Second on the Mount

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; Hebrews 10:24
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 27, 2026.
"Goodness is usually less visible than harm because it is cumulative and ordinary and doesn’t normally make the news. A corrupt institution can produce dramatic events that shock us. A healthy community may spend generations quietly forming people—parents raising children, teachers teaching students, churches nurturing faith, neighbors caring for neighbors. The result can be enormous, but there is rarely a single dramatic moment when you can point and say, 'There! That is what this community did.'
"And this is where communities become complicated. Because we cannot separate the good from the harm that communities do any more than we can separate the good from the sin in our own lives. The same community that nurtures love can harbor dysfunction. The same country that can be corrupt can also be filled with mothers protecting their children, neighbors helping each other out, and courageous people working for something better.
"We are tempted to see a community as either good or bad, and once we have decided which it is, to treat everything within it accordingly. But communities don't work that way. The flock is always moving, and directions change even within it.
"We should remember that when we think about enemies. When we are angry or afraid, it can be tempting to want to wipe out the perceived evil along with the people who embody it. But when we do that, we destroy more than the evil we mean to destroy. We destroy the very people—and the very possibilities—that could be used by God to bring peace and redemption.
"That is part of what Jesus is trying to help us see when he tells his parable of the wheat and the weeds."
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Ephesians 2:10, Psalm 139:13-18
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 20, 2026.
"From the womb to past the tomb, the poet [Psalm 139] tells us who we are. Before we have accomplished anything, before anyone knows our name, before we have done anything that could make us proud, we are known and loved by God.
"Then, after the work of our lives is finished, after our most meaningful relationships have come to an end, we are still known and loved by God. That is the essential truth of our identity.
". . . Before anything is gained and after everything is lost, you are still God's. You are claimed. You are loved. And you are never lost to the God."
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Joshua 4:1-9, 19-24
Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, September 13, 2026.
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Matthew 20:1-19
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, September 9, 2026.
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Luke 5:33-39
Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Picnic Sunday, August 30, 2026.
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1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Sermon by Nancy O. Gray, Parish Associate for Visitation, from Sunday, August 23, 2026.
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Matthew 25:14-30
Sermon by the Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, August 16, 2026.
"Jesus has high expectations for [the disciples]. He does not expect them to take what they have been given and bury it. He does not expect them to be a light hidden under a bushel, or salt left in a container. What God has given them is meant to be invested—meant to be shared. More is expected of them—not because they are somehow more important, but because God has entrusted them to invest what they have been given.
"That is why I chose this passage three months ago. Because even before my sabbatical began, I could see gaps forming because of cultural shifts in the larger church and in the world—gaps that I believed this congregation was unusually gifted to help address."
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Matthew 14:22-33
Sermon by the Rev. Elizabeth N.H. Link from Sunday, August 9, 2026.
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Matthew 14:13-21
Sermon by Nancy O. Gray, Parish Associate for Visitation, from Sunday, August 2, 2026.
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Genesis 32:22-31
Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, July 26, 2026.
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