the ones he cared for.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel (John 10:1-10). This opening section leads toward one of the better known “I am” statements in John’s book, when Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.”

Leading up to that, Jesus spoke about how sheep recognize their shepherd and how shepherds know the names of their sheep. “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus said.

Names were extraordinarily important in the ancient Middle Eastern world. Moses wanted to know God’s name. Adam gave names to the animals in the Garden of Eden. And Jesus was given a name which means salvation.

Names were important. Names still are important.

Someone who knows you is somebody who will remember your name. Somebody who values you will work to remember your name. Someone who loves you knows your name.

Jesus told those folks 2,000 years ago that he knew their names, that God knew their names. And through John, Jesus still speaks to us 2,000 years later to reassure us that God knows our names. God cares about us. God loves us.

That’s what I am 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 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 Sermons

Sermon: Not Only

March 1, 2026

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

As he sat down to write his letter to the church in Rome – or perhaps as he stood to dictate it to the scribe, Tertius, who offers greetings at the end of the letter – the Apostle Paul had an agenda. He planned a trip to Spain. He had travelled a lot in the years since the risen Jesus summoned him to proclaim this good news. He hoped to go even further, to the place Clement of Rome, writing at the end of the first century, called “the farthest west.”

Along the way, said Paul, he wanted to visit the Christian community in Rome.

Unlike his other letters in the New Testament, Paul wrote this letter to people he didn’t know. He hoped for their assistance, I’m sure: a place to stay during his visit. He said he looked forward to preaching the gospel, so I’m sure he planned to do the same things he’d done in cities and towns across modern Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Greece. He wanted to meet people he’d heard good things of, names that had reached his ears across the Mediterranean Sea.

The Letter to the Romans was Paul on his best behavior, writing to strangers, trying to make a good impression.

Paul knew, and the Romans knew, that their church had had problems. A major one was that there’d been fights in the streets. The Emperor Claudius had banished Jews from the city of Rome on because of “disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus,” which most scholars interpret as dissension between Jews and Jews leaning into the new understandings of Jesus. The chances are very good that most if not all of the members of the Roman church had been shut out of the city, though it’s unknown for how long.

That probably wasn’t the Roman church’s only problem. Romans has sixteen chapters. The last chapter is a long set of greetings. Chapters twelve through fifteen contain a typically Pauline set of advice including, “Let love be genuine,” and “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” Except for his opening introduction, he gave the rest of the letter: his time, his consideration, and his considerable focused attention, to one question: What difference is there, if any, between God’s relationship with Christians of a Jewish background and God’s relationship with Christians of a Gentile background?

It was a knotty problem. As Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “In Romans 3:29 Paul asked a provocative question: is God the God of Jews only? Or is he not also the God of Gentiles? In contrast to every attempt to claim God as ours, and ours alone, Paul says that in Abraham God loves all people equally. In the famous words of this week’s gospel, God so loves all the world (John 3:16). Our tendency is to fear the other, to marginalize the strange, to dismiss all that is different from who and what we know.”

That’s true now, and it was true in the first century. Jews had long regarded their relationship with God as unique. God might have created the world, but had only entered into covenant with one group of people. On the other hand, Romans – especially those dwelling in the city of Rome – regarded themselves as the greatest people ever. Most people living in the Empire were not Roman citizens and lived under different laws. Roman citizens, for example, could be executed for treason but they could not be crucified.

The Roman church included both Jews and Romans. Some of the latter would have been citizens and some non-citizens, adding another layer of class distinction to an uncomfortable mix, with everyone wondering: How does God really feel about that person on the other side of the room?

That’s why Paul got so excited about a revolutionary idea: that a relationship with God could be established not by living in the right place, not by divine selection, not through ritual observance, but through faith. Anyone could make the decision to trust in God. Anyone. “For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us)…”

Not only for me. Also for them. Not only for us. Also for them. Not only for the select of Rome. Also for Spaniards. Not only for the Jews. Also for the Greeks. Not only for the men. Also for the women. Not only for today’s believers. Also for tomorrow’s believers. Not only for people of the “Christian” nations. Also for the people of the non-Christian nations. Not only for the rich. Also for the poor. Not only for the powerful. Also for the marginalized. Not only for the respectable. Also for the discounted. Not only for the Americans. Also for the Iranians. Not only for the Republicans. Also for the Democrats, and the Independents, and the Greens, and the Libertarians, and so on. Not only for the people who agree with me. Also for the ones who don’t.

Let’s face it. God gets along better, with more people, than I do.

As Lucy Lind Hogan writes at Working Preacher, “Paul had experienced God’s amazing, unbelievable, overflowing love and forgiveness. How could God, in Jesus Christ, have forgiven him for all the evil that he had done? How could God accept the one who had sought to murder the disciples of Jesus? Because that is who our God is. For Paul, justification by grace was a theological concept only after it had been a life changing, throw-you-to-the-ground, awe-filled experience. God had offered him new life, and he had believed.”

These are anxious days. Hold on to that core of trust and faith: God loves you just as much as Paul or anyone. God loves you.

God also loves us. And God loves them. No matter who “we” are. No matter who “they” are.

Not only for us. Also for everyone.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes from his prepared text while preaching, so the sermon prepared does not precisely match the sermon as delivered.

The image is Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (between 1618 and 1620) – https://www.mfah.org/art/detail/20223, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74425088.

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 Pastor's Corner, What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: The ‘Apapane’s Christmas Pageant


I don’t know how it came into the ‘apapane’s head to organize a Christmas pageant. I don’t even know how he’d heard about Christmas, let alone a Christmas pageant. Nevertheless, he flew all over the island, searching for creatures to take part in the pageant.
He asked the I’iwi, who was feeling grumpy that day and didn’t say yes, or no, or anything at all.

He asked the ‘io, which was very brave of him. The ‘io said she might come and looked… hungry.

He flew down to the shoreline to ask the honu. She said no, she wasn’t going to swim up to the mountain forest, which seemed fair. A house sparrow said he might fly up after he’d finished his bath.

A saffron finch thought it sounded odd but said he might hang around for it. The ‘apapane asked a yellow-billed cardinal and a myna. They both looked doubtful, and then the myna started an argument with some other mynas that wasn’t over when he left to talk to more shorebirds.

The auku’u looked puzzled, but said he’d come. “I’m coming, too,” announced a kolea. “I’ve flown thousands of miles for this. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“If the kolea is coming, I’m coming, too,” piped up an ‘akekeke, and a hunakai said the same.
The koa’e kea announced that she would play Mary, because didn’t Mary have a long tail? The ‘apapane wasn’t sure, so he didn’t argue. An ala’e ke’oke’o asked if there was a good fish pond up in the forest, and when he was told there wasn’t, looked skeptical.

The ae’o said she might turn up. If she felt like it. If she didn’t have anything else to do. The cattle egret said, of course he’d be there. One of his ancestors had been present at the original birth, hadn’t she?

The ‘apapane left the shorebirds to spread the word further and returned to the forest. The oma’o stopped singing barely long enough to say, “Yes.” The ‘alawi just looked nervous and kept hunting insects without saying anything.

He searched long and hard for an ‘akiapola’au, who asked, “What’s that all about?” After listening to the ‘apapane’s explanation, he gave a whistle and flew off into the forest. The nene just stared at him.

When it was pageant time, it was chaos. Creatures stepped into the clearing the ‘apapane had selected, then faded back into the trees again. Frightened chirps flew back and forth, and so did frightened birds. Mejiro and ‘elepaio peeped out from the trees. The mynas announced that they would be the angel chorus, then exploded into another argument.

“What do you need to settle down and play your parts?” shouted the ‘apapane from a tree.

“Is the ‘io here?” asked an ‘amakihi. “Yes,” said the ‘io from the sky overhead. “Are you going to eat us?” asked the ‘amakihi. For a moment there was silence. Then the ‘io said, “No. Not today. Today there’s a pageant to do.”

The ‘apapane spent the next hour answering the questions. The koa’e kea had just flown in from a lava fountain, and since she wanted to play Mary, she did. A kioea had flown up from the shore and wanted to play Joseph. “You’re a rare bird,” said the ‘apapane, so he did. The little ‘elepaio played shepherds while the nene played sheep. The I’iwi didn’t want to cheer up, so he played the grumpy innkeeper. The sleeping pig was cast as a sleeping cow and did it very well.

High overhead the ‘io provided the voice of Gabriel, while ‘apapane, ‘amakihi, mejiro, and mynas sang as the angel chorus. Seabirds and shorebirds took places as creatures of the stable.

When the time came, birds from other shores – a northern cardinal, a red junglefowl, and a pair of zebra doves – played the magi.

The ‘akiapola’au lay just one egg and very rarely, so a young one played Jesus.

When it was over, the creatures vanished back into the trees, leaving the ‘apapane alone in the silence. He’d answered every question, met every need, somehow.

The trees rustled in the breeze, applauding the ‘apapene’s Christmas pageant.

Mele Kalikimaka!

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Uncategorized

Pastor’s Corner: Surpassing Ourselves

The best part of the Christmas story is, I think, the way that people surpassed themselves.
It could have gone much differently. Mary found herself with child by the Holy Spirit, and she could have found herself with-out the support of her family, fiancée, and community. Instead, they believed her. They trusted her. They supported her. They loved her.

People don’t always do that, do they?

Later, caught in an unusual and unwelcome government operation, Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem to find no space available. One of the innkeepers among the many without a place for them created some basic shelter, some semblance of comfort. Meanwhile, on a hillside shepherds chose to follow the wild directions of heavenly beings. Exhausted in the stable, I can’t imagine that Gabriel’s promises of a Messiah sounded likely to Jesus’ first-time parents. When the shepherds brought the angels’ word, they also brought an assurance they desperately needed.

Later, Herod acted like an ordinary king – fearful, jealous, and violent – while foreigners took the extraordinary step (steps, actually) to celebrate the birth of one who would rule in a different way. Their stunning generosity enabled the threatened family to survive, and the infant Messiah to thrive.

Over and over again, people surpassed themselves. They did more than others expected, perhaps even more than they expected of themselves. This Christmas, surprise yourself with your goodness, your mercy, your support, your acceptance, your generosity. Surpass yourself with your family, your neighbors, and your church.

As we celebrate the surpassing worth of Christ, let us give as he would have us give.

Merry Christmas!

Eric Anderson

To support the ministry of the Church of the Holy Cross with a special gift, please visit our Donate Page.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Shaken and Reshaken

November 9, 2025

Haggai 2:1-9
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

In the first century in which the Apostle Paul lived, Christianity was very new. It wasn’t always clear how it was supposed to work. Its best-known leaders didn’t always agree.

Then there were the basic problems of living in the first century. Most people were poor, very few people were middle class, and far fewer people were rich. “Give us this day our daily bread” was a heartfelt prayer for most people. Injury and illness could be much more dangerous than they are for us. Without antibiotics any infection could overwhelm a body’s ability to survive and recover.

And then, there were the problems of becoming a Christian. It was a new faith, unfamiliar to most people. As an offshoot of Judaism, it would appeal to some Jews, but concern others who worried that their faith was being corrupted. Paul himself had been on both sides of that argument. Far more people, however, would have followed the religious traditions of Greece, Rome, or Egypt, and found Christianity unfamiliar, unsettling, and even threatening.

In Thessalonica, it seems that the Christian community had suffered a lot of pressure from those around them. That’s why Paul wrote. In First Thessalonians, Paul wrote, “For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did…” (1 Thess. 2:14). We don’t know what the source of the persecution was. It might have been the pressures of prejudice from those around them. They might have been overcharged or refused service in shops. They might have faced taunts in the street. They might even have suffered assault and injury.

Or there might have been official suppression of the Christian community. They might have been “moved aside,” or arrested, tried, and punished for not following the customs of Rome. And, of course, there might have been both. Taunts in the streets leading to provocations and assaults, which were followed up by arrest, appearance before the magistrates, and further punishment.

That happens to marginalized people. In a lot of places. In a lot of time periods.

Whatever was happening, it concerned Paul, who had been instrumental in founding the church in Thessalonica. He feared that the suffering would drive people away from the church, and away from the faith itself. “I was afraid that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labor had been in vain,” he wrote in First Thessalonians. “But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith and love” (1 Thess. 3:5-6).

They had held on. They had not been shaken.

Shaking is a frequent part of the life of faith. Or rather, getting shaken. It was the situation of Jesus’ friends and followers. Jesus kept shaking their expectations. It was the situation hundreds of years before when the exiles who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem found that they had more work before them to rebuild God’s Temple than they’d anticipated. They’d been shaken. Haggai reminded them that God shakes the world.

The Thessalonians had been shaken by their persecution. They had been shaken, but they had not fallen.

Paul feared, however, that they might fall to something else, something that you and I don’t fear quite so much. “…We beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.”

Why would he fear that? Because the Thessalonians wanted it to be there.

I don’t blame them.

There has been more than one occasion in my life where I have thrown my hands into the air and said something like, “Come, Lord Jesus!” What I meant was: I was ready for the Second Coming. I’d seen or felt too much pain. I’d seen or felt too much oppression. I’d seen or felt too much, and it was time for it to come to an end. Let history close. Let the new sunrise dawn. I was ready for not just a change, but The Change.

So far, to be clear, that hasn’t happened.

The Thessalonians, I suspect, were drawn to predictions of the end, of Jesus’ imminent return, because they had suffered. They’d suffered more than they wanted. They’d suffered more than what was just. They’d suffered more than they thought they could bear. “Come, Lord Jesus!” was a cry to end the suffering. It was a cry to have mercy.

Mariam Kamell writes at Working Preacher, “For some churches and preachers, it becomes a fascination bordering on an obsession, but the teaching of ‘escape’ through the rapture leaves people paralyzed about how they ought to live in the world now while they wait. In a sense, life can become a mere holding cell, a waiting pattern till they can escape and go to heaven. But Paul’s focus is to remind them instead of all the things that need to happen first, so they ought to trust God and continue on doing good rather than obsessing about the end.”

My guess is that you are not likely to be obsessing about the end of time, or the end of history, or the end of the world as we know it. I would further guess, however, that something has happened in your life, perhaps recently, perhaps some time ago, where you’ve asked, “When is this going to end? I’m tired of being shaken. I’m weary of being reshaken.”

When is this going to end?

I remember feeling like that about the Puna eruption in 2018. I remember feeling like that about Hurricane Lane that same year, which settled off the southwestern coast and dumped heavy rain on us for three solid days. I remember feeling like that during uncertain times of my career as a minister, during health crises in the family, during the breakup of my marriage.

When is this going to end?

The Thessalonians wanted to know. They wanted to read things in their time as signs of the end. They wanted the suffering to be over.

Paul, however, couldn’t reassure them that way. One of the characteristics of first century apocalyptic literature – a format in which contemporary events were criticized by declaring how they’d be judged at the end of time – is that the meaningful signs are things people could have seen. And in fact, during our Bible Study on Wednesday, one of the group read, “He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God,” and gave that person a name. I would guess you could give such a person a name. I would also guess that we wouldn’t all give that person the same name.

Right?

Paul couldn’t tell them that Jesus was about to return and that their suffering would end. What he could do was commend them for their faithfulness and urge them to hold on. “Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.”

“Paul’s point,” writes Nijay Gupta at Working Preacher, “is not to sketch out a full timeline of eschatological events. His point is that some big things are yet to happen, and there is really nothing we can do to stop them (unlike issues of political strife and economic turmoil, matters that we certainly can and must address).”

Paul’s point was to say, I hear you. I ache for you. I am proud of you. I pray for you. My heart is with you.

“My thoughts and prayers are with them,” has, all too often, substituted for real help in our day. Properly, thoughts and prayers should be coupled with concrete action. We have our limits, however. We can’t do all we want to do, like the ‘apapane who can’t find another flower for a hungry i’iwi, or when a loved one’s illness brings pain I can’t relieve, when the world around has problems I can’t address.

This week Mary Luti quoted the late Pope Francis in a UCC Daily Devotional. He said, “The world needs to weep. The marginalized weep, the scorned weep, the sick and dying weep, but we who have what we need, we who are privileged, we don’t know how. We must learn. There are realities in this life you can see only with eyes clarified by tears. If you don’t learn to weep, you can’t be a good Christian.”

Paul wrote, my heart is with you. My prayers are with you. My tears are with you.

Let’s be with one another. Let’s be aware that God is with us.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric writes his sermons ahead of time, but he also makes changes while he preaches. The sermon you watch will not be the same as the sermon you read.

The image is Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (between 1618 and 1620) – https://www.mfah.org/art/detail/20223, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74425088.