St. Andrew Presbyterian Church
  • Home
  • New Here?
    • Belonging Here
    • Contact Us
    • Directions
  • Who We Are
    • Stories
    • About Our Ministries
    • Leadership
    • Staff
    • Manantial de Vida Congregation
  • Worship
    • Worship in Absentia
    • Sermons
    • Get Involved >
      • Choirs and Music
      • Social Groups
      • Community Service
      • Missions >
        • NICHE
        • Gulfport Mississippi 2008
        • Honduras 2012
        • Honduras 2015
        • Honduras 2018 >
          • NPH 2018 photos
      • Christian Formation
      • Sustainable Living
      • Youth Group
    • Aftertalk
  • Happenings
    • Calendar
    • Newsletter
    • News >
      • News
  • Give
  • File Cabinet
    • Donations - Electronic
    • Clerks Drawer
    • Elder/Deacon Resources
    • Policies and Procedures
    • Personnel and Budget Drawer
    • Media
    • Members & Metrics
    • Sunday Roles
    • Directory & Deacons' Lists

Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B

3/14/2021

0 Comments

 

Scott Anderson

Numbers 21:4-9 † Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 † Ephesians 2:1-10 † John 3:14-20
​A video version of this sermon can be found here.

​I’m sure you’ve noted in the news that we have passed another important milestone this week. We have now spent a full year with this pandemic, with its limitations on our movement and interaction with one another. Our last in-person worship was March 8th, 2020. On that date the US had marked 22 deaths from Covid-19. None of us have been unaffected by the strains of this past year. Few of us have been untouched by the sting of death.
​
What would we have thought, what would we have done differently if we knew at that moment that just a year later well over half a million of us would be dead from the disease in the United States and 2.6 million souls world-wide? How would we have acted differently?

I suppose we in the Seattle area have a unique perspective on this having been hit first and hardest. I’m sure you’ve seen the article first published in the New York Times noting that had the rest of the country followed the lead of Washington as many as 300,000 of our neighbors—grandparents and farmworkers and health professionals—might still be alive.[i]

Read More
0 Comments

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B

12/20/2020

0 Comments

 

Scott Anderson

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 † Luke 1:46b-55 † Romans 16:25-27 † Luke 1:26-38
A video version of this sermon can be found here.

Would it surprise you to know that this story from Second Samuel, this story of the victorious King David, now settled in his reign, now looking to build a permanent temple for God did not actually come together at a time when “the king was settled in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him”? Would it surprise you to know that it came about much later, during captivity in Babylon, when the temple that David’s son Solomon ultimately built for the LORD lay in ruins along with much of the civilization Israel had known at its peak, when the best and the brightest and the most privileged of Israel’s citizens had been forced to resettle as refugees in a foreign land? Would it surprise you to know that it came about when there was no rest, no house, and no king?[i]
​
Perhaps it doesn’t surprise you. Perhaps it surprises you no more than knowing the story of Mary and the angel Gabriel was written down a full generation or two later, at a time when this one whose birth is foretold, this Jesus the Messiah had been executed as an enemy of the state and the church, and this miraculous child John, of the eighty-something year-old Elizabeth, had been beheaded, and when the very structure of Jewish life that serves as the backdrop to this story had been undercut, when there was once again no rest, no house, and no king.

What is it about this hope of ours, that it seems to thrive when things are unfinished, that it seems to flourish most in trouble, in suffering, and in need? What is it about this mysterious faith of ours, that it is strongest, according to Romans, when revealed after long ages of being kept secret? What is it about this love of ours, that it is made perfect in weakness?

Read More
0 Comments

Sermon - 1st Sunday in Advent

12/1/2013

 

Scott Anderson

Today’s Scripture:
Isaiah 2:1-5 • Romans 13:11-14 • Matthew 24:36-44

Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. It is Isaiah’s invitation to Jacob’s house, and our own house too. It is a good word as our flight through the cosmos on this spinning planet promises even longer nights, before we begin the journey in a few weeks back toward the light. Let us walk in the light of the Lord.

So we in the Northern hemisphere become more and more aware at this time of year of the value of the light. We are mindful of the importance of our sight, of our need for lamps to illumine our way, of light to show us the path in the darkness.

Let’s say it another way. Advent is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. No doubt we want to fly toward Christmas, avoid this season of uncertainty and move toward that instant gratification that Christmas and all our carols preach. But it isn’t the whole story, and we know it.

Read More

    St. Andrew Sermons

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Advocacy
    Allegory
    All Saints
    Annie Dillard
    Anti Racism
    Anti-Racism
    Ash Wednesday
    Auden
    Authority
    Baptism
    Beatitudes
    #BlackLivesMatter
    Bones
    Catechumenate
    Center Of Hope
    Christian Formation
    Christian Hope
    Christmas
    Clarity
    Climate Change
    Communion
    Compassion
    Confession
    Courage
    Creation Care
    Creative Process
    CS Lewis
    Dance
    Deacons
    Dealing With Death
    Desmond Tutu
    Despair
    Discernment
    Easter
    Economics
    Fairy Tales
    Faith
    Faithfulness
    Fecundity
    Footwashing
    Forgiveness
    Frederich Buechner
    Fred Rogers
    Generosity
    Godspell
    Good Friday
    Grace
    Gratitude
    Greatness
    Guns
    Hans Rosling
    Home
    Honduras
    Hope
    Housing
    Hulie Wigmen
    Incarnation
    Jan Dittmar
    Jimmy Nelson
    Judgment
    Julie Kae Sigars
    Justice
    Leadership
    Leigh Weber
    Lent
    Life In Christ
    Linda Ferguson
    Living In The Light
    Longing
    Love
    Maggie Breen
    Maundy Thursday
    Memory
    #MeToo
    Miracles
    Moral Injury
    Neighborliness
    New Life
    Newness Of Life
    Nicodemus
    NPH
    Palm Sunday
    Parables
    Peacemaking
    Pentecost
    People's Campaign
    Photography
    Poetry
    Pope Francis
    PTSD
    Rainer Maria Rilke
    REACH
    Reformation (New)
    Reign Of Christ
    Resilience
    Richard Powers
    Righteousness
    Robin Wall Kimmerer
    Role Of The Church
    Scott Anderson
    Security
    Sermon On The Mount
    Sermon On The Plain
    Sin
    Singing
    Social Media
    Solidarity
    Spiritual Formation
    Steadfast Love
    Temptation
    The Church
    Timothy Egan
    Transfiguration
    Trinity
    Tse-whit-zen
    Wendell Berry
    White Supremacy
    Wonder



​WORSHIP

Sunday 10am

PHONE:
425-272-5836


​OFFICE HOURS
Wednesday and Thursday
10AM-12PM 
                                        

  • Home
  • New Here?
    • Belonging Here
    • Contact Us
    • Directions
  • Who We Are
    • Stories
    • About Our Ministries
    • Leadership
    • Staff
    • Manantial de Vida Congregation
  • Worship
    • Worship in Absentia
    • Sermons
    • Get Involved >
      • Choirs and Music
      • Social Groups
      • Community Service
      • Missions >
        • NICHE
        • Gulfport Mississippi 2008
        • Honduras 2012
        • Honduras 2015
        • Honduras 2018 >
          • NPH 2018 photos
      • Christian Formation
      • Sustainable Living
      • Youth Group
    • Aftertalk
  • Happenings
    • Calendar
    • Newsletter
    • News >
      • News
  • Give
  • File Cabinet
    • Donations - Electronic
    • Clerks Drawer
    • Elder/Deacon Resources
    • Policies and Procedures
    • Personnel and Budget Drawer
    • Media
    • Members & Metrics
    • Sunday Roles
    • Directory & Deacons' Lists