Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: No Stranger

April 26, 2026

Acts 2:42-47
John 10:1-10

Chapters nine and ten do a lot of heavy lifting in the Gospel of John – that is, they are packed with event and import and tension and meaning. It’s not the most poetic writing in the Gospel – I think we have to say that “In the beginning was the Word” gets the poetry prize – but it is poetic. It’s got a lot of moving characters. John started with Jesus and his disciples and introduced a man who had been blind from birth, then brought in some of Jerusalem’s senior Pharisees and a gathering crowd. The healed man was questioned, his parents were questioned, Jesus was questioned.

As is usual in John’s Gospel, the story begins with a miraculous sign, continues through an extended discussion – which here is pretty much an argument – and leads to one of Jesus’ “I am” statements. Unusually for John’s Gospel, chapters nine and ten have one sign and at least two extended dialogues, but three “I am” statements.

Jesus said the first one before even performing the miraculous sign. “I am the light of the world,” he said, and then applied the healing mud to the man’s eyes. The second appears in the passage read just now: “I am the gate for the sheep.” That’s not so well known, though John Narruhn preached a great sermon about that a couple years ago and folks remembered it during Bible Study.

The third follows this passage right at the beginning of verse 11: “I am the good shepherd.”

That’s a lot of “I am” for one sign and a couple conversations. This passage is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Not everybody was up for it.

Jaime Clark-Soles writes at Working Preacher, “Here John showcases Jesus’ habit of conveying truth not propositionally, but poetically. Jesus carries on about sheepfolds, gates, thieves, sheep, and gatekeepers, strangers, and voices. After five verses he pauses and notes that they haven’t got any idea what he’s talking about (v. 6). So, what is an effective speaker to do at that point? Explain the figure of speech (paroimia)? Drop the use of metaphor? Apologize for using such elevated speech and dumb things down, put it all in simplistic terms? Maybe. But that’s certainly not what our Lord and Savior did. Rather, he again (v. 7, palin) throws out the same word-pictures. The whole Gospel of John is nothing if not a piling up of metaphors, figures of speech. How else are we to convey truth about God? What single image, what single word could suffice? Plain speech (parresia) is fine as far as it goes (see 16:26, 29) – but it can’t go far enough to ‘explain’ God.”

If you’re having trouble following, you’re in good company, because Jesus was trying to describe the indescribable, explain the unexplainable. I have a lot of sympathy. For the last couple weeks people have been saying to me, “You must be so proud about your daughter’s ordination.” I say yes, because I am.

“Proud,” however, is at one and the same time the right word and the wrong word. It’s too little a word to encompass all the love I have for Rebekah and her brother Brendan. It doesn’t quite include the satisfaction I have as a church leader to see a talented and capable person accepted into the ranks of leadership. It doesn’t begin to account for the fears I have for someone I love who will be disappointed many times by the likely failures of the church to fully appreciate her gifts, or that people will discount her for her gender, sexuality, her age, her disability, her ordination (yes, that counts against folks in some areas of life), or simply the fact that she’s blond. I’m her dad. I worry about those things.

There’s no word for all that. No one word. I just wrote 132 words and, you know what? Those didn’t do it, either.

So what can we tease out of all these words Jesus spoke in these ten verses of John?

The point of a sheepfold is to protect the lives of the sheep. Sheep can’t stay in an enclosure all the time – they’ll eat everything in sight pretty rapidly – but they’re safer from the overnight dangers in the sheepfold. It’s not perfect. Jesus warned of thieves and bandits, after all, some of whom trying to imitate a legitimate gatekeeper, and some of them climbing over the walls.

We’re familiar with that, aren’t we? We know the risks of burglars and of con artists, the ones who use threats of violence to extract things from us, and the ones who pretend to be someone trustworthy to tease our resources from us.

We know the suffering of people whose spouses or parents abuse them. We know the oppression of people whose governments decide that a group of people will not be protected, indeed will be abused, by the very ones who claim rightful authority. Christians have been an oppressed minority in some places at some times. The spectacle of Christians encouraging and participating in the abuse of people at the margins is a betrayal of everything Jesus taught and lived, and a moral injury to the Church.

Gatekeepers let sheep into the sheepfold, and out again to pasture. It’s a vital role. In the case of actual sheep, they don’t have the limbs to open a gate. Somebody has to do it for them. In the human world, plenty of people can function as gatekeepers, so the question really becomes: how do we know who to let in and let out? There’s an artist named David Hayward, a former pastor, whose work looks closely at this question, because let’s face it, the Church in many ages has been much better at closing the gates on people than opening them. In so much of Hayward’s art, the figure of Jesus embraces a sheep that has been rejected by the rest of the flock, who watch in confusion as Jesus comforts the one they discarded.

As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “’I am the gate.’  Not, ‘I am the wall, the barrier, the enclosure, the dividing line.’  Not, ‘I am that which separates, isolates, segregates, and incarcerates.’  I am the gate.  The door.  The opening.  The passageway.  The place where freedom begins.”

“The sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

Who will we trust to admit us to a safe sheepfold, and who will we trust to open the gate to a fruitful pasture? One whose voice we know, or whose form we recognize, or whose familiar touch wakes us from our sleep. Last week I spoke of recognizing Jesus as the one who feeds us. This week that’s still true – the gate swings open to the grasslands where the sheep graze.

We recognize Jesus also as the one who protects us: protects us from sin by teaching us good ways, by setting an example to follow, and most of all by forgiving us when we fail to follow lessons or example. Jesus protects us from death by opening a new gate to life. Jesus protects us from evil by giving us resources to keep it from taking over our hearts. I wish I could say that Jesus protects us from the evil acts of others, but Christian history abounds with martyrs who suffered, and so may we. When we maintain our sense of grace and refuse to let evil into our spirits, Jesus stands with us.

We recognize Jesus as one who welcomes more and more into the flock, into the sacred community. In verse 16 of this chapter, he said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” We know the voice of the shepherd and the gatekeeper because it keeps calling new people to join us. If we were to close the gate and bar it, if we were to stand upon the walls and defend them against any trying to join us, if we were to declare ourselves the be-all and end-all of Christianity, well. We would not be growing or thriving, would we?

Most of all, we would have replaced Jesus’ voice of welcome with our voice of rejection. At that point, can we call ourselves followers of Jesus at all?

Every gate on this campus makes a sound when it moves. There’s the ringing clang when it closes and shuts, and when it’s closed, small children have a more difficult time before running out into traffic, and that’s a good thing. There’s a bit of a squeal when it opens, and when it’s opened, we come in to worship, to enjoy a meal, to play a game, to comfort a grieving friend, to learn something new, or to make some decisions about the future.

That’s a voice of Jesus I recognize. As I recognize it in our words of welcome, and our efforts to protect or comfort our needy neighbors. There’s the voice of Jesus. No stranger to us at all.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric writes his sermons in advance, but he makes changes while preaching. The prepared text does not match the sermon as preached.

The illustration is The Good Shepherd by Henry Ossawa Tanner, ca. 1918 – This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the National Gallery of Art. Please see the Gallery’s Open Access Policy., CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81324376.

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

What I’m Thinking: The Core of Christianity

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

Here’s a transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons

Sermon: Welcome

May 18, 2025

Acts 11:1-13
John 13:31-35

Simon Peter had had some really good days. As I mentioned last week, the wave of hostility to followers of Jesus led by Saul had subsided when Saul, himself, became a follower of Jesus. That had allowed Peter to travel to Lydda where he’d healed Aeneas, then to Joppa where he’d raised Tabitha. If I were Simon Peter, I’d have been really excited. Safety. Healing. Resurrection. That’s a hat trick to me.

Not that Simon Peter would have heard of a “hat trick,” of course.

As Luke told the story in the book of Acts, those events led to another event, an event so crucial that Luke couldn’t tell it just once. Just to give you something to compare, Luke told the story of Aeneas’ healing in five sentences. He told the story of Tabitha’s resurrection in twelve sentences. He told the story of Saul’s conversion, the person we know as the Apostle Paul, in nineteen sentences. But this story? The story of Simon Peter’s visit to Cornelius, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the baptism of the household?

Sixty-four sentences.

What we read today is about a third of the text. One of the reasons it takes so much space in the book is that Luke repeated this story. He described it as a narrative, “as it happened,” and then he had people report on their dreams in the narrative, repeating a portion of what happened “as it happened,” and then we get this section in which Simon Peter reported on what happened to his fellow leaders in Jerusalem.

If you’re tempted to let this story glide by as if it weren’t important, Luke has put up a great big sign and has waved flags at you, saying, essentially, “Important story here! Do not pass it by!”

Kyle Fever writes at Working Preacher, “But this is not just repetition for repetition’s sake. Each time the acceptance of Gentiles is relayed a different aspect shines through, depending on the audience and particular situation. The constant remains, however, in that each telling focuses on God’s initiative through the Spirit and its effects.”

When he told this story to the church leadership, Simon Peter had already had time to digest these events. He’d had time to consider his vision in which God declared unclean foods clean. He’d had time to move past the shock of being summoned to visit a Roman centurion, an invitation that he might have expected to lead to his own arrest and crucifixion. Romans had executed Jesus, after all. He’d had time to absorb the warm welcome he’d received in Cornelius’ house, a welcome that actually included the centurion kneeling to him. He’d had time to feel relief that he’d found words to describe Jesus’ life, ministry, purpose, and meaning.

Most of all, he’d had time to reflect on the movement of the Holy Spirit among people who he had known, for a fact, couldn’t be moved by the Holy Spirit. Jewish men? Certainly. Uncommon, but if it was going to be anyone it would be God’s people, and, let’s face it, God’s men. Jewish women? Unlikely, but look, it had happened a couple times over the centuries, so they could cope.

Non-Jews? No. Not possible.

Simon Peter knew that. Tabitha’s friends had probably known that there was no relief from her death. Aeneas had probably known that there was no likely relief from his pain. Ananias had known that there was no way that Saul could change his ways. Saul had known that there was no truth to the message about Jesus.

Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong. That doesn’t change the shock of it, but when you know that something can’t be, how nice it is to discover that it can.

“When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”

Six years ago Brian Peterson wrote at Working Preacher, “The church’s Spirit-led experience has brought new insights regarding things like slavery, racial equality and justice, women’s ordination, and LGBTQ dignity. Some of that may look obvious in history’s rearview mirror. Still, encountering the Spirit who is alive and pushing the church in new and astonishing directions can be frightening. However, the Spirit is not random or incoherent. The Spirit always pushes the church into greater practice of God’s love for all people of the world.

“This is a text about crossing borders. We know how contentious that can become! We put up walls, concrete or steel or metaphorical. It would have been more comfortable and seemingly safer for the early church to keep Cornelius and his Gentile household at arm’s length.”

Boundaries and borders, it must be said, have their uses. They are necessary. If you look at the simplest forms of life, those single-celled creatures we can see only through microscopes, they have a cell wall. Take away the cell wall, the creatures cease to exist. The reality of a boundary makes life itself possible.

We ourselves consist of somewhere around 30 trillion cells, give or take a few trillion. They’ve all got cellular walls to permit them to perform their different functions around the body. A red blood cell without a cell wall won’t carry oxygen anywhere. A skin cell without a cell wall won’t hold all the other cells in. Skin cells, in fact, are pretty remarkable for establishing a boundary that preserves the life of the other cells. During COVID we saw the results of a virus that could get around the skin barrier, and it wasn’t pretty.

Boundaries have a function.

Boundaries, however, are rarely absolute. A cell wall that won’t admit oxygen and nutrients is one that spells the death of the cell. I just talked about the way skin cells keep other organisms out, but it turns out there’s a bunch of organisms in the body already, and they do very useful things there. Research has shown that bacteria in the digestive tract actually help digest food. There’s plenty of germs that don’t help, but there’s also a lot that do, and our bodies don’t produce those bacteria. They’re with us for the ride.

Boundaries mean that we can have relationships of mutual support and benefit at the cellular level.

Boundaries mean that we can have partnerships at the human level.

Some years after Cornelius had his encounter with the Holy Spirit in Simon Peter’s presence, the Apostle Paul wrote that the Church is like Christ’s body, and like a body, it is made up of many parts, and the many parts aren’t the same, but they support one another. One part can’t do without another, he said.

It turns out that men can’t run the Church without women, though God knows we’ve tried and God knows how badly that’s usually turned out. It turns out that God has called gay men, lesbian women, and transgender persons into the community and into leadership, and God knows we’ve struggled as much or more as the Jerusalem council did at that. It turns out that Micronesians and Filipinos, Hawaiians and Fijians, and people from all the Pacific have been summoned by God.

Mitzi J. Smith reminds us that we do not fulfill God’s welcome without coming to terms with our failure to welcome. She writes at Working Preacher, “Many white brothers and sisters and some people of color deny that they ever perceive or treat people who are racially or economically different from themselves with bias. This is despite being entrenched in racialized, class-conscious institutions and traditions that presume people of color, women and others to be inferior. But the only way we begin to put an end to making distinctions between ‘them’ and ‘us’ is to learn to recognize and admit our biases and their impact on human relationships. Racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and other biased behaviors and thinking are not godly; they are motivated by fear of the other and not by love of humanity. ‘God shows no favoritism’ for one human being other another.”

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality,” said Simon Peter in Acts 10:34. He understood it then, but he knew he hadn’t understood it before. He had to learn to extend a welcome, and he had to keep learning it all his days.

Cheryl Lindsay writes at UCC.org, “What proof do we offer the world of our discipleship? How do we wash the feet of our companions? How do we extend hospitality? How might we organize our local church for reaching out and creating a more inclusive and engaging community within? How do we show up when the world is looking for love?”

There’s our challenge. There’s our summons: to extend ourselves in welcome to those seeking a home for their spirit and healing for their souls.

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric preaches from a prepared text, but he often improvises while preaching, so what you hear in the recording will not precisely match the text above.

The image is Saint Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius by Jan Erasmus Quellinus – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59323889.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Open Door

When Peter went to visit a Roman centurion, he found that God had decided to welcome all people among those who followed the Way of Jesus.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of Acts of the Apostles (Acts 11:1-18). This is a story that Luke, the author of Acts as well as of Luke’s Gospel, thought so important that he told it three times.

This is the third telling of the story and it’s the one in which Peter reported on his activities to the council of the apostles, the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem. They wanted to know why he had eaten with Gentiles.

Well, the answer was simple.

He’d received a summons (after he’d received a strange dream) and the summons was to go to visit this Roman centurion named Cornelius. When he went there, he talked to them about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit came upon the people of the household. Seeing that, Peter said, “How can we withhold the waters of baptism?”

When he finished the story those who heard it were astonished, because it meant that God had done a new thing, and that the Way of Jesus Christ was now open not just to those they expected, to the Hebrew people, to the followers of Judaism, but to Gentiles, those from other faiths and other nations, as well.

This is perhaps the most important story in the book of Acts, because it marks the place where the Church opened its doors to all people.

Now to this day, we struggle with this. In theory, we should be able to welcome anyone, and I mean anyone, into the Church. We all know that is not true, that there are people who come to the door and we turn them away. Peter’s experience was that God would not be moved by our refusals. God would not be limited by the boundaries that we set. God would welcome, God will welcome all the people of creation into the way of Jesus Christ.

How can we refuse the welcome that God extends?

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, Uncategorized

Pastor’s Corner: Lei Day

May 1, 2024

It’s May Day, and as the song says, it’s Lei Day in Hawai’i!

I am no expert in the craft of creating these exquisite floral adornments. I’ve learned a bit about the birds of Hawai’i, but there are far more plants on this island than birds. I can identify only a few of the more common leaves and blossoms that appear in a lei: maile, ti, plumeria, orchid, and kukui. I am pleased to report that eight years ago I didn’t know what a dendrobium was, and now I can spell it.

So many things go together to create this profusion of lei, a delight not just to the eyes but also to skin and scent. The perfume of a fresh lei is like very little else I know. It says, instantly, “You are welcome and cared for here.”

So many ingredients, and so many combinations, make up the wonder of the lei.

I hope we can take inspiration from those colorful, beautifully perfumed works of art as we live our lives of faith. Too often we imagine faith without color, without delight, without joy. We imagine it with austerity, deprivation, and even hardship.

It’s a strange way to worship the God who filled the sky with stars, and the trees with blossoms, and the ocean waves with pearly spray.

I hope you get to proudly wear a lei today. More than that, I hope you get to faithfully wear a lei today. Proclaim the goodness of One who created in color, and texture, and scent. Proclaim the goodness of One who created as well in flavor and melody.

Tomorrow, let the lei be your guide, as you assemble the blessings of your life into a blessing to share.

In peace,

Pastor Eric

Self-portrait by Eric Anderson.