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Recent Sermons
Not every Sunday service includes a sermon preached from text. If there is not text available you may call the church office at 303-762-0616 for an audio recording of any service. - January 15, 2012 - Anne Kleinkopf, Here I Am (pdf), 1 Samuel 3:1-10.
- December 18, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Thought on Sowing at the Solstice (pdf).
- December 11, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, God vs. Religion (pdf), John 1:6-8, 19-28.
- December 4, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Lost at Home (pdf), Mark 1:1-8.
Sermon from January 15, 2012, delivered by Anne Kleinkopf.
“Here I Am”
1 Samuel 3: 1 – 10
This Sunday marks the beginning of what the church calendar calls “ordinary time.” It is the time between the great emotional peaks of the church year: the joyous festival of Christmas has ended, and the giddy celebration of Easter has not yet begun.
And “ordinary time” is pretty much what our lives feel like right now as well. We’ve packed up the bright decorations and tossed out the shiny wrapping; the echoes of the Christmas carols have faded away; and our houses and our lives have returned to their usual, unexciting routine. This is the time between Christmas and Easter, between birth and death – it is ordinary time, the time and the mode in which we spend the vast majority of our ordinary lives. It is the time when, as our scripture reading says, the word of the Lord is rarely heard and visions are not widespread.
And yet, by choosing this passage from First Samuel as the scripture lesson for today, the church is also reminding us that ordinary time is precisely the time when God is insistently calling to us. Ordinary time, the mundane and unremarkable circumstances of our daily lives, is the time when we must wake up -- we must rub the sleep out of our eyes and the boredom out of our brains, and be alert to the extraordinary things that are simmering within our workaday world. This scripture reading, placed at the very threshold of ordinary time, is intended as a challenge to us: a challenge to believe, to imagine, and to live as though “God with us” is not something that happens only at Christmas and then gets packed away with the decorations until next December, but rather that “God with us” is happening here and now, and is happening all the time in all of the heres and nows of the ordinary times of our ordinary lives.
How can that be? What sense can that possibly make for us good, twenty-first century progressive Christians, rationalists and realists that we are? Isn’t the call of God really for those other guys, for the Tim Tebows and the Michelle Bachmans? Aren’t we too smart, too sophisticated to believe in that sort of thing?
No, thank God, we’re not. But we may need a different framework of understanding for this language of call to come alive for us, for it to strike a spark in our rational, secular lives. Let me offer you one such different framework in this story:
Many centuries ago, the Jewish philosopher and mystic, Isaac Luria, reimagined the myth of God’s creation of the world. And by “myth” here I mean, not a scientifically implausible tale with an outmoded worldview, but rather a narrative that resonates with deeper and more mysterious truths than can ever be contained in a merely realistic account of things. And the creation myth that Luria told was this:
At the time of the creation of the world, God took God’s own divine light and gave it to the world encased in a beautiful vessel. But the divine light was too vast, too powerful, too resplendent for any container ever to hold it; So the vessel shattered in a dazzling supernova, and the divine light splintered into an infinity of tiny shards; the force of the explosion propelled the shards of divine light into every corner of creation and drove them deep into every particle of time and space. And as a result of that explosion, everything in the universe – everything: each piece of matter, each moment of time, you, me, that guy out panhandling on the highway exit - everything contains a spark of divine light, hidden beneath the crust of its ordinary exterior. So as we pass through our ordinary lives, we are surrounded by sparks of divine life; but we cannot generally see them because they are crusted over, hidden by dirt, by disbelief, by misuse, by indifference, by ignorance, by the ills and habits and hurts of workaday living. Our calling as human beings, both as individuals and as communities – our highest vocation which brings the greatest degree of meaning and fulfillment to our lives – is to find and reveal the divine sparks that are hidden in everything and everyone around us, and to bring those sparks together into a single divine fire that will once again light the world. Isaac Luria named this task and this calling of finding and nurturing the divine light in all things “tikkun olam” – the healing of the world.
For us twenty-first century folk, whose minds and imaginations are buried deep beneath a hard crust of ‘isms’ – skepticism, materialism, rationalism, consumerism – this healing must begin with ourselves. If we wish to hear the call of God, to experience the divine spark, we must break away from own impoverished expectations and diminished ways of relating to our world. We must wipe our eyes, unclog our ears, expose our hearts; we must clear away the clutter of things and the clangor and distractions of our electronic addictions; we must remove and put away the self-imposed armor of hurt, cynicism and despair. We must allow ourselves to be present – really present, attentive with our whole being – to ourselves and to the pulsing, wondrous world around us; we must listen with care to the promptings and stirrings of our own hearts; and we must be still and say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
And when we attend in this way, exposed and expectant, awaiting the quick flare or the warm glow of the divine light – something extraordinary happens. The shards of divine light begin to shimmer and gleam within the ashes and dust of our ordinary lives.
We see them in the fresh snow frosting a bare tree, and in the smile and wave of a neighbor. We hear them in the laugh of a child, and the cry of the wild geese flying overhead. We feel them in the touch of a friend’s hand, and taste them in a slab of warm, fresh-baked bread. In the everyday happenings of the everyday world in which we stand and live, right here, right now, we begin to see the divine spark, to feel the divine warmth, to hear the divine voice. And we begin to wake to the dawning reality that our ordinary lives in this ordinary time hold far more than we have ever hoped or dreamed or dared to imagine. Our ordinary lives are in fact extraordinary because they – our lives and our world -- are saturated with the sacred.
But there is more to it even than that. When we wake to this most extraordinary of realities – the reality that we are embedded in and interwoven into a world that is charged through with divine light and divine life – then we also wake up to the meaning of our own lives. We become acutely and blessedly aware of the profound significance that each of our lives – yours and yours and yours and yours – has for the world. We, each of us and all of us, are called to heal the world. We are called by the divine voice to discover and nurture, to protect and magnify the divine light in every aspect and every encounter of the world around us.
For when we say “Here I am” – and say it with our whole being – we find that what fills us is an awestruck awareness of the beauty and divinity of the world, and of all things and beings in it. But when we say “Here I am,” we are also filled with a heartstruck awareness of the vulnerability and suffering of the world, and of all that conspires to suppress or injure or destroy that divinity. We are awestruck and heartstruck when we embrace those we love who are struggling with illness or age; when we look into the faces of the folks shivering in the breadline that we drive by each day on the way to work; and when we hear the despair in the voice of our neighbor who is still looking for work after months of unemployment.
And when we stand in this way, awestruck and heartstruck by the circumstances of our ordinary lives, we realize that the call of God is both a call to wondrous appreciation and gratitude, and also a call to relationship and responsibility. To say “Here I am” is to step up to our place in God’s world, to take responsibility for the vocation to which we are called – it is to step gladly into the love and care and healing of the world in which we find ourselves, here and now.
And this is not a call to some lessened life; it is not a call to don sackcloth and ashes, and ride around on a donkey. Just the opposite, in fact. It is a call to a fuller and truer life than we have ever imagined. Here – in this place of profoundest awareness, deepest love and broadest relatedness – here, we most truly are. When we say “Here I am,” we step onto the path that leads to our own truest identity, to our own richest life.
And this life is found – not amid the trumpets and processions and gilded decorations of festival time – but amid the ordinary events in the ordinary time of our ordinary, extraordinary life.
Here I am.
Thanks be to God.
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Sermon Archives January 15, 2012 - Anne Kleinkopf, Here I Am (pdf), 1 Samuel 3:1-10.
December 18, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Thought on Sowing at the Solstice (pdf).
December 11, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, God vs. Religion (pdf), John 1:6-8, 19-28.
December 4, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Lost at Home (pdf), Mark 1:1-8.
November 27, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Wrestling (pdf), Isaiah 64:1-9.
November 20, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Beyond the Rhetoric (pdf), Matthew 25:31-46.
November 13, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, True Justice Is Intentional Mercy (pdf), Matthew 25:14-30.
November 6, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Facing the Fire (pdf), Matthew 5:1-12.
October 30, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Let it Burn (pdf).
October 16, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Beyond Our Idols (pdf), Exodus 32:1-14.
October 9 2011 - Rev. Peter Sawtell, Whatever is True (pdf), Philippians 4:1-9.
October 2, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Being Intentional (pdf), Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20.
September 25, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Is the Holy One Among Us or Not? (pdf), Exodus 17:1-7.
September 18, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Forty Years of Wandering (pdf), Exodus 16:2-15.
September 11, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Forgiveness (pdf), Matthew 18:21-35.
September 4, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Sermon (pdf).
August 7, 2011 - Rev. Judith Clausen, Faith Amidst Chaos (pdf).
July 31, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Wrestling (pdf), Genesis 32:22-31.
July 3, 2011 - The Thompson Family, America Voices (pdf).
June 19, 2011 - Rev. Dr. Stuart Haskins, The Faith of Joseph (pdf), Matthew 1:18-25.
June 12, 2011 - Rev. Lynn Vahle, What About Those Guys? (pdf), Numbers 11:24-30.
June 5, 2011 - Rev. Elizabeth Denham Thompson, Saying Goodbye (pdf), Acts 1:1-14.
May 29, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Spirit (pdf).
May 22, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Appalachian Trail (pdf).
May 15, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Religio (pdf).
May 1, 2011 - Rev. Eric Smith, Whole Earth Sunday Sermon (pdf).
April 24, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Easter Sermon.
April 10, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Deciding to Rise (pdf), John 11:1-45.
April 3, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Breaking Sin (pdf), John 9:1-41.
March 27, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Approaching the Well (pdf), John 4:5-42.
March 20, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Not Just Like Us...but Still Like God (pdf), John 3:1-17.
March 13, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Putting it Back Together (pdf), Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7.
March 6, 2011 - Youth Sunday, Mini Sermons Delivered by Members of Our Youth Group (pdf).
February 27, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, The Paradox of Trust, the Trust of Paradox (pdf), Matthew 6:24-34.
February 20, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Impossible Truth (pdf), Matthew 5:38-48.
February 13, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Spirit of Creation (pdf), Deuteronomy 30:15-20.
January 30, 2011 - Rev. Dr. Stuart Haskins, What's Wrong With Relevance? (pdf).
January 23, 2011 - Rev. George Anastos, Go and See (pdf), Matthew 4:12-23.
January 9, 2011 - Rev. Eric C. Smith, Evangelism (pdf), Matthew 3:13-17.
December 19, 2010 - Rev. Andrea LaSonde Anastos, 4th Sunday of Advent (pdf), Isaiah 7:10-16 & Luke 1:45-51.
December 12, 2010 - Rev. Elizabeth Denham Thompson, Desert Thunderstorm (pdf), Luke 1:46b-55 & Isaiah 35:1-10.
December 5, 2010 - Anne Kleinkopf, A New World is Born (pdf), Isaiah 11:1-10.
November 28, 2010 - Rev. Dr. Cathie Kelsey, Sermon (pdf).
October 31, 2010 - Reverend Eric Smith, Zacchaeus (pdf), Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15.
October 24, 2010 - Reverend Judith Clausen, The Great Reversal (pdf), Luke 18:9-14.
September 26, 2010 - Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15.
September 19, 2010 - Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Jeremiah 8:18 - 9:1.
August 29, 2010 - Reverend Eric Smith, A Theist Looks at the Bible (pdf), Job 38 and 39.
June 27, 2010 - Anne Kleinkopf, Life Abundant (pdf), Luke 6:27-38.
June 20, 2010 - Carole Westphal, An Athiest Looks at the Bible (pdf), I Kings 19:11-15a.
June 13, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Luke 7:36-8:3.
May 30, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Psalm 8.
May 23, 2010 - The Reverend Eric Smith, Chestnuts (pdf).
May 9, 2010 - The Reverend Andrea La Sonde, Healing Capacity.
April 18, 2010 - Anne Kleinkopf, Woundedness and Resurrection.
April 11, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), John 21:1-19.
April 4, 2010 - Easter Testimonia l by Ruth Neil.
March 28, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Cloak Sunday (pdf).
March 21, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Isiah 43:16-21.
February 21, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon
January 24, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), I Corinthians 12:12-31a and Luke 4:14-21.
January 17, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), I Corinthians 12:1-11.
January 10, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Zephaniah 3:14-20.
January 3, 2010 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Ephesians 3:1-12.
December 27, 2009 - The Reverend Eric Smith, Five Women (pdf), Matthew 1:1-17.
December 20, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Micah 5:2-5a.
December 6, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Malachi 3:1-4.
November 29, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Memorial Garden Rededication (pdf), John 18:33-37.
Thanksgiving, November 26, 2009 - The Reverend Andrea Anastos, Locusts and Lillies (pdf), Joel 2:21-27 and Matthew 6:25-33.
November 22, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), John 18:33-37.
November 8, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sacrificial Blood: Terrorism and Pacifism (pdf), Hebrews 9:23-28.
October 25, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Christian Considerations on Healthcare (pdf), Mark 10:46-52.
October 11, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Mark 10:17-31.
September 27, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29.
September 6, 2009 - The Reverend Eric Smith, Seeds (pdf), Luke 8:4-15.
August 23, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Ephesians 6:10-20.
August 16, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Knitted Together (pdf), Ephesians 4:1-16.
August 9, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 31-33 and Psalm 130.
July 26, 2009 - The Reverend George Anasots, An Urgent Prayer for This Age (pdf), Ephesians 3:14-21.
July 12, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Praise is Enough (pdf), Mark 6:14-29.
June 28, 2009 - Carole Westphal, In the Image of God? (pdf), Genesis 1:26-27, 2:4a-7.
May 24, 2009 - Ken Ingram, The Ascension of the Lord (pdf), Ephesians 1:15-23.
April 12, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Easter Sunday (pdf).
April 5, 2009 - Revs. George Anastos and Jane Anne Ferguson, Palm Sunday (pdf).
March 29, 2009 - Revs. George Anastos and Jane Anne Ferguson, Wednesday of Jesus' Last Week (pdf).
March 22, 2009 - Revs. George Anastos and Jane Anne Ferguson, Tuesday of Jesus' Last Week (pdf).
March 8, 2009 - Revs. George Anastos and Jane Anne Ferguson, Tuesday of Jesus' Last Week (pdf).
March 1, 2009 - Revs. George Anastos and Jane Ann Ferguson, Monday of Jesus' Last Week (pdf).
February 22, 2009 - The Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber, Transfiguration (pdf), Mark 9:2-9.
February 15, 2009 - The Reverend Stuart Haskins, Happy-Go-Lucky (pdf), 2 Kings: 5:1-14, Psalm 30.
February 1, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Prophets in Our Midst (pdf), Deuteronomy 18: 15-20.
January 18, 2009 - The Reverend George Anastos, Which One Will We Feed? (pdf), John 1:43-51.
January 11, 2009 - The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson; Vigilant, Vigorous and Vital (pdf); Mark 1:1-11.
Dec. 21, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, An Upside Down Christmas (pdf), Luke 1:46-55.
Dec. 14, 2008 - The Service of Lessons and Carols is not available here. Please email the church office or call 303-762-0616 if you would like a recording.
Dec. 7, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, Sermon (pdf), Isaiah 40:1-11.
Nov. 23, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, Now Thank We All Our God (pdf), Matthew 25:31-46.
Nov. 2, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, Entering the Promised Land Again for the Fist Time (pdf), Joshua 3:1-17.
Oct. 26, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, To Live for Lands Unseen (pdf), Deuteronomy 34:1-12.
Oct. 19, 2008 - The Reverend Eric Smith, Political Advertising (pdf), Matthew22:15-21.
Oct. 12, 2008 - The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Matthew 22:1-10, Luke 14:1,15-24, Thomas 64:1-12. The full text of this sermon is not available. Please email the church office or call 303-762-0616 if you would like a recording.
Oct. 5, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, The Law of Relationship (pdf), Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20.
Sep. 28, 2008 - The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, A Little Jesus Goes a Long Way (pdf), Philippians 2:1-11.
Sep. 21, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, We Were Never Promised it Would Be Easy (pdf), Exodus 16:2-15.
Sep. 14, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, Only One Way Left to Go (pdf), Exodus 14:19-31.
Sep. 7, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, The Self-Taught Sermon, Matthew 18:15-20. The full text of this sermon is not available. Please email the church office or call 303-762-0616 if you would like a recording.
Aug. 31, 2008 - The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, Afflicting the Comfortable (pdf), Romans 12:1-2, 9-21.
Aug. 24, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, How Likely is That (pdf), Exodus 1:8-2:10.
Aug. 17, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, Families (pdf), Genesis 45:1-15.
Aug. 10, 2008 - The Reverend George Anastos, Humble Audacity (pdf), Genesis 32:23-31.
July 27, 2008 - The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, Parables at a Great Price (pdf), Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52. (pdf), John 5:1-9. (pdf), John 20:19-31. (pdf), Luke 4:1-13. (pdf), Luke 19:28-40.
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