Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Have a Paddle

November 2, 2025
Isaiah 1:10-18

Luke 19:1-10

I’m mixing metaphors that, in my experience, get mixed fairly often. If you’re in trouble, you might be up a tree. Or up the creek. If you’re in a lot of trouble, you might be up a creek without a paddle. And if you’re having trouble getting your metaphors together, you might be up a tree without a paddle.

Zacchaeus might be one of those up a tree without a paddle.

He doesn’t seem like a likely person to be in trouble. Luke wrote that he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Wealth is supposed to insulate us from trouble, isn’t it? If I’m pursuing wealth but I’m not really greedy, I’m probably trying to protect myself or my family from the things that poverty threatens, and poverty threatens a lot.

Wealth may insulate us from some kinds of trouble – even that’s not quite a guarantee, as some people can tell riches to rags stories – but there’s other trouble that wealth simply can’t protect us from. The wealthy get sick. They may struggle with relationships – arguing about money may actually raise the risk of broken relationships. Rich people may find themselves cut off from social supports.

That’s exactly what had happened to Zacchaeus.

Lis Valle-Ruiz writes at Working Preacher, “The plot is a (hi)story that repeats itself across places and times. It is the story of a person who belongs to an oppressed people by birth but joins the ranks of the foreigners/oppressors by trade, resulting in gain for the person and their family while contributing to the oppression of the community.”

Ironically, in Hebrew Zacchaeus means, “righteous.” I’m pretty sure that generated a lot of comment among his neighbors. He almost certainly started off fairly wealthy, because the Romans didn’t turn to poor people to become tax collectors, let alone chief tax collectors. He probably didn’t have much in common with or much to do with the poorer people of Jericho, which was most of them. In taking that position, though, Zacchaeus had taken a place that cut him off from most even of his wealthy neighbors. If a foreigner, a Gentile, entered your home it became ritually unclean. According to a saying preserved in the second century collection of rabbinic wisdom called the Tosefta, the same was true of tax collectors.

He may have been doing fine financially. He may have been doing okay with a very small number of his neighbors (and they were probably tax collectors, too). As far as the rest of the Jewish population of Jericho was concerned, he was up a tree without a paddle.

What do we do when somebody has built their own trouble? What do we do when they’ve cut themselves off from us? What do we do when they’ve planted the tree, watered the tree, fertilized the tree, profited from the tree, and then climbed the tree? What do we do when they’ve realized they’re up a tree without a paddle and have started to look for a way down?

What do we usually do?

Be honest. What do you usually do when somebody has made life difficult for others, even harmed others, has cut themselves off from you and from others, and suddenly announces that they’d like to come down?

If I could venture to guess, we react much the way that the people of Jericho reacted when Jesus called Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree and invited himself for dinner. With revulsion. With suspicion. With rejection. “Leave him in the tree, Jesus. He got himself there. He chose it. It’s on him. He didn’t even bring a paddle.”

I am not talking about those who have planted and nurtured their tree and are still perched in it, merrily enjoying the fruits of their separation and abusing those below them. I’m not talking about those who have settled into their tree so they can throw things at the rest of us below.

I’m talking about the ones who have decided they want to come down from the tree. The ones who have made an effort to tell us they want to come down. The ones who, like Zacchaeus, have shown that they’re interested in reconciliation.

Now what do we do, we who may be at the bottom of the tree, although if we’re honest with ourselves we’re probably part way up our own tree, what do we do when somebody says, “I want to come down?”

If we follow Jesus, we help them get down. We guide them to place their hands and feet as they descend. We raise our arms to them to give them support and cushion what might be a slip or two. We say, “Let’s get together for dinner. And by the way. You’ve been up a tree without a paddle. Here. Have a paddle.”

Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “I know that even now, I hold people hostage to versions of themselves they’re striving to outgrow. I know that I refuse people the permission to change, because if they change, I will have to change, too. Likewise, I know that there are areas in my life where God is asking me to stand my ground and tell a new story about myself — a story my listeners might have high stakes in resisting. These are the places where I am tempted to retreat, to quit, to resort to a vision of humanity that is ordinary and mortal, not extraordinary and lasting.”

It’s not just Zacchaeus up a tree without a paddle. It’s you and me, isn’t it? We planted it. We watered it. We climbed it. We threw things at people from up there.

Jesus called us down. Jesus welcomed us down. Jesus told us he’d enjoy our hospitality.

Jesus said, with a smile, “Have a paddle.”

When somebody else wants to come down from their tree, well: “Have a paddle.”

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric writes his sermons ahead of time, but he tends to make changes while preaching. What you have just read does not precisely match what he said.

The image is Zacchaeus by Niels Larsen Stevns, 1864-1941. Retrieved from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54227 [retrieved November 2, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Niels_Larsen_Stevns-_Zak%C3%A6us.jpg.
Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Obstacles to Discipleship

Jesus did not believe that his way was easy. He warned people to prepare.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the fourteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 14:25-33).

As I read the Gospels, Jesus had a habit of consistently raising the bar for expectations of faithful people, of his own followers, and I think you’ll find that right here in chapter fourteen. A crowd was following him. He said to them, if you want to be my disciple, if you want to be an acknowledged follower, then you’ve got to hate your father and mother, and indeed the rest of your family. You’ve got to hate life itself. You must face execution — carry your own cross, f you want to follow me. He completed his instructions by saying, you’ve got to give up all of your possessions, and then you can follow me.

He certainly didn’t make it sound easy or inviting. The fact is, there is not much in this section to say why one would follow Jesus at all.

Jesus told those who were curious about following him that they needed to consider it seriously, that faithfulness was deeper than they might be prepared to go. He compared it to preparing for a major construction. He compared it to preparing for a war. You’ve got to commit, he said. You’ve got to prepare. You’ve got to be ready to go the distance.

What is it, he asked, that would hold you back? What is it that you would prioritize over following me? What is it that keeps you from a whole-hearted commitment to God and God’s way?

Some of it might be loyalty to family, might be loyalty to others. There may be times when God’s call summons us away from our obligations to family, and to do other things, to say other words. What about life? Are you prepared to give up some portion of this life, whether it be to death or whether it be to taking part in things that you might otherwise not? What pleasures are you prepared to leave behind?

And, of course, he closed with money. It is, after all, the single most common temptation most of us encounter. Or rather, money is the thing that summons so much of our attention, so much of our commitment. Can you give that up, said Jesus. Do that before you follow me.

The question, I think, for each of us is: what is the thing (or more likely what are the things) that we are in practice place before our commitment to Christ? What are the things that we will do before we enact our obligations to Jesus? What is it that has our hearts before the heart of God?

Take a good look. I know I’ve found them in my own heart. What are they in yours?

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: Focused

Most of the things we focus on in the world, said Jesus, are distractions. Concentrate on being ready for the visit of the Holy Spirit.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the twelfth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 12:32-40). This passage follows up on the one that we read last week: Jesus’ story about the wealthy man, all of whose riches served him very little in the end.

There is a passage that the lectionary editors skipped over, and that’s a familiar one: the one about the ravens whom God feeds and the lilies of the field that are more beautiful than anything that king Solomon had ever done. And God, said Jesus, takes care of all of these.

And so we enter into this passage, where Jesus advised being ready. Jesus advised distributing one’s possessions as alms for the poor. Jesus compared the Christian life to servants in a great house whose master was away. These servants, if they are ready when the master comes home, will be rewarded, not just with thanks. The master, said Jesus, would invite them to sit at the table and the master would serve them.

That is the world turned upside down.

Jesus, in telling a hopeful heir to some portion of his father’s holdings, had advised people not to be concerned with money or with wealth. And Jesus followed up on that with the comparison with the birds and with the lilies. Jesus followed up on that by urging his followers to leave behind even what they had, and to distribute that to those who had even less.

Readiness, said Jesus, is all. Preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Preparation for the reign of God.

The reign of God is not going to be found in riches, and it is not going to be found in worry. The reign of God is not going to be found in anxiety, it is not going to be found in flurried preparation. The reign of God is going to be found when we set aside those things that distract us, which summon us away from God.

The reign of God is going to be found when we are ready, and the door is flung open so that the Holy Spirit may come in.

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Pastor's Corner, Sermons

Sermon: Riches

August 3, 2025

Psalm 49:1-12
Luke 12:13-21

It was an easy question, and it should have had an easy answer. “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Behind the request is, I expect, a pretty painful story. Under first century Jewish custom, the eldest son received a double share of the property of a deceased father. That’s one of those examples of first-son favoritism that is part of so many cultures. The same eldest son, however, also had the responsibility to divide the property among the surviving siblings – which means the one who had the greatest interest in delaying the division also had to make the division. I imagine that lots of younger sons had the same problem with their older brothers.

Asking Jesus about it was a sign that Jesus was honored and respected. As Niveen Sarras writes at Working Preacher, “It was common in first-century Palestine for Jews to ask rabbis for a legal ruling. The man thought of Jesus as a respected rabbi who influenced people, and could convince his brother to give him his inheritance. By calling Jesus a teacher, he acknowledges his ‘authority to render a decision in his case.’“

Simple request: ask my brother to divide the property as he’s supposed to do. Simple answer: As a respected teacher, I rule that the brother should do what he’s supposed to do.

But if Jesus did the things he was expected to do, the Gospels would be very different.

Jesus launched into one of his favorite subjects, particularly in Luke’s Gospel: the problem of wealth. So he told a story.

The story, writes Meda Stamper at Working Preacher, “…reflects a central theme in Luke and in Jesus’ preaching, the problem of wealth in the context of the holy kingdom where closeness to God is life and attachment to things reflects soul-stifling anxiety and fear.” It’s the story of a rich man who had a good harvest. If we look at him in the light of Joseph’s story in Genesis, the successful farmer wanted to do what Joseph had done: store up the produce of a good year against the hazard of a bad year ahead. In Joseph’s case, we called that more than prudence. We called it inspired.

This wealthy man, however, had no notion of saving against need. He saved for himself. He didn’t mention the people who’d done the work. I suspect they got laid off after the barns were done. He wasn’t aware of his neighbors, either. “What of the widow who walks by and sees the new barns, full of grain, while she has no way of making a living?” asks Melissa Bane Sevier at her blog. “What of the child whose parents choose between food for the children and food for the grownups? What of the rabbi who wishes he had food enough to give away to those who need it?

“Abundance versus scarcity. Too much abundance for a few creates scarcity for so many more.”

Most of all though, Jesus called the character in his story – remember, it’s a story – a fool because he saved the wrong treasure for the wrong thing.

You may have heard me preach about money and riches a few times. Like most preachers, I have a limited set of ideas, and “the problem of wealth” is sermon number three. Of about seven. I’m in good company, of course. Jesus talked about the problem of wealth a lot, too.

Most of us have an uneasy relationship to money. First, most of us don’t think we have enough of it. There is usually something we can think of, which might be an item, a service, a comfort, that we don’t have and can’t get immediately.

Personally, I can think of plenty of things to spend money on, money I don’t have, at least at the moment. A friend thinks I should get an eight-string ukulele to join the four and six-strong instruments I have. Well, I think so, too. I think there are some cool camera lenses that would be useful for taking pictures of flowers. And I’m always curious about microphones, and…

This is rapidly becoming a shopping list rather than a sermon, so let’s stop here.

I have uses for all this stuff. I think. You’d like to hear me play an eight-string ukulele, right?

But am I saving up treasure for God?

That’s a harder question. A good deal of my music goes to celebrate God and God’s world. A good deal of my photography serves to renew my spirit and, I hope, that of some others. That’s worth while, I think. But am I saving up treasure towards God?

God and I are still working that one out.

It is certainly true that added wealth makes this relationship with God and gold harder. Dan Clendenin quotes and echoes the fourth century Bishop John Cassian at JourneyWithJesus.net, writing, “’When money increases,’ observed John Cassian (b. 360), ‘the frenzy of covetousness intensifies.’ Greed is insatiable: ‘It always wants more than a person can accumulate.’”

It would be so much easier if there were a magic threshold at which I didn’t have to work out my relationship between me, money, and God. Then I could just gaze at the wealthy with sympathy for their dilemma, one which doesn’t trouble me. But I can’t. That younger son who asked the question of Jesus probably wasn’t due to inherit much. Jesus didn’t spend much time with the wealthy; there weren’t many wealthy people in first century Judean villages. Any of us can get stuck on money, whatever the quantity is.

According to Jesus, no amount of money is worth anything.

Best to build up riches with God. As Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “Being rich toward God means loving God, neighbor, and self. The inheritance offered shares God’s abundance and flourishing as all needs are met–material, physical, social, spiritual, mental, and emotional. Being rich toward God priorities the status of the soul over the balances in financial accounts. Being rich toward God positions us for peace and joy.”

Love. Abundance. Flourishing. Met needs. A secure soul. Peace. Joy. In the end – and even along the way – those are better riches than money any day.

Unlike the riches in the big barns, you can take those with you.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes as he preaches, so the prepared text will not match the sermon as preached.

Photo by Eric Anderson

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

What I’m Thinking: You Can’t Take It

When somebody wanted Jesus to intervene in a dispute over inheritance, Jesus reminded those who listened that you can’t take wealth with you.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the twelfth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 12:13-21), in which a man called from the crowd, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the family inheritance with me.”

Jesus first responded by saying, “Friend, who made me a judge over you?” To me that seems a little peculiar, because I think of Jesus as judge over all of humanity. During his earthly ministry, Jesus chose not to exercise that kind of power in that kind of a way.

Instead, Jesus told a story about a man of wealth who had such a great crop that his barns couldn’t hold it all. So he tore the barns down and he built new ones, and there he could store his grain and his goods. But God said, “You fool! Tonight your life is ended, and whose will all your wealth be?”

In a sense, Jesus had done what that first man in the crowd had asked him to do. Indirectly he had told the brother who was holding all of the family inheritance (or at least more than his younger siblings thought he should) that holding on to it would do him no good. In the end, we all come to the boundary of our earthly lives in which material wealth means a great deal. When we journey across that boundary, material wealth means nothing.

Jesus followed in centuries of wisdom tradition in saying that wealth is a thing for this life and this life only. Selfishness and greed will not carry across the boundary. What you accumulate will be left for others and lost to you.

So build up treasure with God.

Jesus didn’t say it in the parable, but he said it often enough in other times: the way to build up treasure with God is with generosity towards those around you. The way to build up treasure with God is by deepening your own relationship with the Divine. The way to build up treasure with God is to follow the ways of Jesus.

When Jesus died, they cast lots for his clothing, because that was all that he had.

You can’t take it with you. You can’t take it with you.

So build up treasure with God.

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: Summer Fruit

July 20, 2025

Amos 8:1-12
Luke 10:38-42

As I remember the home in which I grew up, I recall two paintings – prints, actually – that adorned the walls. One was a mother and child. The other was a still life of a bowl of fruit. Summer fruit.

Well, actually, it was apples and pears, which in New England are early autumn fruit, but let it pass.

To all of us in the household, it was a colorful illustration of sweetness, of family, of nourishment, of hospitality.

So to me, a basket of summer fruit is a peculiar way to open Amos’ fierce denunciation of the powerful people of ancient Israel. I’m not the only one to find it strange. Pamela Scalise writes at Working Preacher, “The bounty of sweetness from pomegranates, figs, and grapes, the value of olive oil and wine, the long years of care and cultivation to bring fruit-bearing trees and vines to productivity—all these associations with summer fruit anticipate a good word of blessing. God’s word through the prophet, however, announces the end.”

God – or Amos, because it’s clear that part of an ancient prophet’s role was to choose the human words with which to express what they’d heard from God – had a reason to start with fruit that isn’t apparent to us, because we’re reading this text in translation. As Tyler Mayfield writes at Working Preacher, “…the image is likely chosen primarily to create a wordplay in the original Hebrew. The word for ‘summer fruit’ is qayits, and the word for ‘end’ is qets. The prophet uses similar-sounding words to craft a message.”

As a fan of puns, I approve this message.

I also have to point out, along with other commentators, something that every one of us know who live in this climate. If you leave a basket of fruit out for very long, bad things happen, at least from our point of view. From the point of view of the fruit flies it’s not so bad, but few of us enjoy the sight or smell of rotting fruit on the kitchen counter.

Amos’ readers knew that just as well, and Amos’ readers would have been able to make the connection to the national reality of ancient Israel 750 years before the birth of Jesus. Dan Clendenin writes at JourneyWithJesus.net: “He lived during the reign of king Jeroboam II, who forged a political dynasty characterized by territorial expansion, aggressive militarism, and unprecedented national prosperity. The citizens of his day took pride in their misguided religiosity, their history as God’s elect people, their military conquests, their economic affluence, and their political security.” In other words, the nation itself resembled a basket of summer fruit: Ripe. Fragrant. Tasty. Nutritious.

The nation’s prosperity and power, warned Amos, was also the sign of its end, the hidden decomposition that would spread until the color faded, the fragrance fouled, the flavor soured, and the nutrition turned to poison. Why? Because the nation’s riches were founded on exploitation of its citizens.

4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
    and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
5 saying, “When will the new moon be over
    so that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath,
    so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier
    and practice deceit with false balances,
6 buying the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Thanks in part to the authors of First and Second Kings, we tend to remember that the primary sin of the ancient realms of Israel and Judah was the worship of foreign gods. When you read what the prophets wrote in their own time addressing the immediate concerns, they did raise that problem. Amos did just that in verse 14 of this very chapter.

But. To Amos, that was secondary.

As Dr. Mayfield writes, “The people’s offense has almost entirely to do with how they treat each other. It’s ethical. Amos 2:6–8 makes this clear:”

If you haven’t memorized Amos 2:6-8, here it is:

6 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Israel,
    and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,[c]
because they sell the righteous for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals—
7 they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
    and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same young woman,
    so that my holy name is profaned;
8 they lay themselves down beside every altar
    on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
    wine bought with fines they imposed.

To punish these kinds of sins, God announced the destruction of the nation. If that seems harsh, it was. The reality was that God didn’t have to do anything to destroy the ancient realm of Israel. It was destroying itself. The metaphor of the summer fruit was a pun on the end, but it also reflected the not-yet-seen degradation of the nation itself based upon the misbehavior of the most powerful. When those in authority abuse their citizens, when those in power discount the needs of the community, when those of wealth extract more wealth for themselves from those who have the least, those societies cannot stand. They will crumble. They will fall.

The nation of Israel to which Amos prophesied fell about 730 years before Jesus was born, probably about the same time Amos himself died. It fell before the invading army of an enormous empire. Other nations, including its neighbor Judah, survived that great invasion.

But in the northern kingdom of Israel, the basket of summer fruit had fully decayed.

You know, I’d kind of like to stay away from the basket of summer fruit that is the United States of America. I’d like to choose the better part of Jesus, to attend to what he said, and to rejoice in the reassurance of his presence. That’s partially what my sabbatical was about. To soak in the goodness of God.

But then along comes Amos, and I can’t tune him out. As Dan Clendenin writes, “Amos delivered a withering cultural critique.  He describes how the rich trampled the poor. He says the affluent flaunted their expensive lotions, elaborate music, and vacation homes with beds of inlaid ivory. Fathers and sons abused the same temple prostitute. Corrupt judges sold justice to the highest bidder, predatory lenders exploited vulnerable families.  And then religious leaders pronounced God’s blessing on it all.

“Does this not sound strangely familiar?”

Of course it does. Of course it does. In the wake of Congressional decisions to reduce taxes on the wealthiest and increase the burdens of the poor, it sounds very familiar. In the wake of countless people whose refugee petitions were abruptly dismissed and found Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers waiting in the court hallways to whisk them away, it sounds very familiar. In the decisions to end foreign aid programs while flexing military might, it sounds very familiar.

These choices place the nation on the path of decay. Of degradation. Of rot. These choices imperil the social contract that makes the nation function, that brings people to their jobs every day, that underlies their obedience to basic laws, that helps them trust in the integrity of juries and judges. These choices will inevitably degrade the efficiency and reliability of police forces, the military, and the other public servants who maintain our roads, inspect the food supply, and make sure our medications are safe and effective.

These choices link the prosperity of summer fruit with the heartbreak of the end. These choices do not need God to bring catastrophe in punishment. These choices make their own catastrophe.

Israel’s rulers did not listen to Amos 2700 years ago.

We will need to be loud indeed for our leaders to listen to us now.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes from his prepared text while preaching the sermon, so what you read here will not be identical to what he said while preaching.

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: They Were Noticed

June 1, 2025

Acts 16:16-34
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Two weeks ago the Sunday School made some presentations to the teachers who’ve worked with them during this school year. I was one of those honored. They were kind enough to say they were nuts about me, which really touched my heart. They gave me nuts, too.

They also gave me this insulated travel mug bearing these words: “Difference Maker: A dedicated individual who can make a big impact even with just a small action or few words. Someone who makes a difference in the lives of others.”

Difference maker.

That’s what I’ve wanted to be since I was a small child. I went through a number of ways to make a difference: I wanted to be a firefighter, a doctor, a scientist, a teacher, an actor, and some others before I followed a call to ministry. Which, you’ll notice, is a profession that seeks to make a difference.

Whether I have or not, whether I do or not, is something we can debate. I’ve got to tell you, there are days it feels like the world is going on without paying any attention to me at all. Sometimes that’s just fine. Other times, I desperately wish I could change the course of events.

The Apostle Paul along with Silas and some other companions had been in Philippi for a few days. We read of their work and welcome from the Jewish community in the city last week. Lydia, a leader among them, hosted them in her own home.

The woman described in this story came from much further down the social spectrum. She was a slave – Luke didn’t know or didn’t record her name – and she was a person afflicted by demonic possession. It doesn’t really matter whether the first century diagnosis or a twenty-first century diagnosis of severe mental illness was actually correct. She was doubly bound as an enslaved person and as someone who could not control her own speech and actions.

As Jaclyn P. Williams writes at Working Preacher, “One who needed freedom could clearly call out the source of salvation but could not so clearly embrace that salvation. The same spirit that oppressed her could see the presence of the way of redemption—the way that is Jesus Christ. It is also meaningful that she refers to Paul and Silas as ‘slaves of the most high God’ (verse 17) while she was enslaved by the spirit of divination and those who were taking advantage of her torment.”

She may have been doubly bound, but she made a difference. She made a difference to her owners, who sold her words as predictions of the future. She made a difference to those who purchased her words, or so we assume, because people kept paying for them. She made a difference to Paul, because when she followed and shouted at him over a few days he got annoyed.

You know, I really wish Paul had exorcised the demon for better reasons than pique, but that’s how Luke told the story, so what can I do?

Paul and Silas, up to this point, hadn’t made much of a ripple in Philippi. They’d made friends among the Jewish community, but that was a small group in a big city. The rest of the population didn’t notice them. Until…

Paul got annoyed, and healed a young woman, and cut off her owners’ source of income. That made a difference.

Suddenly they were noticed.

Eric Barreto writes at Working Preacher, “Gripped with avarice, the formerly profitable girl’s owners accuse Paul and Silas of profound treachery before the city’s ruling authorities. Notice, however, that their indictments fail to mention one key piece of evidence: the loss of the unnamed slave girl’s services in a lucrative endeavor! Instead, these rapacious merchants resort to the tried and true method of base ethnocentrism. They accuse Paul and Silas of drawing Philippi’s denizens away from the approved Roman way of life to Jewish customs incommensurate with the city’s ethnic values. Of course, the charges are false.”

The charges may have been false, but the magistrates found them guilty. They imposed the punishments given to people who were not citizens of Rome, which would have been most people at this time in the first century.

Jerusha Matsen Neal writes at Working Preacher, “Acts 16 narrates a leveraging of cultural superiority and social fear for the preservation of an economic system that grounds the status quo. The torture, beatings, and social isolation of prison are powerful technologies in that mechanism. Paul and Silas are not imprisoned because they break a law. They are imprisoned because they are imprisonable people—vulnerable people—who threaten the bottom line of the powerful.”

If you want to be noticed, if you want to make a difference, if you want to change the future: threaten the bottom line of the powerful.

You may not enjoy the attention. Paul and Silas didn’t. Is there a way of making a difference that does not incur the baleful attention of the wealthy, the powerful, the ones with intrenched interests? I’m not sure there is.

Greed is never satisfied. The author known simply as “The Preacher” wrote in Ecclesiastes 5: “The lover of money will not be satisfied with money, nor the lover of wealth with gain. This also is vanity.” Last week I shared some figures compiled by Robert Reich about the budget bill currently before the Senate. The richest .1%, said Dr. Reich, would receive a $390,000 tax cut on average. What I hadn’t checked was how much they earn in the first place.

According to James Royal of Bankrate, in 2022 average earnings for the top .1% were $2.8 million. So they’d be adding 1.3% to their income with the tax cut. Not shabby, I suppose, but hardly dramatic.

At the same time, those earning less than $17,000 will lose about $1,000, 5.8% of their income. They’ve got a lot less to lose.

I’m probably as annoyed as the Apostle Paul was two thousand years ago. I wish I had the power to heal these people double chained by poverty, illness, circumstance, or oppression. I wish I had the power to free people who are chained to their greed, because that’s a harsh bond as well.

Most of all, though, I hope I make a difference. I hope I make things difficult for the ones who exploit others. I hope I make things difficult for those who deprive people of their liberties. I hope I make things difficult for those who use lies and distortions to get their way.

Paul and Silas were noticed. May we be noticed, too.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric prepares his sermon beforehand, but he tends to make changes while preaching. Sometimes he does it intentionally.

The image is Paul and Silas in Philippi, by an unknown artist (between 1591 and 1600). Photo by Rijksmuseum – http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.223502, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84114572.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: They Got Noticed

Philippi’s officials ignored Paul and his companions for days – until he healed a young woman whose illness was a source of wealth to those who owned her. Then they got noticed. And arrested.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the sixteenth chapter of Acts of the Apostles (Acts 16:16-34). The Apostle Paul and his companions had come to Philippi. They had met with members of the local Jewish community; they had spoken to them about Jesus; they had received a warm welcome, in particular from a woman of some substance and leadership named Lydia.

In this part of the chapter they meet with another woman of Philippi, one regrettably whose name Luke did not know or at least did not record. This is a young woman, and she is at the opposite end of the social spectrum from Lydia. She was a slave, and kept as a slave because she had a “spirit of divination” within her. Her owners would make money from her by selling her skills at telling fortunes for their customers.

Well, I don’t know what her condition actually was. It’s for certain that whatever it was, it removed her ability to restrain herself, because she would follow Paul through the streets, proclaiming that he and his companions brought a message of salvation from the most high God. Paul found it irritating and I suppose I would too if somebody followed me for days and said such things about me (which is unlikely).

At one point, Paul turned around and ordered the spirit to come out of her. When it did it left her in her right mind, in her own mind, her own spirit. It displeased her owners, who had Paul and his companions arrested and beaten.

Up to that point, nobody had paid much attention to them. Paul and his companions had mostly spent their time with members of the Jewish community, and they hadn’t made much of an impact on the life of other people in Philippi. But this time, with an act of, admittedly, pique, but also compassion; when Paul healed this young woman, they’d impacted somebody’s economic life, somebody’s source of money, their hope of wealth. And that that was what impelled them to arrest Paul, notice Paul, beat Paul.

I wish I could say that in the two thousand years since, the spread of Christianity has succeeded in getting people less focused on wealth and power, and more focused on the spirit and compassion. If it has, well, it’s a very small improvement. We live in a day when, my God, how wealth and power call with their siren song, that wrecks bodies, minds, and spirits on the rocks of greed.

No, the Christian way is the way that Paul took: to force those spirits that make money for others, that force those spirits that allow us to be exploited, that force those spirits which enrich some at the expense of others, to force those spirits out and call them for what they are: Possessors. Exploiters. Evil.

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: It’s Still Not Easy

October 13, 2024

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Mark 10:17-31

Have you ever considered the curbstone?

It’s not a new invention. There were curbstones in Pompeii, the Roman city buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. They appear to have been a water control mechanism, because Pompeii didn’t have underground drainage systems – sewers. Overflow from rain, fountains, and aqueducts went down the streets, which had high curbs to either side to prevent the water from entering the homes and shops.

These floods were apparently common enough that Pompeiians built stepping stones to allow people to cross the streets without stepping into the flowing water.

Most places, however, didn’t have curbs along streets until the 19th and 20th centuries, when people began to seriously separate vehicle traffic from pedestrian traffic. That kept boots out of the mud – until you had to cross a street, so that didn’t work all that well, did it? – and it kept people out from under carts and horses’ hooves and, as the 20th century went on, the wheels of cars and trucks.

The unintended consequence of all this was to make it more difficult for people with a mobility disability to get around. A curb means an abrupt change in level. It could be managed with a sloped curb, but those take more time to shape and, perhaps, invite vehicles to cross into pedestrian spaces. Disabled people, already confronted with stairs inside of buildings, now had an additional barrier to surmount before they even entered a building.

Wealth – or at least affection for his possessions – became an obstacle for the man who spoke to Jesus. It prevented him from… well… if we take the words as they’re written, it prevented him from inheriting eternal life. At least, it became a barrier to his access. A barrier he had the power to remove.

For a disabled person, however, the world is filled with barriers that other people placed, barriers that the disabled person cannot remove. Street curbs obstruct wheelchairs, and lights-only crosswalks restrict people with limited eyesight. Each of these can be changed, and since the American with Disabilities Act went into effect in 1990, many of them have been. Slowly. And sometimes rather painfully.

It’s still not easy for disabled people.

The world, let’s face it, is not always kind to human beings. We stub our toes on stones, we swelter in the heat, we shiver in the cold. These are things we cannot control. They affect people with disabilities, too, and sometimes those disabilities make it harder for affected people to make their way through the world. They find a way.

It’s the ones that we people built, however, that rankle. It didn’t have to be done that way. It can be reconfigured and upgraded, and… do we do it? Do we?

There was opposition to the passage of the ADA from institutions that didn’t want to spend the money so that disabled people could get access to their goods and services, or even just their neighborhood.

They were shocked and came to the government angrily, because they had many possessions.

It still isn’t easy to overcome that barrier we create for ourselves.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson writes at Working Preacher, “Who can argue with Jesus on this one? We know he’s right about the law and about the wealth. It’s the double-bind of our Christian formation: this lesson is so deeply internalized that it’s nearly impossible to hear it for the chasm in our lives of faith that it is.”

Chasm seems like an overstatement. I’m not wealthy. I looked it up. I went to Pew Research Center’s tool to determine whether I’m high, middle, or lower income, and found that I’m in the middle group, along with 56.8% of other residents of Hawai’i and 52% of Americans. I grant you that the results might be off because I didn’t have my tax information handy, but they wouldn’t be far wrong.

The world is bigger than Hawai’i or the United States of America, and it turns out that Pew has a worldwide income tool. Using that calculator, I join the 39.8% of people in the high income group.

Wait. 39.8% of people in the world are high income?

Oh. No. 39.8% of people living in “advanced economies” are high income.

According to World Vision, nearly 9% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, trying to survive on less than $2.15 a day.

And it’s still not easy.

It’s still not easy to convince myself that I have this kind of privilege. But I do. I’m not struggling to make my car payment, or my medical bills, or my rent. I have struggled with those in my life. One day several years ago I didn’t make a twenty mile round trip drive on the weekend because I didn’t think I had enough gas in the car, and I wouldn’t have the money for gas until payday on Monday.

It’s still not easy.

It’s not easy because I worry more about the things I want than the ways I can help. It’s not easy because I protect the things I like rather than sharing with people who don’t have such things. It’s not easy because I like my comfort, and I don’t want to be uncomfortable.

What’s going to happen if I take Jesus seriously and give these things up?

It’s still not easy.

Mark wrote that Jesus “looking at him, loved him.” Debie Thomas observes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “But notice that Jesus’s love doesn’t leave the young man where he is. In other words, Jesus’s love isn’t ‘nice.’ It doesn’t prioritize the young man’s comfort over his salvation. Jesus’s love is provocative. It’s incisive. It’s sharp. Even as it offers unconditional welcome, it also offers mind-boggling challenge.”

Are we ready for that challenge, which still isn’t easy?

Heaven knows, from all available evidence, that I’m not.

Heaven knows that lots of the people of the world aren’t ready, either. Two millennia after Jesus tried to squelch that silly notion that wealth is the result of virtue, we still credit rich people with undeserved righteousness. Clement of Alexandria had some pointed things to say about that in the second century: “Those who bestow laudatory addresses on the rich appear to me to be rightly judged not only flatterers and base… but also godless and treacherous…”

Bishop Clement didn’t hold back.

I just learned a really unsettling story in this vein thanks to British historian Mark Felton. In a recent video, he described SS leader Heinrich Himmler’s attempts to protect wealth that he and the SS had amassed over the course of Nazi power in Germany. The purpose was to make it available for a renewed Nazi party and Nazi state. Using the connections of German companies and industrialists, they transferred money to places it would not be seized by the Allies in Switzerland, South America, Scandinavia, and also Great Britain and the United States. British and American intelligence operatives discovered the program and… at least some of them got involved in it and benefited from it, including the US’s chief intelligence officer in Europe, Allen Dulles. Why? As Dr. Felton said, “They were indeed like-minded: they liked money, and didn’t mind where it came from.”

They didn’t even grieve over their many possessions, now did they?

Can we please stop pretending that wealth and virtue have any relationship with one another? It’s true that poverty does not make people righteous, and that wealth does not make people unrighteous. It is also true that poverty does not make people sinful, and that wealth does not make people good.

Karoline Lewis writes at Working Preacher, “Let’s just take Jesus literally. We do have too much. We need to give it away. We have not given out of our abundance. So we are eager to stand behind Jesus’ injunctions against rich people. We readily chide those who hoard their wealth. We are quick to say to another, ‘With all you have? Good luck getting through the eye of a needle, friend.’ Yet all the while, we secretly wish we had wealth to hoard. Or at least more than we have. And then we have succeeded in wiggling out of Jesus’ charge. ‘I don’t have money like this guy, so Jesus isn’t talking to me.’ And all of a sudden we’ve managed to escape Jesus’ words to us, ‘you lack one thing.’”

It’s back to us, and it’s still not easy. It’s not easy to see those obstacles that we’ve made which are no barrier to us, but are to someone else. It’s not easy to see the ways our situation of relative wealth or gender or social status blocks us from fully appreciating and receiving the love that Jesus has for us. It’s not easy to accept Jesus’ challenge to lay those precious things aside, those many precious things aside, and follow him.

It’s still not easy to recognize that Jesus loves us and loved us first, and in that love both wants the best for us and wants the best of us.

It’s still not easy. It’s still our challenge. It’s still Jesus’ way.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes as he preaches, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes accidentally. What you read is not necessarily what he says.

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Wealth and Soul

When a man wanted to know how to receive eternal life, Jesus asked him to set aside his wealth – which he would not do.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the tenth chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 10:17-31). A wealthy young man — a ruler, the text says — asked Jesus what to do in order to receive eternal life. Jesus named the commandments to him, and the young man said, “I have done these all my life.” Jesus looked at him and loved him — Mark said, “looked at him and loved him” — and then said, “There is one more thing. Sell all that you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me.”

And the young man went away sorrowing, for he had many possessions.

Jesus’ disciples were as shocked by this, apparently, as the young man was, because they wanted to know if the rich couldn’t be saved, who could? And the conversation ended with Jesus saying that strange thing he keeps saying in Mark: “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

In the first century some people believed that wealth and power were signs of God’s favor. You were wealthy because God was on your side, and God was on your side because you were doing the things that God expected. And the wealthy young man quite possibly assumed that that was true about himself, although his belief wasn’t so fixed that he didn’t go and ask the travelling rabbi that question. The problem is that the “health and wealth Gospel” is not true. Wealth is not the result of righteousness and faithful living. Wealth is the result of a good many other things, many of which have nothing at all to do with righteous living.

Wealth could be inherited — that’s got nothing to do with you. Wealth can be accumulated through hard work — now that’s got something to do with you. And wealth can certainly be accumulated by cheating as many people as you can — and that’s got nothing to do with righteousness.

Jesus’ disciples had kind of assumed that in the course of Jesus’ life and ministry that at some point he would attain power and wealth. The two of them went together in the first century and, come to think of it, in the twenty-first century. So how could it be difficult to be saved as a wealthy person if they were going to share in that wealth?

But that wasn’t the wealth Jesus was offering, was it? Jesus offered a wealth of the spirit, a wealth of the soul, and wealth of money is not particularly associated with that one way or another. Some wealthy people have rich souls, and others do not.

Seek, as Jesus put it somewhere else, seek the treasure that endures. The treasure that lasts is the treasure of the soul. And leave those other treasures behind or, better yet, use them so that those in needs may not suffer.

It may be difficult for the wealthy to find that way into that depth of soul, “As difficult,” said Jesus, “as getting a camel through an eye of a needle” — “but all things are possible with God,” he went on to say.

And may that also be possible with us.

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.