Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: Help Us!

March 29, 2026

Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11

As Jesus rode the donkey – maybe two donkeys, according to Matthew – into Jerusalem, the crowds gathered and shouted. They quoted Psalm 118, a song of thanksgiving and, quite possibly, related to an ancient religious procession from the city entrance to the area of the Temple at the city’s summit. They also called “Hosannah to the Son of David!”

That was a pretty bold thing to say.

As D. Mark Davis writes at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “The word “Hosanna” is only found in the entry stories of the NT. The Greek term Ὡσαννὰ [Hosanna] seems to be a transliteration of the Hebrew הושיעה־נא [Hoshiana]. When הושיעה־נא [Hoshiana] appears in the OT, such as in Psalm 118:25, it was translated in the LXX as σῴζω [sodzo], “to save.”

Calling for help and aid doesn’t sound so bold, but calling for it from the “Son of David” was. “Son of David” was a royal title, indicating a legitimate claim to the traditional throne of Israel and Judah. It was just short of calling Jesus, “King Jesus,” and not all that short of it.

Bold.

It could well have been even bolder, because it wasn’t just the city’s residents in the city at the time. At JourneyWithJesus.net, Debie Thomas writes,

In their compelling book, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Last Days in Jerusalem, [Marcus] Borg and [John] Crossan argue that two processions entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday; Jesus’ was not the only Triumphal Entry.

Every year, the Roman governor of Judea would ride up to Jerusalem from his coastal residence in the west.  Why?  To be present in the city for Passover — the Jewish festival that swelled Jerusalem’s population from its usual 50,000 to at least 200,000.

The governor would come in all of his imperial majesty to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome was in charge.  They could commemorate an ancient victory against Egypt if they wanted to.  But real, present-day resistance (if anyone was daring to consider it) was futile.

When the crowds shouted “Hosannah! Save us! Help us!” to Jesus, they did so aware that the ones they wanted help against – the Romans – were present, armed, and prepared to bring violence just the other side of the city.

Help us!

A bold cry, or a desperate one, or sometimes maybe there isn’t much difference between desperate and bold.

Jesus chose an odd prophetic image to emulate with his donkey and colt. Jesus could have done things to look more like a traditional monarch. He might have sent his disciples to find a horse. He would have looked great on a horse. Everybody looks good on a horse – at least until it starts moving. After that it helps to know how to ride. It would have even matched a prophecy from Jeremiah rather than Zechariah.

If you want to look like a king, get a horse. Not a donkey.

They were bold and they were desperate, and they shouted, “Save us,” because even on a donkey Jesus was the best they had.

As D. Mark Davis writes, “I like how the word κράζω [kradzo] (cry out) is like an onomatopoeia, imitating the croak of a raven. It is used for both loud crowds and desperate people, like a woman crying out for help and Jesus crying out from the cross.”

Desperate people. A woman crying out for help. Jesus crying out from the cross. Matthew 27:46: “’Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Help us!

I don’t know for sure what that crowd wanted. As with most crowds, I suspect there was a good range. Some hoped for that royal Messiah who would cast out the Romans. Others probably hoped for a new religious, but not political, leader who would do something about the priests. I’m sorry to say that religious leaders aren’t always the best of friends to the people they’re supposed to serve, in the twenty-first century or in the first century. Some might have been shouting “Help us!” because of their individual needs: Healing for an illness or injury, a word of assurance for the hopeless, a gift of food for the hungry. I suspect as well that some joined the crowd and shouted and waved palms because people get caught up in that kind of excitement even when they don’t know anything about what’s going on. “Who is this?” they asked, and there’s always plenty who don’t bother to ask.

Help us!

I don’t know whether Marcus Borg and John Crossan are right that Pontius Pilate entered the city on the other side as Jesus entered on the near side. It would have required some knowledge and planning to time things that way – which, to be sure, Jesus was certainly capable of. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. The crowd would have contrasted the Jesus parade with the Pilate parade. They would have noticed the distinct lack of soldiers. They would have noticed the complete lack of marching drummers and trumpeters. They would have noticed the replacement of the warhorse with the donkey.

“Crossan notes that Jesus rode ‘the most unthreatening, most un-military mount imaginable: a female nursing donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her.’” (quoted by Debie Thomas at JourneyWithJesus.net)

I’ll help you, said Jesus in his choice of mount, but not quite as you think, and probably not quite as you expect, and more than you dare to hope.

I am depressingly conscious of the number of people crying out for help in the world today. Some of them are near: people on this island, O’ahu, and Maui picking up from the wreckage left by floods and high winds over the last two weeks. There is a national UCC emergency offering for that, by the way. Look for information on how to contribute to it in the Weekly Chime on Tuesday.

Others near us suffer from injuries or illness, from the pains of long-term disease, from the fogs and storms of mental illness. Some cope with grief, with feelings of failure, with the words of others telling them that they aren’t of much worth. Some cope with the oppression of violence, violence from those who claim to love them, or violence of those who are supposed to protect them. Let’s face it. Federal courts have clearly stated that a law enforcement agency of the United States is routinely abusing its authority, taking people into custody without due process of law, abusing those it has detained, and avoiding accountability before the courts.

If they do it in Minnesota and Maine, they’ll do it in Hawai’i.

Some of those crying for help are not so near. They live in some of the world’s poorest regions, vulnerable to famine or disaster. Or they live as a marginalized group of people in some of the world’s most oppressive nations. Those people might be identified by skin color, or by national heritage, or by sexual orientation. These people might simply be women.

Some of them are just people living in a place engaged in war. That includes the United States. The war has come home with grief for mercifully few families so far, but the only certain thing about armed conflict is that more families will grieve. It’s for certain that a lot more families are grieving in Iran, and most of them have nothing to do with the issues between the governments. That’s the great tragedy and the great immorality of war. Whatever the justice of the cause – and the American administration has made no coherent explanation answering the questions of just cause – the most just cause in the world inflicts horrendous suffering on innocents. During the Second World War, it’s estimated that twice as many civilians died as those in the military – and again, most of those soldiers and sailors and aircrew had nothing to do with the aggression of their governments.

There are a lot of people in the world crying, “Hosannah! Save us! Help us!”

Jesus, in the meantime, makes his way through our lives on a donkey, not a warhorse. Whatever the show on the far side of the city, the great gift is before us here.

How will he help? Not with military conquest. He didn’t do it in the first century. He’s not going to do it in the twenty-first century. Not with grandeur. He chose a donkey. Not with coercion. He didn’t force anybody to cheer him. Pilate almost certainly did.

The things that Jesus offers – nearness to God, richness of soul, abundance of life in this world and the promise of life eternal – just aren’t as grand or as compelling as the parade of Pilate. They don’t answer the cries of “Help us!” all that directly – but I ask you: if we all truly lived as Jesus calls us and as Jesus expects, would we be at war now?

I didn’t think so, either.

Help us, Jesus!

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes as he preaches – sometimes deliberately, and sometimes not. The sermon as he prepared it is not a direct match for the sermon he delivered.

The image is The Entry into Jerusalem by Jan Baegert (ca. 1505-1510) – Wuselig, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104993708.

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: Heart for the Vulnerable (Or: It’s All About the Widows and Orphans)

August 10, 2025

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Luke 12:32-40

There is a lot going on in the twelfth chapter of Luke. Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell the story of the Rich Fool, who saved up lots of goods and didn’t enjoy them. The lectionary editors, in their wisdom, skipped over verses 22 through 31, containing Jesus’ advice not to “worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.” He observed that birds don’t worry and they eat; flowers don’t worry and they blossom into beauty. Worry, it turns out, doesn’t accomplish anything.

That brings us to this section. And here it turns out that the only thing we have to worry about is… what Jesus said next. “Sell your possessions and give alms.”

Jesus tended to ask a lot.

Isaiah, about 770 years before, had expressed God’s dissatisfaction with a people who had industriously participated in religious ritual but had failed to treat their neighbors well. “Cease to do evil,” said Isaiah. “Learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow… If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.”

To quote something Lorraine Davis said in a Bible study some time ago, something that’s implanted in my brain, “It’s all about the widows and the orphans.”

Is it? I did a quick search to see how often the Hebrew Scriptures demand the protection of widows. Exodus and Deuteronomy say it a total of eleven times. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Malachi named it a total of nine times. In the Psalms you’ll find it another three times. That adds up to twenty-two calls for the protection of widows. I got similar results with a search for “orphan” (I won’t bore you with the numbers). Oh, and there’s one other category that usually gets added to “widows and orphans” as worthy of particular care and protection.

Foreigners. “Aliens” in the usual translation of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The first assertion of the Hebrew Law regarding foreigners in Exodus reads, “There shall be one law for the native-born and for the alien who resides among you.” Further, “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy make clear that foreigners are to be honored and protected no less than 21 times.

If you’re depriving the widows and the orphans, who are the poorest of the poor, of justice and sustenance; if you’re abusing the foreigners, who are the most vulnerable of those living in the nation, then you are failing to do the will of God. As Isaiah put it, “Cease to do evil; learn to do good.”

Why, I wonder, do people with so much wealth and power find it so easy to deprive the poor of what little support they receive? Why, I wonder, do people with so much wealth and power find it so easy to shortcut legal due process for those from other lands? Why, I wonder, do people who claim to follow the ways of Jesus cheer when the supports of the vulnerable are pulled away, when the hopes of the foreigner are dashed?

Fifteen years ago the comedian Stephen Colbert said on the Colbert Report: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition … and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

I’m surprised CBS/Paramount Global ever hired him, not that they’ve cancelled his show.

It is all about the widows and the orphans and the foreigners. If you want to know about a society, take a look at how it treats those on the margins, those without powerful protectors, those most quickly disposable.

Sell your possessions and give alms, said Jesus.

As Erick J. Thompson writes at Working Preacher, “Are we, as individuals and as a church, ready to help others in need? Have we considered the issues of peace and justice that our society is wrestling with so that we can be a part of God’s solution?”

Dr. Thompson asked that question nine years ago when government acknowledged a role to create a social safety net. For quite some time, religious and non-religious non-profit agencies have labored to fill the gaps in that net. Those can be substantial, but imagine what would happen if local, state, and federal assistance to the vulnerable were ended or severely cut back. We would need to take the lead in God’s solution, to care for the widows and the orphans and the foreigners and the impoverished.

All indications are that we will need to take the lead.

It’s not going to be easy. About half of the US population – and it’s about the same here on Hawai’i Island – belong to communities of faith. We typically pay more in taxes than we give to charities, religious and non-religious combined. I suppose it’s not a secret that not everyone listed on a church’s rolls contributes, generally for very good reasons. That’s not a complaint, but it is a reality. We don’t have the resources government has. Do we have the ability to match what they’ve been doing? I don’t know.

But it’s all about the widows and the orphans. It’s about justice for the foreigners. It’s about solidarity with the poor.

It’s going to be even harder, though. On July 25th the President issued an executive order that essentially calls for the criminalization of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. UCC General Minister and President the Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson responded this week by writing, “While there are members of the homeless population who have substance abuse and/or mental health challenges, these are not the experiences of the entire homeless and unhoused population. Nor is this population solely responsible for ‘crime and disorder.’ It is disingenuous to opine that incarcerating and institutionalizing the homeless population will end crime and disorder.”

According to United for ALICE – ALICE is an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed – 10% of Hawai’i residents lived below the poverty level in 2023. Are you shocked by that? I’m appalled. One in ten of our neighbors can’t meet their basic needs. And: an additional 35% of Hawai’i residents have ”income above the FPL [Federal Poverty Line], but not enough to afford basic expenses in the county where they live.”

“Households below the [ALICE] Threshold are forced to make impossible choices — like deciding whether to pay for utilities or a car repair, whether to buy food or fill a prescription.”

Because housing is the biggest expense for most people, everyone in an ALICE household – a third of our neighbors – is one crisis away from homelessness. One crisis: something like a medical emergency, a work-interrupting injury, a house fire, or a natural disaster.

It’s all about the widows and the orphans. And the foreigners. And the folks for whom the ends just don’t meet.

In the meantime, wealthy Americans get trillions in new tax breaks – but the new law imposed a curious cap on the deductibility of charitable donations for the wealthiest. Really. That took me by surprise, too. Make lots of money, pay less taxes. Just don’t help people with it.

Not even the widows and the orphans. Definitely not the foreigners. Don’t aid the poor.

That’s a long way from Isaiah. It’s further from Jesus.

The irony to all this is that Jesus’ story about the servants who stayed awake to welcome their master home experienced a grand reversal. Did you notice? They could have expected to set out a light supper for him, but instead, he had them sit at the table and the master served them.

The master served the servants. The master expected attentive servants, alert servants, prepared servants, active servants. The master asked a lot. Then the master served them.

There are masters in this land who are determined not just to fail the widows, orphans, foreigners, and poor. They are determined to abuse and oppress them, and I don’t think I’m overstating the case. These are the masters whom Isaiah condemned. These are the masters that crucified Jesus.

Let us be the diligent, attentive, and active servants. Let us be the ones who meet the expectations of Isaiah and strive to meet the expectations of Jesus. Let us be the ones to welcome the widows, the orphans, the foreigners, and the poor. Let us be the ones to shed the burden of our possessions and take on the freedom of generosity.

Let us be ready to be seated at Jesus’ table.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric does tend to depart from his prepared text while preaching, so the recording will not precisely match the text above.

The image is The Parable of the Righteous and the Unrighteous Judge (painting on the western wall of the Faceted Chamber), 1882, by the Belousov brothers (Palekh) – http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/barucaba/post311615582/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37093925.