Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Can You Turn Water into Wine?

January 19, 2025

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

Can you turn water into wine?

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

The secret is to add grapes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But hardly anyone recognized it at the time.

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

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

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

It was also a glory of profound compassion.

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

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

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

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

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

So can you turn water into wine?

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

We can turn water into wine.

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

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

We can turn water into wine.

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

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

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

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Compassion for a Wedding Host

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ signs reveal something about him. At the wedding at Cana, he revealed his care and compassion for the wedding host.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the second chapter of John’s Gospel (John 2:1-11). It’s the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana. This took place early in Jesus’ ministry; John described it as the first of his signs.

Now, John used “signs” in a very particular way. For John, a “sign” was some kind of unexplainable — miraculous if you like — action that Jesus performed that revealed something about him. Jesus didn’t expect to perform a sign at this wedding. In fact, he and his disciples attended just because they’ve been invited. It was his mother that realized that the hosts had run out of wine.

This was a problem. At a wedding the host was supposed to be hospitable, and hospitality meant you don’t run out of the necessities: and one of those was wine. Jesus didn’t want to do it, but his mother told the servants to do whatever he told them.

There is so much here. As usual in his Gospel, John took some time with this story, included details that the other gospel writers simply did not linger for. The back and forth between Jesus and his mother is frankly rather delicious. I mean, what mother really pays attention to what her son has to say, right?

But mostly what strikes me is that this sign revealed something very important about Jesus. He was not just there for the wedding to increase the joy of the newly married couple and of their families. He was also there to make certain that all went well for them in the wedding feast and in the years beyond. He would not see that family tagged with the label of being inhospitable at a crucial time.

This first sign that revealed Jesus’ glory, revealed the depth of his love. Well, maybe not the full depth of his love, but revealed that it was deeper than others had expected (except, perhaps, his mother). May we see in this sign and in all the other signs Jesus’ love, compassion, and care for us, that we, too, might celebrate, rejoice, and believe.

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: What Really Matters

December 8, 2024

Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

The Apostle Paul was, it seems, accustomed to repeat himself. In chapter three of this letter, having spent some time telling the Philippians things he’d already told them, he wrote, “To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a source of steadfastness.” After that, he told them some more things… that he’d already told them.

In some ways I can safely say that I emulate the Apostle Paul. Or in at least one. I repeat myself.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told you that I repeat myself before… probably in that sermon I titled, “Repeating Myself.”

No surprises today, I’m afraid.

We don’t know exactly when Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians, or what city he was in. He was in prison, but that doesn’t tell us much. In Second Corinthians, he wrote that he had “far more imprisonments” than some other people with whom he was in conflict. Apparently he had the capacity to annoy local authorities with his preaching – and he had the will to do so rather than stay safe and silent.

While it’s no surprise to find Paul imprisoned, he did set a different tone in this letter. For one thing, it sounds like he’d been held longer than he had previously, long enough for the Philippians to hear about it and start worrying about him, long enough for them to worry about his companion Epaphroditus as well. In the first century, jail was not a punishment. People were held for trial and after trial to await punishment, and Paul had experienced “countless floggings” in his career. This time, though, the possibility of execution loomed. “Living is Christ,” he wrote in verse 21. “Dying is gain.”

In the midst of all that, Paul wrote what is safe to describe as the most joyful of his letters, at least the ones we have. This is no Second Corinthians, full of contention and conflict. This is no Romans, dedicated to a thorough explanation of his ideas. This is not even Philemon, encouraging a friend to do something extraordinary. In Philippians, Paul rejoices in the faithfulness and compassion of this congregation he has loved and cared for.

As Carla Works writes at Working Preacher, “Joy permeates this letter. Paul will make use of the language of joy or rejoicing sixteen times. The apostle can have joy in the midst of suffering because of his confidence in God’s work through Christ. His joy is wed to God’s activity rather than to his own personal circumstances. Joy is an appropriate theological response. It is not joy because of suffering, but joy because those who cause the suffering will not have the last word.”

Joy is the first of things that really matter.

Another thing that really mattered, and really matters now, is the presence and support of other people. As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Paul’s letters to the churches of his era and to the church today, remind us, across time and distance, that our faith is shared. Our journey is communal. If we are called to be a righteous branch, we recognize that branches are connected to a tree, bush, or vine.” Over the course of the letter to the Philippians, Paul mentioned four of his comrades in the gospel by name: Epaphroditus, Timothy, Euodia, and Syntyche. In fact, Paul routinely named other people as he wrote his letters, either because he wanted to greet them specifically in the church to whom he wrote, or because he was passing along the blessings of people with whom he was working at the time.

What really matters? Don’t do it alone. You don’t have to. And you shouldn’t. Get together, and stay together.

What else matters? Paul named something else in this one-sentence prayer that closed today’s reading: “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvestof righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”

Love. Love matters. Love really matters. Love. Agape. Hesed. Aloha. Love really matters.

This is the love that puts someone else’s welfare and interests at or above your own. This is the love that not only knows that we don’t have to do God’s work alone, this is the love that doesn’t let someone else do God’s work alone, either. This is the love that Epaphroditus demonstrated by coming to Paul and getting sick. This is the love that Paul showed by sending the recuperating Epaphroditus home, not just for his benefit, but to comfort the Philippians who were worried about both of them.

This love is not a feeling, but it nurtures feelings, doesn’t it? This love is audible in words, and it is visible in deeds. This love is tangible in making change in the physical world. This love tastes like my friend’s favorite meal. This love has the perfume of blossoms after rain.

These things make us feel good. They make others feel good. This is what love is. And: it really matters.

Paul’s prayer didn’t stop there, though. As L. Ann Jervis writes at Working Preacher, “Paul calls for love that is discerning and courageous, not simply tolerating everything in everyone; love that has insight and wisdom; love that reflects the moral character of God as reflected in Christ.” I’ve said it before, love carelessly expressed may not comfort, may not heal. It may, in fact, annoy, irritate, and mislead. People who dearly loved me have given me some real clinkers of Christmas gifts over the years. I love the people, but I do occasionally wonder how they thought I’d like… you know, that.

Christmas gifts are one thing. Day to day gifts are another. How often do we take on some regular job in the household firmly believing that we are providing relief or relaxation to someone we love? How often did we take it on because, well, it’s easier to do it ourselves than to share it? How often did we take it on because it’s something we were good at and the other person wasn’t, and we just couldn’t be bothered to teach it?

How often do we find ourselves unintentionally limiting the roles our loved ones can take on or the skills they can learn?

Did we ask?

It turns out that knowledge matters when we set out to love. It turns out that we can lovingly do exactly the wrong thing. It turns out that ignorance isn’t loving. Shouldn’t we care enough to ask?

Yes. We should.

Care enough to ask. It really matters.

Care enough to observe, as well. That’s where insight comes from. That’s what allows us to make those inspired guesses about things that will delight those we love. When we pay attention to what pleases those we love, we can make better and better judgements about what will please them next. Insight isn’t a gift that some have and some don’t. Insight is something you build from experience, observation, and consideration. Insight, like knowledge, takes work.

Do the work. It really matters.

What really matters?

Joy. Joy matters. Joy in the grace of God that rises above the current circumstances. Joy matters.

Togetherness. Togetherness matters. Living out our calling from God in company with others, supporting one another in righteousness. Togetherness matters.

Love. Love matters. Sharing and caring for others as we would have them share and care for us. Love matters.

Knowledge. Knowledge matters. Asking when we do not know, so that we can love well. Knowledge matters.

Insight. Insight matters. Paying attention to those we love so that we can love well without asking every question. Insight matters.

Paul repeated himself. So do I. Because it’s so important that we know what really matters, and that we do what really matters.

Love with knowledge and insight. Love together, not alone. Love God’s creation, and celebrate God’s joy.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric preaches from a text, but he does vary from it, as he has done today.

The image is Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (ca. 1618-1620) – Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, TX, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=596565.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: What Really Matters

What really matters? It is the question of the ages. The answer is rooted in love, knowledge, and insight.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi (Philippians 1:3-11). Paul wrote it while imprisoned — a circumstance that he said was actually helping to spread the good news — but his writing it to the church in Philippi appears to have been more in the way of comforting them than it was in the seeking their consolation.

Above all, the apostle praised them for their faithfulness and their kindness. And in this opening section, he wrote that he hoped that their love would overflow with knowledge and insight to help them know “what really matters.”

And that is the question for all of us, isn’t it? What really matters?

Oh, there’s plenty of people who will tell you what really matters. In the newspapers, on the television, on the radio, there are lots of people who will tell you that what really matters, especially in this season, is the purchase of this, that, or the other thing to make your life (or the life of someone else) better. That is what really matters. Others will tell you that what really matters is your physical health. They’ll tell you what really matters is your mental health. They’ll tell you that what really matters is the global economy. They’ll tell you that what really matters is some sort of sense of pride. And indeed, all of these count.

It’s good to be physically healthy. It’s good to have a sound global economy. It’s good to have a sense of self-worth. It’s good.

If we want to know what really matters, or what Paul thought really matters, well, it’s best to read the rest of the letter of Philippians, because, after all, he had the rest of the letter to reflect on it, but the clues are there, even in the way he put it. “Let your love overflow with knowledge and insight.”

These are the ingredients for what matters: knowledge and insight. These are things that we achieve through effort, through study, through asking questions of people and not simply sitting around and observing and assuming, but of studying and considering and, above all, when you don’t know: ask. But even knowledge and insight are not enough, because where does it begin?

It begins in the overflow of love, the overflow of compassion, the overflow of consideration of someone (or someones) else. This is the foundation of what matters.

As we go through this Advent season, as we prepare for the holiday of Christmas, as you go out and look for all those wonderful things that the advertisers would like you to buy, remember that what really matters is the overflow of your love through knowledge and through insight.

That is what really matters.

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: Signs and Times

December 1, 2024

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Isn’t that just how you were hoping to begin the Advent season?

I say this pretty much every first Sunday of Advent, because in the season in which we prepare for Christmas it seems odd to jump to the end of the book. Jesus spoke these words to his disciples in or near the Temple during what we know was the last week before his crucifixion. Why would we be here rather than somewhere in chapter one of Luke’s Gospel?

The answer, in brief, is that Advent is not about preparing for the birth of Jesus. That’s already happened. It’s not even really about preparing for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, though that closer. Advent is the time in which we prepare to celebrate the gift of Christ in the person of Jesus, a gift which was given us two millennia ago, a gift which remains given to us through history into the present, and a gift which will continue to be given to us to the end of time.

Which is why we’re in chapter 21, because here Jesus spoke about things that Christians have interpreted to take place at the end of time. Some of them, however, had already taken place. Earlier in the chapter Jesus spoke about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. By the time Luke wrote his Gospel, according to scholars, the Temple had been destroyed. Jesus warned his disciples that there would be official persecution of his followers. By the time Luke wrote his Gospel, that had already taken place.

As for the signs and the distress and the roaring and the fainting, well, Catherine Healy writes in The Christian Century, “I am not a biblical literalist, yet the imagery in this passage gives me pause. As our planet gets hotter and tidal floods increase, aren’t we already seeing ‘signs in the sun [and] the moon’? And as rising waters drive more and more climate refugees from their homelands, it’s hard not to notice that ‘distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea’ is already upon us.”

It’s hard not to notice that, indeed.

Based on the way people keep trying to match signs and distress and roaring and fainting with historic events, it’s apparently hard to notice that… these things happen all the time.

I grant you that we’ve had an eventful few years here in Hilo, Hawai’i, but since I began serving as pastor here we’ve had earthquakes, a volcanic eruption that displaced two thousand people, a hurricane, at least a couple of tropical storms, a significant civil disruption, increasing political dissension in the United States rising to an actual insurrection event. Oh, and a global pandemic. I almost forgot that.

Come, Lord Jesus! If you want to return before Christmas, I’m fine with that!

The truth is that these “signs and times” aren’t useful to predict timing because they are so frequent. Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “Yes, Jesus speaks the truth, not about our future, but about our condition, the world’s condition, that never really changes. Perhaps this is the grief of this passage. That nothing ever changes. That God cannot prevent those who seek power from exercising power in the most inhumane of ways. That we still live have to prepare God’s way in spite of fear and foreboding.”

Come back before Christmas, Lord Jesus. I’m more than fine with that.

Except that… Jesus already has. That, I think, was the point he was making with his disciples two thousand years ago. You see, Jesus had already said something about when the reign of God was coming. He said it back in Luke’s chapter four, when he announced in the synagogue that the Isaiah’s promise of a year of God’s favor was fulfilled in their hearing. Or in other words: the Messiah was already present.

God’s promises were already present in front of the disciples who heard him say, “the kingdom of God is near.”

So near, disciples, that you’re part of it just sitting there.

“The season of Advent, as we reflect upon the coming of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us,” writes Cheryl Lindsay at UCC.org, “challenges us to make our love incarnate, our hope unmovable, our peace tangible, and our joy complete.”

That, after all, is what God did in the incarnate Jesus: rooted our hope, founded our peace, completed our joy, and embodied love.

I wish that Jesus’ presence meant that all the signs and times with their distress and roaring and fainting had been transformed into the vision of a Peaceable Realm described by some of the prophets. That, all too obviously, hasn’t happened. If a great outbreak of peace took place, it seems to me that that would be a much bigger and more visible sign of better times.

What we have instead is Jesus’ presence – all the time. As Audrey West writes at Working Preacher, “the apocalyptic vision shared by Jesus is assurance that even (especially) in the face of devastation—whether it is caused by nature’s fury or by human hubris—the reign of God will not be impeded. No matter how much it appears that the world is coming un-done, God’s way endures.” And: “Even during earth-rending moments, God is near.”

The age-old images of disaster and destruction will not, I’m afraid, tell us when history will end. They won’t tell us when Jesus will return. Partially that’s because they’re not much use as predictors, since they’re so common. Mostly it’s because Jesus promised to be with us always, and we trust in the promise.

Jesus has been with us through the earthquakes and storms and volcanic eruptions. Jesus has been with us through the political upheavals and pandemics. Jesus has been with us through the day-to-day blessings of our lives. Jesus has been with us at the birthday celebrations, at the achievements, and at the end of days when nothing much seemed to happen except the same-old, same-old. Jesus will be with us this Advent season and right on into Christmas.

Signs and times be what they may, Jesus is with us.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric frequently makes changes while preaching, accidentally and otherwise, so the sermon text will not precisely match the sermon as delivered.

The image is Jésus se promène dans le portique de Salomon (Jesus Walks in the Portico of Solomon) by James Tissot (between 1886 and 1894) – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.177_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957468.

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner

Pastor’s Corner: Love and Gratitude

November 27, 2024

Despite the persistent effects of nostalgic Thanksgiving films, stories, pictures, and memories, Thanksgiving is a remarkably adaptive holiday.

While many will prepare a turkey for the main dish this week, a good number will prepare something completely different, something that better matches their preferences to their gratitude. Even those serving turkey have scoured the media, the Internet, and their cookbook shelves for a new way to prepare it. We may giggle at the idea of a turkey stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck, but doesn’t it illustrate our flexibility around that iconic dish?

As a child, Thanksgiving was a meal we celebrated with Gramma Anderson, mostly at her house in western Massachusetts. We weren’t always there, even if she did have a dining room that best matched the front of a holiday card. My parents hosted everyone a few times, as did my aunts and uncles.

As an adult, Thanksgiving gatherings grew substantially. In addition to blood family, dear friends began to join the celebration. We added a “Thanksgiving Day Croquet Tournament” which took place between dinner and dessert. My parents were the regular hosts for quite some time as they had a dining area big enough for everyone (we borrowed tables and chairs).

Then they shrank again as people graduated, moved, and passed on.

The consistent things about Thanksgiving throughout have been love and gratitude. The locations have changed, the faces have changed, but the love and gratitude have been the same.

May they be a part of your Thanksgiving celebration this week and every year.

In peace,

Pastor Eric

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Not Neglecting

November 17, 2024

Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

The Book of Hebrews is not the most accessible of the writings of the New Testament. The author spent a lot of time bringing up passages of the Hebrew Bible that most people have never heard of. Just as one example, Sunday School teachers haven’t spent much time of the priesthood of Melchizedek in Genesis 14, while the author of Hebrews spent a fair amount of time reflecting on it.

However, I’m going to give you my one-line summary of the Book of Hebrews. Ready? OK. Here it is:

It’s all about Jesus.

I suppose a little expansion might be helpful…

Are you worried about who to pay attention to? Pay attention to Jesus. Are you worried about death? Life comes from Jesus. Are you worried about forgiveness of sin? That comes from Jesus. Are you worried about whether you should be making sacrifices? Don’t worry: Jesus has made the last sacrifice and no more are required.

Or more simply: It’s all about Jesus.

As Christopher T. Holmes writes at Working Preacher, “The point is clear: Jesus has removed all obstacles that might keep the hearers from entering into God’s presence. The problem, as the exhortation in verses 22–25 makes clear, is with the hearers’ willingness to keep drawing near.”

Let me re-read that exhortation:

“…Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Amy L. B. Peeler writes, also at Working Preacher, “’Are there any verses in the Bible that explicitly tell us to go to church?’ Students have raised this question several times in my classroom, and rarely is there an occasion where the answer is so straightforward. Hebrews 10:25 is just that verse…” Dr. Peeler teaches, incidentally, at Wheaton College in Illinois.

But why would people “neglect to meet together,” as the author of Hebrews put it? Well, first of all, gathering for religious purposes looked a lot different in the first century.

The weekly Sabbath meetings of the Jewish synagogues were the exception, not the rule, among first century Mediterranean religions. Most devotional activity for Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians consisted either of rituals performed in the home, or of bringing an offering for sacrifice in public. Public sacrifices, however, weren’t held one day a week. There wasn’t a set time when everybody crowded into a building to pray together. In fact, they rarely went into a building. Sacrifices took place outdoors. Most people never entered a temple building proper.

There would have been a few times during a year when everyone came out to worship, but those would have been festivals. And again, the activity of most “worshipers” was probably watching a parade going down the street to one of the temples.

When the author of Hebrews commented on “some” who didn’t gather, “some” was “most.” Jews who lived someplace other than Jerusalem had developed weekly gatherings for prayer and study in synagogues, a distinct difference between them and the others around them. Christians continued the practice.

Like the synagogues, the meetings of Christian communities had a different purpose than the great festivals of the Greeks or the triumphs of the Romans, or even the rituals of the Jerusalem Temple. The author of Hebrews noted it here. We gather “to provoke one another to love and good deeds… encouraging one another…”

That has remained the reason for the Church’s existence in the nearly two thousand years since.

Why do we gather? To provoke one another to love. To provoke one another to good deeds. To encourage one another.

That’s one of the reasons that the pandemic was so hard on us. In the presence of a virulent and dangerous disease spread primarily through the breath, it wasn’t safe to get together. “We stay separate now,” read one version of a common saying, “so that when we gather later, we will all be here.” Two years ago on this day I was home in bed sick with COVID. I recovered. Have we forgotten that over a million Americans didn’t? That over seven million have died across the globe?

We had good reason to keep apart. But it was hard.

It was hard because the ancient Hawaiians were right: “ha,” spirit, breath, is something that two human beings share with one another for the good of both. When sharing breath became hazardous, we lost something that sustained our spirits, something that needed no words to take place, and what could we share over the wires? Words.

Words suffered as well. I was in my forties when I learned something very important about communication, which is that communication hasn’t happened until it’s gone two ways: forth and back. Without response, communication hasn’t really occurred. Which is why parents get so insistent on getting a response from a teenager.

We used the tools available to us to stream a worship experience to you and to anyone else who chose. It was my decision to use a broadcast-style technology, to use a format that gave worshipers little ability to respond during worship. Mostly I made that choice to keep it as simple as possible for you. I wish I’d created some other more interactive ministries, more than a Bible Study, but alas, I didn’t.

Now that we’re back together, we’ve continued the live stream for the simple reason that people still find it useful. Some work Sunday mornings. Others can’t physically make it to worship. Those people – you people – are important, and giving you an opportunity to celebrate God’s grace is important. We will not neglect you.

Don’t neglect, however, to take up what opportunities come your way to provoke others to love and to good deeds, and to encourage them in the faith.

That word “provoke” provoked a fair amount of discussion during Bible Study this week. It seems an odd word to use of love. Katherine Shaner writes at Working Preacher, “Instead of asserting a community built on sameness and good feeling, the preacher seems to note that provocation and exasperation is part of being a community. She exhorts us to build a kind of community gathering that relentlessly, even irritatingly, suggests that actions of love and deeds are not what create faith, but are rather the responsibility of the community which needs to gather because of their faith in the great high priest — a faith God gives.”

Can we be a provoking community, one that doesn’t settle for a little bit of love? Can we be a community that expects more of ourselves than just a good deed or two here or there? Can we be a community that asks, “How can we do this better? How can we make this good available to more people? How can we equip people to live their lives in fullness?”

It’s the irritating sand in the oyster shell that provokes it to produce a pearl. It’s those pesky other nene that allow us to fly with less effort. It’s those sometimes irritating other Christians who provoke us to do good.

Let us not neglect to gather, to provoke one another to love and good deeds, and to encourage one another.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, and so although he wrote the sermon you just read, it sounded different when he said it.

The image is by Perennis – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81995586.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Encouraging Love and Mercy

What is the purpose of Christian gathering? To encourage love and good deeds. It’s that simple and that important.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews (Hebrews 10:11-25).

Hebrews concentrates on theology. Specifically, Hebrews makes the case that in Jesus’ death and resurrection God’s forgiveness is fully accomplished, fully realized, fully obtained. There is no reason to continue older religious practices — ancient religious practices — that invited God’s forgiveness, that requested God’s love. In Jesus, the author of Hebrews says, we have obtained all the forgiveness we could ask for and more.

So Hebrews is not a terribly practical book. It is not oriented towards giving us advice about how to live a faithful life.

At the end of this section, however, much of which is concerned with Jesus granting us forgiveness, the author did invite us to some fairly practical things. The author invited us to consider how we might encourage one another to love and good deeds, and the author also advised that we not neglect to gather together as apparently some were staying apart.

Love and good deeds: these are staples of ancient religion. They go back to Moses and Abraham, and of course it was a central message of Jesus himself.

The gathering together, however, that is an interesting one. It reveals the purpose for which we gather together. We gather together so that we can encourage and support one another in the love and in the doing of good things. It’s harder to love people when they are at a distance, not just because of heartache, but also because of lack of knowledge, of lack of encounter, of lack of that special sharing between people who are dedicated to one another’s welfare.

Didn’t we, in the last four years, experience so much loss in not being able to gather together? And yes, gathering was risky, dangerous even, but in less risky times in gathering together we can encourage one another to love and to acts of mercy.

Christians have been struggling to do this for 2000 years. People of faith have been struggling to do it for millennia. So let us make it as easy upon ourselves as we can.

I invite you to our Sunday gatherings in person or, if you must ,on line. I invite you to be there so that we can encourage one another in love and deeds 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 Sermons

Sermon: Not Far

November 3, 2024

Ruth 1:1-18
Mark 12:28-34

We’ve taken a few steps since last week’s Gospel lesson, set in Jericho along the banks of the River Jordan. Jesus had climbed the slopes from there to the environs of Jerusalem. He entered the city in that great Palm Sunday parade. He’d come back to the Temple the next day and overturned the tables of the money changers.

Mark sets this story on the next day, Tuesday, which began with the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders challenging Jesus’ authority to do such things. That wasn’t a good start, and the conversation deteriorated from there. Representatives of various schools of thought as well as various places on the political spectrum tried to trap Jesus into a statement that would put him in legal jeopardy on the one hand or cost him the support of the crowds who’d cheered him on the other. Preferably both at the same time.

Those efforts had failed.

“One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’”

Up to this point in Mark’s Gospel, bad things have happened when Jerusalem scribes have been present. Jesus had his arguments with other religious leaders in Galilee, but when a group of scribes from Jerusalem showed up in chapter three, they accused him of being in league with demons. So you‘d expect another “gotcha” question from this man.

He didn’t ask one.

He asked a big question, for sure. Three centuries later, a rabbai named Simlai would count 613 mitvot or commandments in the Hebrew Bible. Most of those, obviously, amplify or provide detail of one or more of the Ten Commandments with which we’re familiar. To choose one within the ten, or within the 613? That’s a big question.

But he seems to have been interested in Jesus’ answer, not in setting Jesus a trap. At least I think so, in great part because, unlike his responses to the bulk of the challenges Jesus received in chapters eleven and twelve, Jesus answered the question. Sort of. He cheated a little.

He replied with two commandments.

Both were near-quotes from the Scriptures first century Jews held in common: the five books that begin our Old Testament, known then and now in Hebrew as Torah, or Law. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” comes from Deuteronomy 6. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” comes from Leviticus 19.

As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “This exchange reminds the observer that the good news as shared by Jesus was not a clean departure from Jewish law. Rather, it was an amplification of it.”

When the scribe wholeheartedly agreed, Jesus told him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Not far.

Jesus’ basic message, as Mark described it back in chapter one, was, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” In one sense, then, Jesus could have told anyone that they were not far from the reign of God. It had come near, it has come near, to everyone.

But I don’t think that’s what he meant. I think he had a much older idea of the reign of God in mind, a reign of God in which people live out the commandments. What’s the first step toward that?

Knowing how to get there. Love God. Love your neighbor.

That’s how we get there.

As Amy Lindeman Allen writes at PoliticalTheology.com, “The greatness of the love commandment lies not in its surpassing value over and against all of the other commandments of Jewish law but, rather, in its ability to hold up all the rest. It’s less about beating out all of the other candidates and more about helping them to do their jobs.”

Love of God is the foundation for the commandments against worshiping other gods, against worshiping idols, against making false promises in God’s name. Love of neighbor is the foundation of keeping the sabbath, of honoring parents, of the prohibitions against murder, adultery, theft, lying, and coveting. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor;” wrote the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome, “therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Love sounds simple, but exercising it affects everything we do, everything we say, everything we plan, everything we set aside. Love enacted requires patience, effort, resilience, and resources. Love made manifest may call for commitment, hardship, even sacrifice.

Love looks like Ruth.

It’s a funny thing. The word “love” appears only once in Ruth, toward the end of the story, which we’ll read next week. As the book begins, Ruth did not claim to love her mother-in-law. She did not say anything, in fact, about her motives. She said, “I will not leave you,” rather more poetically and emphatically than that. It must have been a hardship. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “I think it would be safe to say that Ruth’s pledge of fidelity is not made to a companion who is, at this point in the story, easy or fun to be around. Naomi is bereft, depleted, forlorn, and bitter. It’s possible that she’s suffering a full-blown crisis of faith, imagining that the God she thought she knew has withdrawn his love, and cursed her with unspeakable suffering.

“Ruth’s vow, then, is a vow of tenacity, fortitude, and sacrificial loyalty as much as it is a vow of affinity, affection, or ‘love’ as our culture might describe it.  It is the vow of one grief-stricken, traumatized, and profoundly vulnerable woman to another.”

Or to put it another way: she was not far from the realm of God.

With the love that God has for us, love displayed to us so thoroughly in Jesus, we are never far from the realm of God. But we are closest to living the reign of God when we love God and one another. When we, to borrow Paul’s words to the Corinthians, show patience and kindness, when we act without envy, boastfulness, arrogance, or rudeness. When we restrain our irritability over not getting our own way, when we keep no record of wrongs, when we rejoice in the truth. When we bear all things, believe all thing, hope all things, endure all things…

Then we are not far from the realm of God.

Not far at all.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while preaching, sometimes from choice and sometimes from chance.

The image is The Seven Works of Mercy by Karl Gritschke. Photo by Alexander Rahm – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3544487.

It is a representation of a painting on a wall of the Dialog Hotel Neuendettelsau. The “seven works of mercy” according to Matthew 25:34-46 and Tobit 1:17, are:

  1. Feed the hungry,
  2. Give the thirsty drink,
  3. Accommodate strangers,
  4. Clothe the naked,
  5. Visit prisoners,
  6. Heal the sick, and
  7. Bury the dead.
Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner

Pastor’s Corner: Special

September 11, 2024

When is something special?

Many times over the years I’ve heard that special things are unusual, even rare. At other times I’ve heard that it’s not rarity that makes something special, it’s the way that I take care of it. And there are times I’ve heard that all members of a category are special.

Well. That’s confusing.

Nearly every church in the global Church asserts that Holy Communion is special, then they approach it very differently. For hundreds of years it was so special that most people never received the cup lest they spill it. I grew up in a church that held Communion just five times a year for a while, because it was too special to hold more often. At the same time, a church down the street held communion not just every Sunday but throughout the week. Why? Because it was special.

If non-Christians find this confusing, so do Christians.

When is a person special? Some decry the custom of participation awards, claiming that only the “winners” should be recognized. “If everyone is special,” they say, “then nobody is.”

Really?

I didn’t get participation awards as a child, but that was how things went then. I didn’t graduate from kindergarten or elementary school or junior high. Again, that’s how things went.

But I have no complaint with telling each and every human being, “You are special. You are valued. You are loved.” Because it’s true. God cares for each and every one of us, and for all the rest of Creation, too.

That’s pretty special.

In peace,

Pastor Eric