Sermons
Sermon: It’s About Love
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Our text this week is John’s version of Jesus in Gethsemane. It’s as if John were reading Mark’s Gospel, where it says, “They went to a place called Gethsemane; … And he said to [his disciples], “I am deeply grieved…” …he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. John read Mark’s story and said, “Why would Jesus waver? He knew what was coming.” And so, as John told this story, Jesus did not waver. When he told it, it came out this way, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” Last month I was in Gethsemane. It is where it has always been, at the foot of the hill that ascends to the Temple Mount. There is a rock on the floor. They say that that is where he broke down and wept, where he prayed not to have to die. Gethsemane is a real place. It’s at the foot of every mountain we know we must climb. Sometimes we waver and must pray and pray before we take the next step. Sometimes we simply know and go.
Sermon: It’s About Grace
Rev. Chandler Stokes
My colleague Leanne Pearce Reed wrote: In the “dread-inducing age” our fear is heightened because there are those who profit from our fear. There are those who have a stake in keeping us afraid. Media outlets know that frightening headlines and scary stories sell, and so “if it bleeds, it leads.” Marketers tap into our fears so they can sell us a product to calm that fear, and so gun and ammunition sales spike after each mass shooting… Gary Wills sees the gun…as our Moloch. He notes that few crimes are more harshly forbidden in the Old Testament than sacrifice to the god Moloch in which living children were consumed in the offering fires. He wrote: “The gun is our Moloch. We sacrifice children to him daily—sometimes, as at Sandy Hook, by directly throwing them into the fire-hose of bullets from out protected private killing machines… The gun is not a mere tool… it is an object of reverence. Adoration of Moloch permeates the country…” So, Sunday, maybe we can find a kind of courage and trust to live differently in this dread-inducing age.
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Sermon: And Then, There’s Weakness
Rev. Jen Porter
As the mission and vision team listened to the congregation, one of the things that emerged was a sense of our faith urging us not to be comfortable, but to also take risks. Voices spoke to an openness to do so at this time in the life of our congregation. What might we step into which isn't necessarily known? Part of the potential cost of doing so is the potential for shame, rejection, failure or pain. This week, we open ourselves to the cross as it speaks into our lives.
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Sermon: It’s About Trust
Rev. Chandler Stokes
This week’s text surely helps us see more clearly the lives of the faithful. Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” And Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. It seems he kept to Jesus’s path, as this text outlines. It is a word that calls for deep trust.
Sermon: Humility
Rev. Chandler Stokes
This morning at dawn I saw the last finger-nail of the waning moon. Immediately, I was transported back to a time about 12 years ago, when I was visiting my mother on her 90th birthday. My mission in going to see her that weekend was to be who I was at 50, not who I was at 5 or 15--to give her that self and not juvenile one. You know how it is: when we go home we fall back into the roles we had growing up, and we abandon any growth we may have made in the interim. I found that role of my childhood and adolescence deeply fearful and confining, but that one weekend, at the age of 50, I finally found a deeper keel, a way to be who I had become in relation to my family—and not simply who I had always been. On my trip to Israel I learned this insight about humility from the Jewish tradition of Mussar: No more than my space, no less than my place.
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Sermon: Changed
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Last Tuesday, I was in Caesarea-Philippi in Israel at a waterfall that currently bears the name Banias Falls. It is near the spot where Jesus asked the question of the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Our guide, Uri, said, “If any steps could be kissed on our pilgrimage, here is where they would be. Anyone who walked through here would have come here to these falls. If someone were walking through this area, they would have come here. It’s the most beautiful spot along this stretch of the river. It really makes sense that Jesus, if he were in this area at all, would have come here, and maybe have gone swimming like I did when I came here when I lived near here." I admit, I felt a twinge of the sacred and thought: "As real as the place where Jesus walked is this question, asked to each of us: Who do you say that I am?" This is our question about our real lives.
Sermon: Live Connected: With God, Your Neighbor, and Your Truest Self
Westminster Youth Group
"Since Fall, our liturgy has included the line, 'And so you may live connected to God, your neighbor, and your own truest life, may the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.'" In Sunday morning worship and Sunday evening youth group, we've been exploring our deep need for connection. It only made sense then that our Youth Sunday theme would be inspired by our year-long focus. Join us this Sunday for worship planned and led by our middle school and high school youth as we wonder together how we are being drawn deeper into relationship with God, our neighbor, and our truest self."
Sermon: Leading With Hope
Rev. David Baak
Mark 1.21-28 has Jesus teaching so persuasively that people recognize the intrinsic authority of his words. But, the miracle of casting out the demon from the man who completely disrupts their service makes an equally authoritative statement about the transformative power of hope. It is the kind of hope that, as Bryan Stevenson suggests in Just Mercy, “...that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future….” It is the kind of hope “that makes one strong.” It also makes for compelling leadership.
Sermon: Called
Rev. Chandler Stokes
In the second reading this week, two disciples state their bold willingness to follow Jesus. And Jesus asks them, “Can you really walk this path with me?” And they say, “Sure.” little knowing where that path will take them. And yet, their willingness, their partially informed, imperfect, shaky, “Sure,” is enough for God to work with…
Sermon: Dreamers
Kyle Nolan
Samuel comes on the scene at a time when "The word of the Lord was rare” and "visions were not widespread.” The emphasis is on the dimming light, the loss of vision, when God shows and speaks a new word. That word has to do with an ending: the judgment of the house of Eli. But sometimes endings are the hardest thing to imagine, and the most necessary thing for a new world to be born.
Sermon: Beloved
Rev. Chandler Stokes
In the particular way that Mark tells the story of Jesus’ baptism, the information, the message that Jesus receives from the heavenly voice is, at first and for a long time, something only he is given, that only he knows. The voice speaks directly to him; he’s the one that sees the heavens split and the dove. That can be the way we experience that baptismal message too. We are often required to trust something that is not verified by many other source—maybe not everybody thinks that we’re a child of God; we sure don’t get treated like that all the time. It makes it difficult to believe the message, given all the other messages that we are constantly given from elsewhere.
Sermon: The Art of Undoing
Rev. Jeremy Bork
In the face of holiday busyness, to-do lists, and New Year's resolutions, our texts this Sunday invite us to resist the temptation of doing so we might simply be. Rather than adding more to our lives this year, what might God be inviting us to release? How might our slowing down lead us into deeper communion with God, neighbor, and self?
Sermon: Not Impossible
Rev. Chandler Stokes
The sermon in the morning is called “Not Impossible”—it is an awkward, though literal, translation of the angel’s promise to Mary: All things will be not impossible with God. Fred Craddock says that this verse the creed behind all other creeds. “The church should recite it often,” he says, “not only at the manger, not only at the empty tomb, but on any occasion when the church reflects on its own life, joy, and hope.” Join us while we reflect on that life, joy, and hope.
Sermon: Longing with Expectation
Rev. Chandler Stokes
There’s a little airstrip in Garberville, California, where we used to live. The runway is maybe 3,500 feet long. Cessnas and Piper Cubs could land on it easily. The runways at San Francisco International Airport are some 12,000 feet long. You can land any commercial airliner on them. You would not want to land a jumbo jet in Garberville. And, as long as there is no way prepared for those jets, we don’t have to worry about one landing there. But if you want to let something big in, you’ve got quite a runway to prepare.
Sermon: Longing for Love
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Three years ago, Westminster introduced the Mental Health Referral Panel, which is a community resource for finding appropriate mental health support. After three years that program has grown significantly, and I want to remind us of this valuable resource for both members and non-members. There is money available and therapists, whom we deeply trust.
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