Second on the Mount

"If Not for the Honor" – Luke 6:46-49

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, May 15, 2022. "'They call me ‘Lord,’ but they don’t follow,' Jesus says. . . . Jesus doesn’t want to be called 'Lord' for his own glorification. He wants followers in his life to know and share God’s love. To call him 'Lord' in the way he would accept is to find through him, with him, and in following him, a way to God… and thus find a way to their true selves as children of God."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/if-not-for-the-honor/

"A Call to Worship" – I Chronicles 16:28-34; Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon by Dr. Ed McLeod, Minister and Head of Staff at First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, NC and facilitator of the Kitty Susan Trent Symposium, from Sunday, May 8, 2022. 

"Taking a Re-Personal Day" – Exodus 10:24-27, 31:16-17

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, May 1, 2022. "I invite you all, once a week, to take a personal day and rest. I also invite you to take a 'Re-Personed Day' for worship. Find yourself again as God’s child and as God’s children. Let yourself be re-formed and the body of the church formed on a day when we can remember who we are in God’s eyes."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/taking-a-re-personal-day/

"Can I Get a Witness" – Acts 5:27-32

Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, April 24, 2022. "The Easter story is a story of resurrection, restoration, and renewal, a story of love, hope, and forgiveness, a story that must be shared and honored, witnessed to by our words and actions, here in our community and around the world! It is a story of for all the earth, a resurrection story for land, sea and sky, for birds and beasts, for fish and fowl, for you and for me. . . . What is your story of Easter resurrection? Whatever it is, tell your story!"

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/can-i-get-a-witness/

"The Right Kind of Homecoming" – John 20:19-23, Revelation 21:1-4, Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022. "Today, let’s consider what is the right kind of homecoming, and that is finding God where we are. I want us to honor: Jesus as a king in the line of David―but a different kind of king; Jerusalem as a holy city―but not the Jerusalem that Jesus entered; the kingdom of God―but not a kingdom with defined and defended borders; the Law of God―being the commands of Love, not of the State. I want us to honor the God of Exile by celebrating the God of the Resurrection."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/found-in-exile-the-right-kind-of-homecoming/

"The Wrong Kind of Homecoming" – Luke 19:28-40; Zechariah 9:9

Sermon by the Rev Elizabeth N.H. Link from Palm Sunday, April 10, 2022. "Jesus accepts today’s blessings and hosannas, knowing that the crowds will turn on him, his disciples will desert him, and the only crown that awaits him is pain. Here we stand at the threshold of another Holy Week. Here we are, and here is our God. In glittering sadness, let us take up our cross and follow him."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/found-in-exile-the-wrong-kind-of-homecoming/

"The Found Word" – Psalm 1; John 1:1-5, 14-18

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, April 3, 2022. "I hope by now you realize that a great way to get to know this living Jesus is to realize that he is the God who we know in Exile. Jesus is the God we can meet at the table in our own homes. The living tradition of God—which is relentlessly about love of God and neighbor as commanded in the Torah, as demanded by the prophets, and as reflected in the writings—is real only when it becomes faith that is embraced in our hearts and lived in our lives and embodied in community. We give this living Word of God a name. And we find our identity as God’s children in knowing him, and our place in the living tradition of justice and grace by following him."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/found-in-exile-the-found-word/ 

"The Lost Ark" – Micah 6:6-8, Luke 4:16-21

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, March 27, 2022. "No matter the circumstances, and no matter whether we are together or apart, true worship means finding ways to remain open to the Spirit of the Lord being upon us and responding with the worship of our hearts and the commandment-keeping of our lives. True worship doesn’t mean leaving it to the professionals, but finding each other so that together we can do justice and love kindness while walking humbly with God."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/found-in-exile-the-lost-ark/ 

"Settle In" – Jeremiah 29:1, 4-11

Sermon by Rev. Elizabeth N.H. Link from Sunday, March 20, 2022. "Sometimes, exile is a statement of geography, and sometimes it is a condition of the soul. It is whenever we are thrust into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place. When the darkness feels too deep. When the unknowns loom too large. When you would give anything for just a little peace of mind. It was to those people enduring that sort of situation that Jeremiah says, 'Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Grow a family, create a community, and care about the city all around you, even if it isn’t the home you remember.' In other words, 'Keep going, as best you can. Life will still emerge, even from the strangest and least likely of places.'"

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/found-in-exile-settle-in/ 

"The Good Ole Days" – Psalm 137, Matthew 9:14-17

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, March 13, 2022. "Today, I want to talk about the first step of the journey—the moment-after-the-moment—the moment after the initial shock of the world changing, and the understandable longing for it never to have happened, and to go back to the way it was. It is the moment following a death, a relationship ending, a job lost, a business failing. It is the moment after economic collapse, or a war beginning, or a pandemic shutting a world down. It is after reality sets in and now you are dealing with the fantasies that are defined by emotion—grief maybe, or anger. How is one to react?"

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/found-in-exile-the-good-ole-days/