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Baptism of the Lord, Year B

1/10/2021

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Scott Anderson

Genesis 1:1-5 † Psalm 29 † Acts 19:1-7 † Mark 1:4-11
​
A video version of this sermon can be found here.
​Johann Friedrich Blumenbach had an obsession with skulls. He was a collector and gathered them from all over the world. It wasn’t just a passing fancy, though—if we might call such a hobby “fancy.” He was a physician and he was working to classify and value them. He wanted to determine who was supreme in all of humanity.

​Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson tells the story in her new book Caste with, after the events of this week, it’s especially telling subtitle, “The Origins of Our Discontents.”  I’m grateful to Maggie Breen for suggesting this resource to me.
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32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 27), Year A

11/8/2020

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Scott Anderson

Amos 5:18-24 † Psalm 70 † 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 † Matthew 25:1-13
​A video version of this sermon can be found here.

Keep awake! That’s the message Jesus draws from this murky story in Matthew right before the parable of the talents which we’ll see next Sunday.
​
There’s all this detail in the story—a bridegroom, but no bride anywhere to be found; lamps (which are really torches) and oil. Five brought oil, the other five didn’t. It’s not that they didn’t bring enough, they just didn’t bring any, or maybe they didn’t have any. And apparently there’s an all-night oil shop open somewhere down the road. All ten bridesmaids--virgins actually, fall asleep, by the way. All of them. The bridegroom arrives late, seriously late, and five make it into the party and five are shut out.
And Jesus tells his listeners to keep awake.
The Kingdom of heaven is like…what, exactly? What are we to take from this?

Lynn Miller in her blog Art & Faith Matters links us to this lovely story of the cranes told by Pliny. Yes, Pliny the Elder was more than just a beer!
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27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 22, Year A

10/4/2020

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Scott Anderson

Isaiah 5:1-7 † Psalm 80:7-15 † Philippians 3:4b-14 † Matthew 21:33-46

​Long before our country was founded, this land belonged to the many indigenous tribes who had lived here for thousands of years. The tribes had their own customs and laws. They were deeply connected to the land and maintained rich wisdom traditions that were lost on the Europeans who came to conquer and colonize to sow a trail of tears through the continent. It is also true, of course, that even before European colonization, they fought one another. They were not unfamiliar with the cycles of violence we often find ourselves trapped in.
​
One of the reasons for the constant conflict was a practice known as “mourning wars.” Tribal people had come to believe that the only way they could ease their pain when someone they loved was killed was to return like for like, to take revenge—to kill people from the offending tribe.

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26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 21, Year A

9/27/2020

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Scott Anderson

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 † Psalm 25:1-9 † Philippians 2:1-13 † Matthew 21:23-32

Some of the most striking painted rock art in the world is found in the sea caves of Norway’s western coastline. They are located in wild, remote, Arctic areas where peaks plunge into the ocean, hammered by ice and wave actions over millennia.
There are twelve such painted caves, containing around 170 simple stick figures, arms and legs stretched wide as if they are dancing or leaping. These are different that the far more common petroglyphs which have been carved into rock here and throughout the world by the ancients. These are paintings, made using iron oxide pigment, daubed using fingers or brushes some two to three thousand years ago by Bronze Age hunter-gatherer-fisher people who made their lives along an isolated coastline. The art that they made was preserved in remote caves in wild places.

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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 20, Year A

9/20/2020

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Scott Anderson

Jonah 3:10-4:11 † Psalm 145:1-8 † Philippians 1:21-30 † Matthew 20:1-16
You can find a video copy of this sermon in the context of worship here.

They are both right, aren’t they? This is no case of fake news. It’s just a problem with perception and location and what’s fair.
​
The laborers who were hired first thing in the morning, who went out and put in their twelve hours under the hot sun cannot abide that they are paid the same as those last to join the party, who work an hour at best—and get just as much. It is not fair. Or, to be more precise, it is not equitable. This is true.
And yet, the landowner has an equally valid point, doesn’t he? Did I not keep our agreement? We negotiated for the usual day’s wage at the beginning. This is what I’ve given you. How have I wronged you?
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23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 18, Year A

9/6/2020

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Scott Anderson

Ezekiel 33:7-11 † Psalm 119:33-40 † Romans 13:8-14 † Matthew 18:15-20
You can find a video copy of this sermon in the context of worship here.
​
Daniel Kirk, has given his expertise to studying early Christianity, particularly as it is represented by the apostle Paul. Kirk attends two churches on Sundays: a traditional Reformed Church in America and a house church—well, he did before the pandemic. Kirk has shifted his definition of church from what we do to who we are together. “Church is the people I’m trying to follow Jesus with and the people who are following Jesus with me. It’s the intentional community of people who walk in self-giving love for each other while trusting themselves to the care of God.”[i]

I am especially struck and convicted by that last phrase--trusting themselves to the care of God. Richard Rohr gets at this when he suggests Jesus praised faith even more than love.
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Now, both are pretty important, it seems. Especially in these polarized times. I remember visiting Cuba some years ago. We traveled on a religious visa with the Presbyterian church and spent much of our time with the First Presbyterian Church Havana community.

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18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 13, Year A

8/2/2020

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Scott Anderson

 Isiah 55:1-5 † Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21 † Romans 9:1-5 † Matthew 14:13-21

Eric Law, the episcopal priest tells the story of his childhood table. It was always full—family, friends, travelers. Twelve or more was not unusual. Dinners were stuffed with stories and laughter.
As you might imagine, as a kid, seeing this table, Law just assumed they were rich. As he grew older, he discovered this was not the case. His mother was very resourceful, a bargain shopper, to be sure, but even that did not explain the miracle of their table. Law recalls the particular way they dealt with leftovers as a window into the truth:

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11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 6), Year A

6/14/2020

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Maggie Breen

 Exodus 19:2-8a † Psalm 100 † Romans 5:1-8 † Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)
A video version of this sermon can be found here.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

Ordinary people. Middle eastern men compelled by the words and the actions of Jesus.

Something happens when we say a person’s name.  We remember their humanity. 

Perhaps it’s the names of people we have placed on a pedestal: Andrew, James, Mary, Tabitha.

We say their names and we remember – human just like us.

Perhaps it’s the names of people brutalized: Emmett, Trayvon, George, Charlene.

We say their names and we remember – human just like us.

Human with gifts and hopes.  Humans: beloved of God.

There is a phrase in this week’s gospel that with some other phrases in these sacred texts have been used by Christians over time to set humans apart.  

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Trinity Sunday, Year A

6/7/2020

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Scott Anderson

Genesis 1:1-2:4a † Psalm 8 † 2 Corinthians 13:11-12 † Matthew 28:16-20​

​​You may want to grab onto something and hold on for the next couple of minutes. This may be a bumpy ride, but worth it, I hope. We’ve been talking a lot these past few weeks since the death of George Floyd about systemic racism, and systems of oppression and privilege.
​
This language may be new for some of us, and old hat for others, but I suspect it is a value for all of us, every now and then, to remember our story in the United States as one way of understanding these systems that support white supremacy. Here we go.[i]

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Third Sunday of Easter, Year A

4/26/2020

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Scott Anderson

Acts 2:14a, 36-41 † Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19 † 1 Peter 1:17-23 † Luke 24:13-35

For over 1400 days—nearly four years—between 1992 and 1996, the city of Sarajevo was under siege. One study of the survivors found that many had developed a super-heightened sense of spatial awareness—a skill for evading bullets or bombs, a skill that they carried with them throughout their lives.

“People, during times of prolonged, radical change, end up changing,” said the study’s author[i] in an article this week that takes an early run at how we might be changed on the other side of this pandemic. It makes sense. We are an adaptable species. We grow and change according to requirements on the ground, in the environment, or just at home in these times.

Not surprisingly, studies from previous outbreaks—SARS, Ebola and swine flu—showed almost universal spikes in anxiety, depression and anger. But they also found that people acted to regain a sense of autonomy and control. People worked on their diet. They read more news. They made art. Who knows, maybe they made masks.

You may remember those Sarajevo roses we showed you some months ago in the “before times.”

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