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

What I’m Thinking: What Makes Them Saints

I’m thinking about the Beatitudes this week, and what they tell us about who the saints in our lives have been.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the sixth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:20-31), the opening to what Luke called the Sermon on the Plain. That is not the regular Gospel reading found in the Revised Common Lectionary for this coming Sunday. You see, at Church of the Holy Cross we observe All Saints Day on the last Sunday in October. This reading is from the All Saints portion of the lectionary.

It seemed suitable because we will be remembering those who have blessed us with their lives. And so it seemed right to go to the Beatitudes: blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who weep, blessed are those who are hated for Jesus’ sake.

More than that, though, there was Jesus’ advice (once he had gone through the blessings and, in Luke, gone through the woes). He said, “I say to you that listen: love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you.”

Isn’t that the difference between the ones who made our lives better and the ones who made our lives worse?

There are plenty of people in the world — and plenty of people who will tell you that this is a virtue — who require evil for evil. They demand to be paid back for what has happened to them. Or they are out in front of it. “Do unto them before they do unto you,” is one way I’ve heard it expressed.

That’s not Jesus. For Jesus, it’s bless those who hate you, do good to those who seek to harm you.

And this is the advice, the direction, the demand that Jesus made of us who claim to follow Christ. Do good. Don’t hate. Don’t harm.

Isn’t that why we honor those we call saints? Isn’t that what we saw in them that makes us miss them? That made us love them? That makes us love them still? They did good for us and for others around them. They followed the directions of Jesus. They were and they are the Saints of God.

So we will remember them and honor them coming Sunday and, yes, with every  moment of memory in our lives.

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: Out of Joint

It’s not uncommon to feel “out of joint” with God. What to do then? Hang on.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the thirty-second chapter of Genesis (Genesis 32:22-31), the well-known story of Jacob wrestling with an angel — or perhaps with God.

I’ve read this story many times. I’ve preached on it many times. I’ve probably thought about it many more times. What strikes me on this reading is, in fact, that portion where the man struck Jacob. The text simply refers to Jacob’s wrestling opponent as “a man,” at least until the end of the story when it’s Jacob who concludes that he had been wrestling with God.

At one point in the wrestling “the man” concluded that he was not winning and so he struck Jacob on the hip and put it out of joint. At that point, Jacob was beaten, but he wouldn’t let go until the victor blessed him.

I am also, I think I’d have to say, accustomed to wrestling with God. Most pastors will tell some story about wrestling with their call, and any of us, clergy or lay, at some point in our lives, we found ourselves in a place where we believed that God might have something in mind for us, and it wasn’t necessarily what we had in mind for ourselves.

And so we wrestled with God.

I think that metaphor of a hip out of joint is an apt one. Jacob was already out of the joint. He had been out of joint with his family. He had been out with joint with the family into which he married. He had been out of joint with God. He had been out of a joint with himself. In this wrestling match, that blow from God was a symbol that matched everything that he had been through and everything that he had done, and there he was out of joint with others, with himself, with God.

You know, I can’t think of any better advice than to follow Jacob’s example at that moment, when he realized how out of joint he was, and that there had come a time when he would not prevail: not with all of the trickery, not with all of the falsehoods, not with all of his con man skills. He would not prevail, so he held on.

He held on to God and asked for a blessing.

His blessing was to get a new name, one that meant “the one who strives with God;” and he named the place with the Hebrew phrase that means “the face of God.”

“Israel:” “the one who strives with God.” “Peniel:” “the face of God.”

When you’re in that wrestling match with God and you have realized that you are, in fact, out of joint, hold on. Not to “win,” but to receive God’s blessing for that moment. And in that blessing and in the light of that face, you can go on to follow God’s way… even if you might find yourself moving awkwardly as you do.

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: Increase Our Faith

Jesus’ followers asked him to increase their faith. But who has the responsibility to make that happen?

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the seventeenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 17:5-10), in which the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith.

Jesus responded first with that well known comparison between faith and the mustard seed. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed — which is quite small — then you can say to a tree: go, uproot yourself from the ground, and plant yourself in the sea. And it will.

Jesus then went on to say, how many of you, if you are the master of a house, would come back and say to the servants, “Go and feed yourselves?” Instead, you tell them to prepare your dinner and you sit down at the table and they feed you. In just such a way, said Jesus, you should be doing what God has told you.

It seems a puzzling response to a question about “increase our faith.” And yet, when I think about it, the question itself is a puzzling one. “Increase our faith” and we want God to do that for us, or at least that’s the implication of the apostles’ question. But is that where faith gets increased?

The beginning of faith is something of a gift of God revealing God’s self to us in such a way that we can begin to have faith. But how does faith increase? Isn’t that something that’s our responsibility? Isn’t that something that we do? Isn’t that something that we work at?

Jesus compared it to serving a master and, indeed, that is a well-known metaphor for our relationship with God — put in a very specific way, preparing the meal, performing the service helps people out.

Now I don’t know that we need to feed God. I’m sure God appreciates our efforts to feed the Divine. What I do know is, that that basic task of preparing a meal for those around us is one of those things that God has asked us to do. If we are to increase our faith, then preparing meals for others and therefore opening our hearts to God: that is the way to increase our faith.

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

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

What I’m Thinking: The Uncomfortable Parable

Transcript 9/23/2025

Jesus told a number of stories that people eagerly memorize and repeat. The story of the rich man and Lazarus isn’t one of them.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the sixteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 16:19-31). This is one of Jesus’ parables that is told only in Luke, a distinction that it shares with such well known even popular parables as “The Good Samaritan” and “The Prodigal Son.”

I would not describe this one as popular. I wouldn’t describe it as well known. This is a story that we don’t repeat very often. It’s not hard to see why. It is the story of “The Rich Man and Lazarus.”

The rich man was wealthy. He lived in a great house. He enjoyed his food. Lazarus was a poor man, and ill. He lived outside the rich man’s door. He didn’t even get the leavings from the rich man’s table. Dogs came and licked his sores.

Unlike most of Jesus’ stories, this one continued after the death of its characters. Lazarus found himself embraced by Abraham in heaven, whereas the rich man was tormented in hell. The rich man asked if a warning could be given to his brothers so that they would not make the same mistakes as he had and also end up in torment. He asked even if Lazarus could go and give them that warning. Abraham said they have the warnings of the Law and the Prophets. They will not pay attention even if someone were to return from the dead.

It’s hard to find a story of Jesus that is more pointed amongst a bunch of very pointed stories indeed. “The Good Samaritan” and “The Prodigal Son” are both fairly pointed stories. And it is difficult to find a story that we so gladly forget — conveniently forget — when we are the ones in place of the wealthy man, when we are confronted by the Lazaruses of the world, when we have good things and someone else does not.

This is the contest, if you will, between greed and compassion. All too often in this world greed wins: The desire for comfort, the desire for security. All too often, compassion loses, grace loses, generosity loses.

I don’t really think that Jesus intended to tell us a story about the nature of heaven and hell. He used the conceptions of the time to make his point. I think Jesus was trying to tell us about the relative importance of greed on the one hand and compassion on the other. Compassion, said Jesus, is what comes first. Set your greed aside.

What will it take us to convince us of that truth? I don’t know. Jesus may have known, but notice how pointed the ending of that story is. They’ll not be persuaded even if someone returns from the dead.

And in this world in which greed so often wins, how can we say that Jesus was wrong?

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: Quiet and Peaceful Lives

In our prayers for quiet and peaceful lives, who should we pray for? Everyone.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the second chapter of First Timothy (1 Timothy 2:1-7), in which we are urged to raise our “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings” for everyone, particularly for those who are in positions of power and authority, so we might live quiet and peaceable lives: lives of godliness; lives of dignity.

The first thing I’ll note is that Paul directed these prayers to be raised for everyone. It’s up to a community whether they are going to set themselves up as a place which is consistent with quiet and peaceful lives, in which lives of godliness and dignity can be maintained by everyone. It’s not up to just one or two. We all have to cooperate to make that happen.

It is true, however, that there are major questions that people in authority — they make the choices, and others follow along. Sometimes these are choices but the better: choices that lead towards peace. Sometimes they are choices for the worse: decisions that lead towards war, and when people follow those choices.

I can’t help but observe that the Apostle Paul himself did not manage to live a quiet and peaceable life. It was a life, I think we’d have to say, directed towards godliness. It was a life in which he insisted upon his own dignity and those of other followers of Christ. But it was a life that led him into conflict over and over and over again with those in authority. It was a life that led to a martyr’s death at the orders of the Emperor of Rome.

I have no doubt that he raised his supplications and prayers, that he gave thanks for the good decisions of the officials that he ran into, but I also have no doubt that, well, not everybody in those communities did the things that were needful so that they and their neighbors could live peaceful and quiet lives. And certainly not all of the rulers that he encountered did so — definitely not the last.

Let us continue to raise our prayers. Let us continue to hold those in authority in prayer, not because they are doing what God wants, but because they can be a part of doing what God wants.

And let us continue to pray for one another that we might live and thrive in communities of quiet and peace, lives in which we might live faithfully, lives in which we might maintain our dignity.

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: 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: Pride of Place

Jesus’ advice to wait until people of power and influence notice you won’t help you get wealth or status in the world. It will help you build a relationship with God.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the fourteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 14:1, 7-14), in which Jesus shared a Sabbath meal at the invitation of a leader of the Pharisees.

This wasn’t terribly uncommon in Jesus’ life. He was a respected and well known teacher. As he traveled, the leaders of the local synagogues (who would have been out of the Pharisaic tradition): they wanted to meet him. They wanted to talk with him. They wanted to learn from him. They probably wanted to argue with him — because that’s what Jewish leaders did in the first century, was have conversations and discussions and arguments about the theological and spiritual questions of the day.

So Jesus accepted the invitation and he watched as other guests found their appropriate places around the tables in the room. It was a hierarchical society (ours is more hierarchical than we like to admit), and so people knew what their place was, at least in a social setting such as a Sabbath meal.

Jesus reminded them of a piece of wisdom that came out of the ancient Hebrew Wisdom tradition, that when you are invited to a banquet go and sit in a lower place than your social standing would entitle you to, so that your host may then invite you to come higher. Jesus followed that, however, with a somewhat different set of advice. Instead of inviting your social equals or your social superiors to a dinner, invite the poor. Invite the disabled. Invite the people who cannot invite you back. Invite the people who cannot improve your social standing.

That, said Jesus, is the way to gain credit, favor, with God.

I have to say that as advice for gaining social, economic, vocational, or political success in the twenty-first century, it’s terrible advice. If you go and sit far away from those in power, those in power will happily ignore you. Those in power —we’ve all seen this — they favor those who are in their face, who are noisy, who are obvious, who make themselves known.

Jesus’ point was that that is not how it is with God. God sees each and every one of us with a clarity that we cannot equal, a clarity that we cannot imagine. So God knows those who are quiet just as well as God knows those who are obvious. God knows those who are humble as well as or even better than those who are prideful.

If you want material success, it’s terrible advice. If you want a depth of spirit, if you want the opportunity to open your heart to God, if you want to follow the way of Jesus, then it is the advice to follow, these are the things to do. You will be seen by God. You will be called close to Jesus’ heart.

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: Sabbath Liberation

Jesus healed out of compassion, but he grounded his arguments for healing in liberation.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the thirteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 13:10-17), in which Jesus healed a woman in a synagogue on the Sabbath day. The healing itself is reasonably straightforward. Luke described the woman as having been afflicted by a spirit that had bent her over for eighteen years. Jesus called her over, laid a hand upon her, and she stood up straight.

Often these stories appear in the gospels because somebody objects, and that’s the case here. The leader of the synagogue said to Jesus that there are six days in the week in which to do work, and one day in which to rest and to honor God. That is, indeed, one of the Ten Commandments.

now let it be understood that in first century Judaism there was a clear understanding that care and compassion, works of care and compassion, were consistent with the Sabbath day. In particular, acts which saved human life were not just allowed but encouraged, whatever day of the week it might happen to be.

Jesus could have argued from that that healing this woman on the Sabbath day was consistent with the understanding that doing good for human beings was allowed, was permitted, was encouraged on the Sabbath. Jesus approached it from a very different angle, however.

Another thing that was permitted on the Sabbath was to untie domestic animals so that they could get to their food and their water. To leave animals tied up for the twenty-four hours of the Sabbath, that would have been cruel. It would have been inhumane.

Jesus said this woman has been bound by this spirit for eighteen years. Is it not consistent with the Sabbath, is it not consistent with the grace of God, to free her from what has confined her, whatever day of the week it might be? Is not the Sabbath a time to set people free?

And everybody, including the leader of the synagogue, approved of his words.

it is always time to provide deliverance to people.

It is important to understand what deliverance looks like to them. Not everybody who is bent over considers themselves bound; not everybody who has a disability wants to be “freed” from it. Oh, yes, they would like to be liberated from pain, and I’m sure they would like to be liberated from the casual disregard so many people show to disabled people.

But it’s not just folks with disabilities. It’s folks who are oppressed for one reason or another: whether it be out of poverty, whether it be because of a mental illness, whether it be because they’re homeless, whether it be because they have the wrong gender, or the wrong affections, whether they have the wrong skin color, or the wrong heritage.

We need to free people — we need to make sure all people are free from these kinds of bonds. There is no need to retain the shackles of prejudice for any time or any space, especially our houses of worship.

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

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

What I’m Thinking: The Effect of Faith

In telling the story of faithful people over the centuries, the author of Hebrews told of people who gained much and of people who lost much. What is the effect of faith?

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the end of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and the first two verses of chapter twelve (Hebrews 11:29-12:2).

Hebrews is not an easy book. The author confronted a disconnect between the emerging practices of the Christian Church there in the first century, and the vast majority of the people that surrounded them, including certain sects of Judaism but definitely including the vast majority of those who were worshipping the Roman or the Greek gods. The difference was the practice of sacrifice.

The author of Hebrews argued that sacrifice had, through its entire practice, been a symbolic one. That is, it represented a deeper reality of the relationship between God and human beings. The author of Hebrews called it faith: the reliance upon God to create a reality that it was even greater than the one that people currently lived in.

In this section, the author listed a large number of people who had trusted in God. Some of them had obtained great good fortune. They had become monarchs; they had received the resurrection of their loved ones. Others? Well, they didn’t do so well. They suffered tortures; they suffered execution. They came to sad places in the desert to live out their days.

“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,” wrote the author of Hebrews, let us hold firm into that same faith.

It’s a puzzling passage, in great part because how is one supposed to understand the effectiveness of faith or even the effect of faith? If people of faith over the centuries had both attained great heights and been dropped into deep pits, what is the worth of faith? If so many great names of faith had not seen the fulfillments of their hopes, and that we (in the author of Hebrews day) are the ones experiencing the fulfillment of faith, then what is the effect of faith? What was the effect of faith for all of them?

Two thousand years later I have to look at this and say there was certainly a fulfillment of faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but we still live in “the already and the not yet” — the already of God’s care and compassion and love for us; and the not yet of a world of peace and justice and harmony. Whatever we might want to say about the world, we cannot call it that.

So what is the effect of faith? I would argue that the effect of faith is to keep us in relationship with God, an active, ongoing, real, and deepening relationship, not simply one of bringing occasional gifts to some sort of transactional deity that vaguely promises that everything will be OK. Instead, the practice of faith, the discipline of prayer, these are the things that hold us closer to God, that that bring us closer to God, that buttress our hopes, that strengthen our limbs and our minds for the tasks which will in the end help us and the others working with us to build that world that God has promised.

It is always the already. It is always the not yet, at least, until the end of time.

But in that relationship with God, we can see our hopes fulfilling as we work, as we pray, and as we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

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.